Kiev, February 1, 2021
Photo: amazonaws.com
The comic about LGBT relationships purchased by the Ukrainian state for children’s libraries represents a battle against the traditional moral values of the Ukrainian people and an attempt to inculcate a perverted worldview in the up-and-coming generations, believes His Grace Bishop Viktor of Baryshevka of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Bp. Viktor, a vicar of the Kiev Metropolitanate and the head of the UOC’s delegation to European international organizations, commented on the recent news about the book on his author’s blog on the site Ya Korrespondent, noting that Ukrainian officials claim Princess+Princess: Happily Ever After is about overcoming “stereotypical ideas” about relationships.
It was reported last week that the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture spent 666,000 hryvnia ($23,600) purchasing books, including 1,240 copies of the “children’s” book Princess+Princess: Happily Ever After, which culminates in the princesses’ lesbian wedding.
Apparently, “stereotypical ideas” here means the Orthodox Scriptural stance that sees no moral and rational explanation for same-sex relations, His Grace writes.
The authorities who purchased the books for children use the word “stereotypical” to cast a negative light on the traditional Ukrainian understanding of morality, Bp. Viktor writes, but stereotypes are not, in fact, always negative, he adds. In many cases “this word can quite rightly be synonymous with the term ‘tradition.’”
“Therefore, we perceive this book about same-sex relationships primarily through the prism of the struggle with the traditional values of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian hierarch explains.
He continues:
In this context, the desire to “overcome” things that have been considered normal for centuries is clearly interpreted as an aggressive imposition of alien norms of behavior for us. This movement is all the more dangerous because it is directed against children who are just learning to see the world and find their place in it. In this context, the appearance of such books looks like an attempt to gradually form a worldview that is alien to the Christian picture of the world, and also sets up a person to reject everything that was dictated by the 1,000-year-old culture of our people.
There can be neither rational nor pragmatic explanations for such an imposition upon children, Bp. Viktor believes.
“A person is born with inherent sexual characteristics, which are determined not by upbringing or worldview, but entirely by biological factors. And it is very disappointing that there are people in Ukraine who do not understand this truism. However, it’s not this that scares us, but the fact that these people are trying to impose their vision on everyone else,” His Grace concludes.
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