Friend Double Trouble Help?

Okay heres the deal. I had a really good guy friend. Actually he's my best friend.

Really, he's almost like my other half.
Anyway, enough about that.

The story is, mutal friends introduced us to eachother, and we hit it off
.
We became really great friends and as the time progressed, my friends that were also his too, told me he started to like me more as just 'friend'.

He was bi at the time to clear that up. Knowning he liked me, and knowning he didnt know that I knew he liked me. Scared the freakin shit out of me.

Im not the one to date, for 2 reasons.

1. Religous - in my religion were not allowed to date. Please dont ask questions about that, it takes forever to explain.
2. Even if I could date, Im not much for dating anyway. As i said before

Anyway. After i knew, I didnt act any different than when I was normally around him before. As school neared the end, about three months before it let out.

He asked our same friends, to ask me if I liked him back, the day before he was moving away.

Im not kidding. I didnt want to break is heart, knowning i couldnt date anyway, I said no.
Which hurt him. After that I didnt really see him again. Now we talk online. Meaning facebook, mostly.

My friends told me, if he couldnt get a girl to date him, he might as well date guys.
Thats what he did. Yup. He's gay now. Homosexual if you prefer.

After that, we did start to talk online, slowly we became friends again, but it wasnt the same.

Eventually, we started talking less, and now, well.... I dont know how approach him anymore.
I still feel like he hasnt forgiven me yet, for regecting him.

If i could date, maybe I would consider us.Should i tell him that? And I cant hang out with him anymore, cause he moved back to new zealand. =(

And for those of you who want to know how hot he is, I rate him a 7 on scale to 1-10.
So yeah, basically, I want my best friend back, but I dont know what to do. Help?

P.S. Sorry if i wasted your time, and made this message a bit to long. And note, I cant talk to my friends about this, becasue they'll go straight to him, on the matter.

Help please. Much appreciated, if you would. =)