We must end our collective sleep-walking state. We must awaken to our True Identity,
called in the ancient Traditions the universal and indwelling Christ, the Buddha-Nature,
the Beloved, Tao, God in whom we live and move and have our Being.
Within that One Eternal Nature, birthless/deathless, without beginning and without end,
ever abiding, we can discover our individuation, our true individuality
which can never be dupicated identically in any other person.

An Open Letter to "The Movement"
+ Mikhail Itkin, Order of the Divine Love
15 September 1977

+ Mikhail Francis Itkin (Saint Mikhail of California) was consecrated a bishop in apostolic succession within the Order of the Divine Love (founded in 1898 in Oxford). He was a champion of oppressed minorities and the poor during the 1960s-80s. He was known in the urban subcultures of New York City, Los Angeles / West Hollywood, and San Francisco. You might say he was, to paraphrase Saint Paul, "a scandal" to Christians and "a stumbling block" to Radicals. He was fiery and erratic -- and he spent himself wholeheartedly for the liberation of his fellow human beings.

+ Mikhail Itkin was perhaps the first openly gay bishop and a pioneer of gay liberation theology with his major work, The Radical Jesus and Gay Consciousness. This work and others by the controversial bishop, along with new appraisals of his life, work and legacy, are being prepared for publication in book format by the Circle of the Free Spirit. The collaborators in the project include gay poet and psycho-historian Ian Young (author of The Stonewall Experiment), Bishop John P. Plummer (author of The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement), Tau Rosamonde Miller (Church of Gnosis - Ecclesis Gnostica Mysteriorum), Gnostic archpriest Michael Pelagius of the Liberal Gnostic Community, and Mark Aelred of CFS and LGC. Some of the material by Bishop Itkin will be posted to this website (see below).

May 6th, which happens to be the ordination anniversary of MIchael Elliot+, also happens to be "Saint Mikhael of California Day" promulgated by "The Moorish Orthodox Church in America, Diocese of Ongs Hat & Montclair (New Jersey, USA)". The spelling of "Mikhael" is probably the Moorish variation of MIkhail. We note here that +Mikhail Itkin's ministry included New York as well as California, and if he is a saint, he would certainly be patron saint of gay liberation and of his gay brothers and sisters, and the poor and oppressed, everywhere.

If you have first-hand information or knowledge about Bishop Itkin - or if you are interested in obtaining a copy of the book when it is published, or in taking up the spiritual Work of the Order of the Divine Love, please contact:

MarkAelredCFS@aol.com

ON THIS SITE:

ITKIN ARTICLE ONE
Order of the Divine Love

ITKIN ARTICLE TWO
The True Individual

COMING SOON:

ITKIN ARTICLE THREE

Page launched: November 27, 2007

Page updated: January 11, 2008; May 6, 2008, November 23, 2010