Orthodox people will never accept gay marriage—Ukrainian bishop comments on gay civil unions in Montenegro

Kiev, July 7, 2020

Photo: spzh.news Photo: spzh.news     

While the President and Prime Minister of Montenegro are hailing the country’s new law allowing gay civil unions, the Orthodox majority of the population will never accept such a thing, believes His Grace Bishop Viktor of Baryshevka, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s representation to European International Organizations.

“The decision made by the Assembly of Montenegro on July 1, 2020 to legalize lifelong partnership of persons of the same sex is alien to the Orthodox people of this country,” His Grace said in a commentary for the Union of Orthodox Journalists.

“And this decision was legalized in a state where about 75% of the population consider themselves Orthodox. The Orthodox people have been living in Montenegro for centuries, for whom the commandments of Christ are a living guide to life,” he noted.

Bp. Viktor has visited Montenegro several times in recent years, including to participate in the cross processions in defense of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its holy sites, he reminded, where he saw how deep and strong the Orthodox faith is in “this beautiful country.”

Today, gay marriage symbolizes complete disregard for the Law of God and opposition to God, Bp. Viktor said. “People who advocate for LGBT rights themselves consciously join the camp of theomachists, because this is not just a violation of God’s commandment about marriage,” he explained.

“In the book of Leviticus (18:22), it says: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. This word “abomination” in Sacred Scripture means a grave sin before God,” His Grace emphasized.

His Grace also recalled the words of His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije, the head of the Serbian Church in Montenegro, who recently spoke of the sanctity of marriage as the center of the eternal meaning of man. “Those who renounce this eternal meaning renounce the God in Whom they believe, accepting lawlessness and inhumanity in place of law and humanity,” Met. Amfilohije said, recalls Bp. Viktor.

The Church speaks on such matters not as political interference but in order to fulfill its mission as an eternal spiritual guide, His Grace concluded:

We maintain that the Church should not interfere in politics. But the Church cannot remain silent when the Law of God is openly violated, because if the Church remains silent, It will cease to be a spiritual and moral guide in the life of societies, countries and peoples. The Church is beyond all borders, it has a trans-world and trans-temporal mission. Therefore, today we must all pray hard for each other, for all Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, Montenegro and around the world. We must pray that the Lord God will give us all the strength not to deviate from His commandments and to remain faithful to Christ, despite the systematic policy of apostasy, which is now called “European" values.”

The United States and various European countries actively fund institutions that sow hatred against the Orthodox Church and promote the LGBT agenda in Georgia, and the country needs to seriously rethink its pro-western orientation, His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of Vani and Bagdati similarly warned in his Sunday sermon on May 24.

Meanwhile, the Russian people recently voted for a packet of constitutional reforms that include defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

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7/7/2020

See also
President of Poland signs draft amendment banning adoption by gay couples President of Poland signs draft amendment banning adoption by gay couples President of Poland signs draft amendment banning adoption by gay couples President of Poland signs draft amendment banning adoption by gay couples
From the President’s desk, the draft amendments to the constitution will be submitted to the lower house of Polish Parliament (Sejm), where they will consider the President’s proposal that “a person who is in a cohabiting relationship with a person of the same sex cannot” adopt a child. Montenegro becomes first Balkan state to legalize gay civil unions Montenegro becomes first Balkan state to legalize gay civil unions Montenegro becomes first Balkan state to legalize gay civil unions Montenegro becomes first Balkan state to legalize gay civil unions
With a 42-5 vote in Parliament on Wednesday, Montenegro became the first European country outside Western Europe and the EU to legalize gay civil partnerships. Russians overwhelmingly vote to constitutionally enshrine traditional marriage Russians overwhelmingly vote to constitutionally enshrine traditional marriage Russians overwhelmingly vote to constitutionally enshrine traditional marriage Russians overwhelmingly vote to constitutionally enshrine traditional marriage
With all the ballots cast over the past week now counted, Russians voted overwhelmingly in favor of a number of constitutional amendments, including the traditional definition of marriage and a reference to faith in God in the preamble to the defining legal document.
Comments
John from Texas7/7/2020 11:41 pm
The politicians of Montenegro are flirting with national extinction. They should note the observations of David Goldman. Many of his essays have been collected in two books (How Civilizations Die; and It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You). Their summary: populations with a culture centered around traditional Biblical values tend to have a fertility rates above replacement level, and populations that reject these values for secularism have fertility rates below replacement level. As Goldman put it, “liberalism is a self-liquidating proposition.” This is tied to definitions of marriage and gender. To extrapolate from Goldman’s observations, populations that believe marriage is Divinely intended as one man and one woman tend to have healthier fertility rates. Those that promote “alternative” definitions of marriage have fertility rates below replacement. Same goes for the definition of gender: the idea of male and female being “real” (traditional) vs. “gender is just a construct” (post-modern). Four years ago a Serbian Orthodox priest, Momcilo Krivokapic, based in Kotor, Montenegro, warned against these trends, which he described as “‘satanic forces’ in the West bent on strengthening NATO, expanding gay rights and championing Western notions of tolerance.” The priest was described as “a bitter foe of the American-led military alliance and of the values that American power has brought to the far corners of the world, even to Kotor.” (New York Times, Nov. 10th, 2016). Of these “satanic forces,” the priest also said “NATO is nothing but an occupying force.” (The Australian, Dec. 12th, 2016). This pattern has already played out in America. It goes like this. The Left fights for gay marriage. Traditionalists argue if you change the definition of marriage this will be a “slippery slope” and there will be no end to the upsetting of ideas once seen as solid. Leftists mocked traditionalists as paranoid and claimed there is no “slippery slope”, they just want marriage to be more “fair,” nothing more. In 2015 gay marriage in the US became legal, and seemingly overnight the whole cultural conversation shifted to transgenderism. The shift happened rapidly. All at once powerful people, politicians, corporations, those in a position to change the culture, all were arguing that “gender is a social construct.” Deconstructing gender couldn’t have happened without first deconstructing marriage. Traditionalists in the US who resisted the new definitions of marriage and gender tended to have stronger fertility rates while the post-modern Americans thoughtlessly, utterly without reflection, instantly tossed out ancient ideas about gender and marriage, enthusiastically embraced the new ideas, and never once looked back. The people who did this, of course, have fertility rates plunging in free-fall, trapped in a death-spiral from which most will likely never recover. Now we have the pattern in Montenegro. It applies to be a part of the European Union. It joins NATO. Next is gay marriage. The chronology is not a coincidence. The slippery slope. The corresponding low fertility rates of these values are why Goldman calls these societies “zombie cultures.” They are the walking dead. But Goldman has proposed a solution. “I do not mean to sound cruel, but the best thing you can do for victims of a dying culture is: Don’t be one of them. Individuals who want to live have the option of changing cultures.” In desiring to live, for years I have searched for that other culture for which to belong. I have found it in Orthodoxy. When it comes to the geopolitical, cultural-spiritual boundaries of protection in the Orthodox world, the government of Montenegro now represents a breach in the wall. The barbarians are at the gate.
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