Father Dionysios Tabakis, the Greek Orthodox priest who gained a cult following this year as a drone-metal guitarist, has issued a public statement responding to accusations of homophobia and fascist ties, and the Father Dionysios Tabakis controversy shows no sign of quieting down quickly.
The homophobia accusations and Tabakis’s response
The accusations centre on a series of posts published in 2024 on a WordPress blog called, translated from Greek, ‘The Doors The Doors.’ Two posts in particular use virulent homophobic language, referring to gay people as ‘Σοδομιτῶν’ (‘Sodomites’) and to gay marriage (ratified by the Hellenic Parliament that same year) as a ‘σοδομικὸ τερατούργημα’ (‘sodomitic monstrosity’).
Tabakis’s statement, obtained by Pitchfork, does not directly address the content of those posts. Instead, he positions his views as inseparable from Orthodox doctrine. ‘My view on homosexuality is the same as that of the Orthodox Church for 2000 years, nothing more, nothing less,’ he writes. ‘We owe homosexual people love and acceptance because many have at times experienced great rejection from their environment, especially from their families.’
The statement does, however, appear to describe gay attraction as a ‘sin,’ in the context of a line reading: ‘It is better to sin with freedom than to be virtuous with oppression.’ He closes by expressing a desire to return to his music and his solitude: ‘I long again for peace, my hermitism, and to upload my music with passion and peace on my channel.’ He also acknowledges a cultural distance, writing that ‘my path and beliefs as an Orthodox Priest differ significantly from some of the values and cultural positions represented within contemporary experimental music festivals.’
The declaration ‘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,’ frames the statement as a matter of personal conviction rather than institutional obligation. What it does not do is repudiate the language of those blog posts.
The Golden Dawn connection and what it means for the Father Dionysios Tabakis controversy
Compounding the situation is a separate, recently surfaced YouTube video from 2013 showing Tabakis performing an agiasmos, a sanctification or blessing ceremony, at the opening of an office building for Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi organisation. According to The Guardian, Golden Dawn held seats in Greece’s Parliament between 2015 and 2019, and its leadership was subsequently handed prison sentences for murder, assault and weapons possession. As of 2020, the organisation is designated a criminal group in Greece.
The priest in the 2013 video is directly identified as Tabakis in a December 2019 Facebook post by the Argolida Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Front. Tabakis addressed the agiasmos both in a YouTube video posted on 21 August and in the statement itself. His explanation: as the priest overseeing the city of Nafplio, where the offices were opened, he was assigned by the church to perform the ceremony. He states this is standard practice across all political parties in Greece. ‘I detest both nationalism and borders,’ he adds in the video. ‘That’s why, on my guitar, I take the frets out so that I can play freely.’
Heat Crimes, the Greek label that released Tabakis’s debut LP Paradise Metal earlier this year, offered further context via email. ‘In Greek Orthodox practice, priests routinely perform agiasmos, blessing ceremonies for homes, shops, businesses, schools, public institutions, military facilities and other premises,’ the label stated. ‘A politician or political organization inviting a local priest to bless new premises therefore does not, by itself, establish that either the priest or the Church endorses that organization. The important distinction is between performing a religious blessing and giving a political endorsement.’
It is a distinction that will satisfy some and not others. The Hellenic Parliament‘s ratification of gay marriage in 2024, the same year those blog posts appeared, gives the homophobia controversy a sharper edge in its local context, the debate was live and politically charged when the posts were written.
As for Tabakis’s live profile, the Father Dionysios Tabakis controversy has already had practical consequences. He was booked to play next month’s Making Time ∞ festival in Philadelphia, but Pitchfork has been informed he has since pulled out of the event. Whether the experimental music world (a scene that broadly holds progressive social values) finds a way to hold space for his music and his theology is now an open question the statement itself does little to resolve. Tabakis’s own closing line, longing for ‘hermitism’ and music uploaded in ‘passion and peace,’ suggests he may not be pushing hard for that accommodation.
