Moscow, February 20, 2020
Photo: micrusha.ru
His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, supports the recent statements from President Vladimir Putin in favor of the traditional understanding of the family as the union of a man and a woman.
“As for ‘parent # 1’ and ‘parent # 2, I have already said publicly once before, and I will repeat again: as long as I am President, we will not have parents one and two—we will have a father and mother,” the President said on February 13 at a meeting with the working group on preparing amendments to the Constitution.
He also supported the initiative that “the concept of marriage as a union of a man and a woman should be enshrined in the basic law.”
“I am glad that the President openly stated this, because, unfortunately, I see what is happening in some Western countries with the absolutely unabashed, shameless, intrusive and aggressive propaganda of so-called alternative family lifestyles, when, for example, two men or two women can create a family and adopt a child. Then it will not be mom and dad, but, indeed, ‘parent #1’ and ‘parent #2,’” Met. Hilarion commented, as reports Foma.
Referring to the fact that Western society is now being insistently taught that marriage can take multiple forms, the Metropolitan stressed: “But I think that in our country, where the absolute majority of people adhere to traditional values, even regardless of their religious affiliation, it is very important that the Constitution enshrines this concept of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.”
Vladimir Legoida, head of the Synodal Department for Relations Between the Church and Society and the Media, also commented on the President’s statement, saying, “The Church certainly welcomes this statement of the President. It is a designation of the most important position for all traditional religions: that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Unfortunately, legislation in a number of countries, and countries with a Christian tradition, already contains different formulations. In accordance with these formulations, new life realities that destroy the very foundations of society and family relations are legalized.”
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill also earlier proposed adding a reference to God to the Russian constitution.
