His Grace Bishop Irenei of London and Western Europe:
So there have been a few reports of late, including this most recent one currently making the rounds, about a number of young people converting to Orthodoxy, particularly young men, converting because they find in the Orthodox Church, according to these reports, an environment that preaches ‘masculinity’ and real ‘manhood’. And I want to say that if you’re here because you think that that’s what we are here to do, then you are a fool. This is stupidity. ‘Masculinity’, so far as I am aware, is not an Orthodox term. It is not a term that has any traditional place in Christianity. It is a term embraced by the secular world because this world has rejected normal concepts of humanity, in which of course there is male and there is female, there is child, there is adult. These are simply human beings. But because the world has lost sight of the basics of what it means to be human, it is forced to respond to the lack of clarity it has pushed on itself by fostering these concepts of ‘femininity’, ‘masculinity’, and so on.
None of this has anything to do with the teaching of Jesus Christ. This Church proclaims a simple reality that in Jesus Christ our Saviour, all of us discover what it means to be a human being, what it means to become a human person. And this is to live according to the Gospel after the image of Christ. If you have lost sight of what it means to be a man in this strange world, or if you have lost sight of what it means to be a woman in this strange world, this is hardly surprising. This world is more confused about these simple concepts than about almost anything else. So if you are here because you are confused and you wish to find sanity and normality in the teaching of Christ: God bless you, and may we by God’s mercy be of some help.
But if you are here because you think this is a place where you can reinforce some cultural masculinity, if you’re here because you think this is the place to rebel against what you see going on politically around you or socially around you, please keep on going — go somewhere else. We are not here for this reason. We preach one thing and one thing only: the Gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We preach it without fear, and we preach it without agenda. Our only goal is that every single human being might become a living image of Christ Himself. That men might become Christ-like men; that women might become Christ-like women; that children might be true children of God; that the aged might find the real respect due to those who long live and struggle for Christ; that this world might come to understand what it means to be redeemed.