Russian Orthodox Church outraged over gay wedding, punishes two priests
Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union
Publication date: Oct 06, 04:57 PM

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 6 October: The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has deemed as blasphemy "the wedding" of a same sex pair [two men] that took place on 1 September in a church in Nizhniy Novgorod.

This was reported to ITAR-TASS today in the Moscow Patriarchate.

This "flouts the fundamentals of the morals and teachings of the Holy Writ and the canonical norms of life of Orthodox Christianity", says a decision of the Synod, a meeting of which took place in Moscow, chaired by Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Aleksiy II. The Synod decided to unfrock the priest, Vladimir Enert, who committed the blasphemous act, and deemed the act itself to be null and void.

According to a report compiled by Bishop Georgiy of Nizhniy Novgorod and Arzamas, a young man and woman asked one of the priests on 1 September to give them the key to the church so that they could be married by another priest. They explained that the woman's parents were supposedly against their marriage. Having obtained the key, they brought the priest, Vladimir Enert, to the church, and by prior agreement, he performed a "blasphemous" marriage for two young males.

The Synod also condemned the actions of Mikhail Kabanov, a priest, as an accomplice in committing the sacrilege, and prohibited him from conducting religious services.

< Back