Zaporozhye, Ukraine, September 22, 2020
Photo: Facebook
Clergy of the Ukrainian Diocese of Zaporozhye cleansed the city square with Holy Water on Sunday after an LGBT “Equality March” was held.
The march, which included the symbolic “marriage” of three lesbian couples, seemed to have been met with indifference by local residents.
“The desecrated place in Zaporozhye has been affused with Holy Water,” Archpriest Gennady Elin, the head of the Zaporozhye Diocese chancery writes on his Facebook page.
“Today’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’ of the sin of fornication and sodomy was ambivalently received by the residents of the Zaporozhye region… But, as they say, you have to condemn the sin not the sinner,” he writes.
“Therefore, after the ‘ceremonies’ dedicated to propagandizing unhealthy lifestyles, we served a moleben For the Admonition of Those Afflicted by Soul-corrupting Passions on the site of these events, and to strengthen the results, we blessed the place with Holy Water,” Fr. Gennady testifies.
According to the Union of Orthodox Journalists, the LGBT rally gathered several hundred people, including from other cities and countries, as well as representatives of international organizations (OSCE, Amnesty International).
Earlier, His Eminence Metropolitan Luke, the outspoken hierarch of the Zaporozhye Diocese called on authorities to ban the LGBT event, though they did not heed his call.
“On September 20, we will witness the desecration of our Zaporozhye land, as part of a parade under LGBT symbols—a public demonstration of sin!” he writes on his Telegram channel.
We are currently witnessing an extreme double standard, His Eminence writes, given that churches are being seized from the canonical Ukrainian Church, parishioners and clergy are being beaten, and people are being deprived of their property for having the wrong religious or political view, and the “democratic” authorities of Ukraine see no violation of human rights in all of this.
On the other hand, if “someone dares to express doubts about the expediency of promoting non-traditional sexual orientation in our society, then they are immediately classified as particularly dangerous criminals,” Met. Luke writes. “But we, in fact, only protect our national culture and our family values.”
While the Church opposes sinful lifestyles, “we do not oppose people who adhere to non-traditional forms of sexual life,” he continues.
“We’re not against people who choose of their own free will, let’s say, to eat rotten food… If someone likes to consume rotten things, let him live this way, in his own personal space. But we don’t want our children to take an example from him,” the hierarch explained.
Met. Luke concluded by calling on all “sound social and political forces that care about the fate of Ukraine” to express their position on the matter and take a stand for the rule of law.
Earlier, he wrote that “The true goal of the LGBT movement is to break down the basic moral principles established by God and impose new standards of morality.”
