Same-Sex Unions Practiced Europe-Wide?
We found the Los Angeles Times’ note accompanying Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” last week (which concerned John Boswell’s book, “Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe”) to be highly misleading in implying that the same-sex union ceremony uncovered by Professor Boswell was primarily a phenomenon of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
In the early Christian era, there was no clear division between the Eastern and Roman branches of the Christian Church. Professor Boswell shows that the same-sex ceremony was practiced throughout Europe and, in fact, he found the largest number of early manuscript copies in Italy--with no less than eight copies in the Vatican itself.
DOUG STUMPF
Executive Editor
Villard Books
New York
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