CultNEWS101 Articles: 8/15/2025

Conversion Therapy, LGBT, Paraguay, Unification Church, Bulgarian Orthodox Church

CNN: 'God, please fix me': Inside the dangerous resurgence of 'ex-gay' conversion therapy

"He remembers walking towards the worst experience of his life. The dorm hall was a concrete tunnel, with chipped white paint on the walls and a stench of sweat trapped inside. The stairs, he recalls, squeaked underfoot. They led to a wooden door, which Andrew Pledger pried open.

He stepped inside, sunk into a peeling black couch and locked eyes with the man sitting across the desk.

And then something happened.

"Everything around me just faded away," Pledger says. He floated out of his body. "I almost couldn't hear him anymore … time just completely slowed down."

The next thing he remembers is leaving the office, a pounding pain in his chest. An hour had passed. Whatever happened in that room had shaken Pledger, then a tormented, depressed student at a private evangelical university in South Carolina. A voice filled his head, telling him: "You cannot do this. This is unhealthy. This is not good."

Pledger had just experienced conversion therapy – the discredited, pseudoscientific practice that purports to help a gay person change or resist their sexuality. The practice doesn't work: Virtually every major medical association denounces it as junk science. A flood of studies has warned of its dangers; young people who experience conversion therapy are more likely to suffer depression and attempt suicide, researchers have found.

But conversion therapy is still practiced in nearly every state, monitoring groups say. Efforts by right-wing lawmakers to repeal city and state-wide bans have claimed their first successes. And former leaders of the "ex-gay" religious movement told CNN the practice is enjoying a resurgence — this time in more cloaked, subtle, secretive forms.

Pledger wasn't sure that he wanted to change his sexuality, but he needed something to change. In the months before he sat on that dusty couch, he had been relentlessly bullied, he had harmed himself, and on one dark evening in his dormitory, he'd held a bottle of medication in his hand and considered ending his life. He remembers it all.

And yet the meeting itself is lost to the deepest recesses of Pledger's mind. "I just disassociated," he says. His response is not uncommon — multiple conversion therapy survivors told CNN they had blocked out the details of the practice. It might as well never have happened.

Except that there is one more thing that Pledger remembers: fumbling into his pocket in the moments before the session began, pulling out his phone, and hitting "Record."

Pledger said he was told in a conversion therapy session on the BJU campus: 'We're going to deal with this sin like we would deal with any other sin.'"

BBC: Why a South Korean church bought a village in Paraguay (The Documentary Podcast)

"How a controversial religious group from South Korea gained ownership of a remote village in Paraguay.

Puerto Casado is a remote village in Paraguay, in South America. It's not dissimilar to many other rural towns in the area: red-brick houses, small grocery stores and unpaved roads. But what makes Puerto Casado an exception is that it's at the centre of a land dispute between the Paraguayan state, local residents and the Unification Church, a controversial religious group from South Korea."

Bulgarian Synod warns against neo-Hindu "spiritual teachers" with false Christian elements

"The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has issued a strongly worded statement warning Bulgarian citizens against what it calls "pagan neo-Hindu propaganda with false Christian elements" being spread by touring gurus and self-proclaimed spiritual teachers.

In the statement published yesterday, the Church leadership expresses concern about religious groups that "interweave their pagan beliefs with incorrectly used elements from Christianity" with the goal of leading "as many people as possible into spiritual delusion" to increase their followers.

The Synod specifically names several prominent figures including Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Sri Chinmoy, Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Osho Rajneesh, Sai Baba, Shibendu Lahiri, and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar among the "neo-Hindu spiritual leaders" whose initiatives are being promoted in Bulgaria and abroad."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

Thousands flock to 'miracle' icon at south suburban church

Manya Brachear Pashman
Chicago Tribune
April 28, 2016

 

As millions of Orthodox Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Easter this Sunday and the miracle of Jesus Christ's resurrection, thousands across the Chicago area are flocking to a southwest suburban parish to see what they believe to be a different miracle.

Since July, tiny droplets of fragrant oil have trickled down an icon of St. John the Baptist in front of the altar at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in Homer Glen. Parishioners believe the oil has healing properties and that its origins are a blessing from God.

"The first thing out of my mouth was 'What do I do?' " said the Rev. Sotirios "Sam" Dimitriou, the parish priest. "You don't expect anything like this. It's breathtaking. It's so powerful to see such an act of God before your eyes."

Whether it's an act of God or a chemical reaction, no one really knows. And frankly, few in the Greek Orthodox community care. A rational explanation is irrelevant if what seems to be a supernatural event draws people toward God, clergy say.

"We don't necessarily make official pronouncements on these things," said Bishop Demetrios, auxiliary bishop of Mokissos of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago. "We let the faithful believe it if they wish. … If it brings you closer to God that's wonderful. If it doesn't, it doesn't."

The oil, which parishioners believe to be myrrh, exudes from the icon's halo, wings, hands and beard. Collected every week by a reservoir of cotton at the base of the icon, Dimitriou regularly extracts the oil into a pitcher, then saturates cotton balls, which he seals in plastic bags for parishioners to take home and share with their loved ones. So far, he has handed out more than 5,000 samples — a handy way to track the flow of pilgrims.

While Dimitriou certainly does not mind sharing the oil, he has been reluctant to broadcast its origins. Instead, news of the icon has spread by word of mouth.

Reports of the oil's healing effects have made their way to Dimitriou. One man reportedly went to the doctor concerning a blockage in his artery, but it had disappeared. Another reports being cancer free after touching the oil.

The painter of the icon, Peter Mihalopoulos, said he believed the oil was the reason why he was in his garage painting two days after a hip replacement.

Dimitriou himself, who before the oil began to flow, frequently passed out at the altar or in his office because of nerve damage, said he has not been hospitalized for his nerve condition since September and he stopped taking his medication in January.

This is not the first time unexplained streaks of moisture have been spotted on an icon in the Chicago area.

A weeping icon of Mary has drawn huge crowds to St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church several separate times since it began to emit moisture in December 1986. In 1994, parishioners at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Cicero said they witnessed tears streaming from the eyes of Mary in an icon of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus.

Unlike those weeping icons, Dimitriou said the oil on St. John the Baptist appears to come from everywhere but his eyes. He has been told that means the icon offers a sign of joy, not sadness.

The fact that it's an icon of St. John the Baptist, also sets it apart. John Price, a 20-year-old altar server, noticed the droplets of oil on the icon, as he held a flickering candle during a Sunday service in July.

Sitting in the front chair that morning, his mother Miki noticed her son transfixed. When he told her later what he had witnessed, she immediately went back to the church to see for herself. "That's my son's saint, and my son wants to be a priest," Miki Price said. "It totally blesses me that John was the first to see it."

James Skedros, dean of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Mass., said that although icons don't exude oil every day, similar episodes have taken place across the U.S. There is no formal process in the Orthodox church of authenticating such incidents as miracles, he said, but they are believed to hold significance.

Just as Christians believe God broke into the physical world with his incarnation 2,000 years ago, Orthodox Christians believe that matter can be a conveyor of sanctity, he said.

"We have a very different understanding of matter as a vehicle of holiness so we treat icons in that matter," Skedros said. "We put them on walls, burn candles in front of them, light incense in front of them because they're images of what they represent — the holy person or image of Christ or the saint."

Could the phenomenon be attributed to a reaction to the church's environment? Of course, Skedros said. But why go there? What bishop wants to question the congregation, discredit a priest or doubt God?

Indeed, Bishop Demetrios sees the rivulets of oil and powerful perfume emanating from the icon as a blessing for a wounded congregation.

In 2007, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese suspended a former priest over allegations he sexually abused minors in the early 1970s while he was a priest at Assumption, when it was located in Olympia Fields.The parish eventually moved to Homer Glen in 2013.

"God through this icon is somehow healing this parish from some serious hurt in its past," Bishop Demetrios said.

Helen Conits, who joined the parish this week, said the icon has offered her comfort and peace of mind. On Wednesday, she came to the church to be anointed with oil in the sacrament of holy unction and to pick up a cotton ball for her ailing father and her daughter.

"I do believe in miracles," she said. "I don't necessarily have to see it but it's nice. At a time when everything seems to be falling apart in the world and for us personally, it's nice to see."

Dimitriou said the potential for crowds does make him nervous but it's stories like Conits' that remind him what a blessing the icon offers to the world.

"When people see this, it's just a reminder that God is still alive and still working through us and it's a reminder that there's still hope in the world for us," he said.

Pamela Arvanetes, a parishioner at Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Palos Hills, brought her five children to venerate the icon Wednesday.

"I wanted them to witness it," she said, "an extra blessing, the symbol of our faith, a miracle."

mbrachear@tribpub.com
Twitter @TribSeeker

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-greek-orthodox-icon-exudes-oil-met-20160428-story.html

Greeks Seek Strength in the Powers of a Revered Monk to Predict Events

Elder Paisios Expected Travails; A Skeptical Facebook Page Draws Ire

Wall Street Journal
Gordon Fairclough
December 3, 2012

SOUROTI, Greece—Legend has it that nearly three decades ago, a bearded Orthodox Christian mystic visiting here made an unsettling prediction: Greece in the future would experience a "great disruption and confusion," followed by hunger and political turmoil.

Believers say this grim vision of Elder Paisios, an ascetic monk who died in 1994, was actually a prescient glimpse of the upheaval now gripping this debt-racked country—helping fuel a surge of interest in the Orthodox holy man by Greeks struggling to make sense of a brutal financial crisis.

Elder Paisios, who spent much of his adult life as a hermit on the monastic peninsula of Mount Athos in northeastern Greece, has become a popular sensation—with tales of his prognostications and miracles he is said to have performed posted online and recounted in popular books.

On Saturdays, hundreds of pilgrims line up at Elder Paisios's gravesite here, waiting their turn to kneel, pray and kiss the wooden cross that marks his final resting place. They ask for help finding jobs, paying bills and surviving a downturn that has upended their lives.

"Paisios predicted many things, and his prophecies are now coming true," said Costas Katsaounis, a 41-year-old military officer on a visit to the shrine. "He foresaw the crisis. But he also said it would get better, that we will overcome and prosperity will return. He's helped a lot of people."

Elder Paisios's fame in some ways echoes that of Michel de Notredame, better known as Nostradamus, a 16th-century French apothecary who believers say foretold everything from the rise of Hitler to the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

"Figures like Paisios represent the shaman, the magician of the tribe," said Alexandra Koronaiou, a sociologist at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens. "They are the incarnation of a transcendental, invisible power."

With Greece's economy in the fifth year of a grinding recession that is expected to deepen further in 2013, unemployment above 25% and even middle-class families struggling to feed their children, many Greeks feel like their society is teetering on the brink of collapse, and they are seeking solace.

"When there is an event that brings an entire country to its knees, people look for a religious explanation," said Vasilios Makrides, a religious-studies professor and specialist on Orthodox Christianity at the University of Erfurt in Germany. "They are seeking support from the supernatural."

That is driving a fresh boom in all things Paisios. The elder's wizened and bearded face, peering out from below a black cap, adorns devotional banners and cards inscribed with inspirational messages.

Bookstores stock dozens of Paisios-related titles, from books detailing his spiritual teachings to volumes filled with his commentary on everything from the coming of the apocalypse to Greece's retaking of Constantinople, once the seat of Byzantine emperors and now Istanbul.

A woman prayed at the mystic's grave in Souroti.

"They sell like crazy," said Ionnis Aivaliotis, who works at the Zoe religious bookstore in downtown Athens. "Even nonbelievers are starting to read them. It gives people courage to withstand what's coming."

There is a Paisios diet guide—he was very thin—and a kids' book, "Once Upon a Time, Children, There Was Elder Paisios."

Over the past two years, conservative newspaper Dimokratia has sold 350,000 copies of Paisios-related titles—from compilations of his prophecies to his views on education. Other newspapers carry accounts of his reputed miracles.

Elder Paisios, born Arsenios Eznepedis in central Anatolia in 1924, is part of a long tradition of monastic spirituality that believers say confers a power of divination—to see things others cannot, to interpret signs and predict the course of events.

Even before his death in 1994, he was well known in religious circles, drawing the faithful to Mount Athos for spiritual guidance and advice. Many expect that he will eventually be canonized. (A church spokesman declined to comment.)

But the recent increase in attention has prompted a backlash from skeptics and drawn cautions from some in the Greek Orthodox Church hierarchy.

"People are looking for somewhere to turn," said the Rev. Vasilios Havatzas, head of the church's charitable operations in Athens. "But some are overreacting. They are making him into some kind of prophet," he said, adding: "That doesn't mean everything he said is right."

But in a sign of the broad support for Elder Paisios, Greek police arrested 27-year-old Phillipos Loizos for creating a Facebook page that poked fun at Greeks' belief in the miracles and prognostications of the late monk. He was charged with blasphemy and insulting religion. The blasphemy charge was later withdrawn.

Police received thousands of complaints about the page on the social-networking site for Elder Pastitsios, a play on the monk's name. Pastitsio is a traditional baked pasta dish similar to lasagna. An ultranationalist lawmaker condemned the page in Parliament.

Mr. Loizos said he was using satire to criticize the commercialization of the monk and his message.

Many of Elder Paisios's purported prophecies resonate. "The people will be so disappointed by the politicians of the two big parties, that they will get sick of them," is one that rings true in an era when voter support for the country's two mainstream parties, blamed for the crisis, has dropped sharply.

Some of the elder's reported remarks hint at dark conspiracies—among them that the world is ruled secretly by a cabal of five people. He also predicted national triumphs for Greece, saying that Greeks would defeat Turkey, rule Constantinople and take part of Albania.

"Holy people like Elder Paisios are born once in a thousand years," said Nikolaos Zournatzoglou, who has compiled three books of the elder's pronouncements. "He was a gift from God and the Virgin Mary for humanity."

In Souroti, about 20 miles from the northeastern Greek city of Thessaloniki, busloads of pilgrims arrived one Saturday recently to see the elder's grave. Young and old, they prayed and took pictures. Some plucked a leaf of basil from a plant growing near the simple cross at his head.

Afterward in a gift shop in the basement of the rough-hewn stone church, visitors bought postcards, plaques with images of Elder Paisios and books by and about him, along with icons, crosses and other religious paraphernalia.

"There's a lot of uncertainty now. We don't know what is going to happen," said Anastasia Constantinou, a waitress visiting the shrine who said her family has had to cut back on meat, on driving their car and on other normal activities as their income has fallen amid the downturn.

"People find consolation in faith," Ms. Constantinou, 32, said. "Even though everyday life is difficult, Paisios gives strength to people. He helps them hold on."

Write to Gordon Fairclough at gordon.fairclough@wsj.com


A version of this article appeared December 3, 2012, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Greeks Seek Strength in the Powers of a Revered Monk.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324469304578143271912956476.html?KEYWORDS=paisios