Chișinău, Moldova, January 31, 2023
Met. Vladimir of Chișinău. Photo: rubaltic.ru
The European Court of Human Rights attempt to impose gay marriage on member countries is, in fact, an attack on traditional Moldovan values, says the head of the Moldovan Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).
In a ruling against Russia on January 17, the Court said that countries have an obligation to give gay marriages the same legal protection as true marriages. The Court previously concluded that the European Convention for Human Rights allows for but doesn’t require gay marriage. Now, the Court says, the consensus has shifted, reports Courthouse News Service.
However, as His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir of Chișinău and All Moldova writes, this is not true of Moldova, where 98% of the population identifies as Orthodox.
Met. Vladimir issued a statement yesterday, which reads:
Beloved in Christ brothers and sisters,
We are in a worrying situation for our Orthodox Christian people. We are referring to the attempt to impose upon us a decision that is outrageous for our Orthodox conscience, namely that of the ECHR from January 17, which requires the member states of the Council of Europe and those signatories to the European Convention to recognize and protect LGBT couples by law. For the Republic of Moldova this means the obligatory recognition by law of same-sex couples.
As expected, the representatives of the tiny homosexual minority in our country took advantage of this opportunity to threaten to go to court if the national authorities don’t register their couples with legal documents. Our address is not to the members of this minority, whose privacy we respect, expressing our disinterest in their private lives, but to the authorities of our country: Don’t forget that it was the majority, not a minority, that voted for you to lead the country, and this majority of citizens, even if they’re not educated at Western universities, still knows, thank God, how to separate “the tares from the wheat.”
The ECHR’s ruling stipulates that “the signatory states to the European Convention have a positive obligation to ensure, without discrimination, the legal recognition of LGBT couples, regardless of the opinion of a segment of society.” We would like to remind you that Orthodox Christian citizens don’t represent a segment of society, but an overwhelming majority. Thus, the timidest attempt to legally register a gay couple in our country will be followed by an commensurate reaction, because such decisions contradict the eminently Orthodox and historical conscience of the people. The Orthodox Church of Moldova urges believers to take a stand, obviously strictly within the limits allowed by the legislation in force of the Republic of Moldova, so that such legalization and promotion of sin doesn’t take place.
We believe that now is the time for each of us, including the legislators of the country, to ask ourselves the question and answer honestly: Whose side are we on? That of a people who for centuries fought and earned their right to exist by the sign of the Holy Cross, or on the side of those who want to bring us to Europe by legislating sins that cry out to Heaven?
Dear representatives of power, you’re not eternal on the throne of rule, and it depends on your reigns how you will go down in history: as people with dignity, who respect the history, tradition, culture, and faith of the people who gave you their trust, or as traitors who promote ”values” alien to this nation, for the sake of fleeting benefits and gratitude.
In order not to leave room for interpretations, we reiterate that the Orthodox Church in Moldova has not opposed and does not oppose the European aspirations of our country, but wants this integration to take place in compliance with the true Christian and historical values of Europe—a Europe in which the Gospel of Christ is put back at the head of the table, and people know their origin as the image and likeness of God.
May the truth prevail in the minds of each of us. We pray to the Lord to give us all wisdom and reconciliation.
† VLADIMIR
THE METROPOLITAN OF CHIȘINĂU AND ALL OF MOLDOVA
The Church in Moldova has condemned LGBT propaganda many times. Most recently, both the Moldovan Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Metropolis of Bessarabia of the Romanian Orthodox Church condemned an LGBT campaign being rolled out in the country’s schools.
In May, Met. Vladimir said that LGBT marches and events are an abuse of Moldovan religion and society.
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