MOSCOW, January 29. /ITAR-TASS World Service/. Speaking at the Federation Council, upper house of the Russian parliament on Tuesday, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill described the legalization of same-sex marriages as a danger threatening the Russian society. He said possible unwelcome changes in marriage laws were connected with “an international campaign” discussing homosexual relations.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church is especially concerned over “permissive attitude to marital infidelity in the society and irresponsibility in relations between men and women,” Moskovsky Komsomolets writes. If a person is unfaithful to his family, he may be unfaithful to his homeland and he cannot cultivate patriotism in his children, Kirill says.
After the discussion at the Federation Council, religious leaders and senators adopted a joint statement “to all sober-minded people of Russia and other countries.” “Preservation of marriage as a union between a man and a woman based on love and mutual understanding and birth of beloved children are a precondition for survival of humankind,” the statement read.
The Church could not tolerate same-sex marriages, because this contradicted the nature of Christianity, Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted the Patriarch as saying. The religious leader believes that the issue of allowing same-sex marriages is, in fact, not religious, but moral. The difference between these approaches defines the Russian Orthodox Church’s attitude to same-sex marriages. The Patriarchate expresses confidence that prohibition of same-sex marriages can be the task of a secular state, as it is dictated by morals as such.
The Patriarch considered possible legalization of same-sex marriages in Russia in the context of the decay of religious education in the country.
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