Bucharest, March 1, 2018
Photo: abcnews.go.com Romanian Orthodox Christians in Bucharest have taken a stand for traditional values, protesting and disrupting the screenings of two movies featuring homosexual themes in early February, reports ABC News.
More than 85% of Romanians identify as members of the Orthodox Church which roundly condemns homosexuality, upholding the Biblical definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Romania only when it was preparing to join the European Union in 2002.
3 million signatures were collected in Romania last year for a petition to amend the Romanian Constitution to explicitly state that marriage can only be the union of one man and one woman.
Hierarchs of the Orthodox Church in Greece have also recently taken action against a run of the theatrical production “Jesus Christ Superstar” at an Athens theater.
The first movie was the French AIDS drama “120 Beats Per Minute,” a Cannes grand prize winner set in 1990s Paris, which was screening at a theater on February 4. A few days later, traditional Orthodox Christians disrupted another film focused on a Romanian man in a relationship with an ex-convict Gypsy man, entitled “Soldiers: A Story from Ferentari.”
Protesters objected to “Soldiers” being shown at the Romanian Peasant Museum because “the Romanian peasant is an Orthodox Christian,” and thus the museum is “not the place to air low morality movies, that show homosexuality, pedophilia, pornography,” Orthodox Brotherhood of St. George the Great Martyr head Dan Grăjdeanu stated.
They peacefully sang the national anthem and religious hymns while holding icons and banners reading “Romania Isn’t Sodom and Gomorroah” and “Hey, Soros, leave them kids alone.” Their protest continued until police arrived. The showing did not resume, and some in the audience told the protestors they should pay for their tickets.
Protesters played Gypsy rock music to drown out “Soldiers” until the police came to break up the action.
The museum has defended its screening of “120 Beats.” Lila Passima, director of the Romanian Peasant Museum, responded that the museum's role was not to “ask people if they are a homosexual, an Orthodox or a Protestant,” reports Times Colonist.
The film was replayed a few days later, with about 50 people showing up to a tightly-secured museum.
The Brotherhood does much more than protests. “We, generally, on Fridays and Saturdays, go and help build a house, a church, cut wood for some care facility for the elderly, we go help when flooding happen. We try to enjoy beautiful moments with people with whom we share values and by doing something useful,” Grăjdeanu explained, Romania-Insider reports.
Although the group is being attacked by LGBTQ activists in Romania, it is motivated by Christian love, not hatred, the leader says.
“We don’t have anything against homosexuals. They, if they want to do their thing, they can do it in their intimacy; nobody is chasing them, just as anyone does their thing in their secret. We have a problem with raising this deviation to the statute of virtue. The Romanian peasant had children by making love to his wife,” he explained.
