Adelphopoiesis: gay marriage?
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
Discussion of adelphopoiesis from John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe
Boswell affirms that during the Middle Ages, Catholic and Orthodox churches developed liturgical rites for solemnizing unions between pairs of males, called "adelphopoiesis", the Greek word for "brother-making."
Rites of 'same sex union' occur in ancient prayer-books of both the western and eastern churches. They are rites of adelphopoiesis, literally Greek for brotherhood. Boswell argued that these were sexual unions, but other scholars assert that they were instead rites of becoming adopted brothers, or "blood brothers".
And:
The two men press their faces together, nose to nose, one's arm around the other's back in intimate embrace usually depicted as between man and wife. There are seven such scenes of them up close and personal. Even their names have been written together to read "joined in life, joined in death."