Drone Metal Orthodox Priest Guitarist Responds to Fascism, Homophobia Accusations

Father Dionysios Tabakis, the Greek Orthodox priest who found niche virality this year as a drone-metal guitarist, has issued a public statement addressing a series of religious blog posts that make repeated use of virulent homophobic language. Two posts in particular, both published in 2024 on a WordPress blog called (translated from Greek) “The Doors The Doors,” refer to gay people as “Σοδομιτῶν” (“Sodomites”) and gay marriage—which was ratified in the Hellenic Parliament that same year—as a “σοδομικὸ τερατούργημα” (“sodomitic monstrosity”).“I don’t like to hide what I believe, but do declare openly what is in my soul, even if this sometimes makes me unpopular,” Tabakis writes in the statement, obtained by Pitchfork, which you can read in full below. “My view on homosexuality is the same as that of the Orthodox Church for 2000 years, nothing more, nothing less. We owe homosexual people love and acceptance because many have at times experienced great rejection from their environment, especially from their families.”Tabakis does not comment on the content of the posts themselves, and in fact appears to explicitly refer to gay attraction as a “sin”: “It is better to sin with freedom...