At least someone is saying it.
From ZENIT:
Patriarch Kirill: Violation of God’s Laws is Destroying Human Civilization
Head of Russian Orthodox Church Warns Against Legislating in Favor of Same-Sex ‘Marriage’
Violating God’s laws by legislating in favor of same-sex ‘marriage’ is a threat to human civilization, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has said.
Speaking after a liturgy on Sunday at the Kremlin’s Cathedral of the Assumption in commemoration of the Russian Orthodox Church’s New Martyrs and confessors, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said it’s possible to argue that such laws are needed “to avoid discrimination against anyone in anything.”
“But the next moment one realizes that it is not civil, political, economic, or cultural discrimination that is meant here, but something that has never been seen as discrimination at all,” he said. “What is meant here is a person’s intimate life.”
“We are offered to justify the sinful ruining of this life by laws,” he added, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. But the patriarch continued: “Never in the history of mankind have state laws been used to justify sin. Even the pagans did not do that, although the pagan understanding of what sin is like was very vague.”
“God gave laws to humankind, whose violation is leading to a destruction of human civilization,” he said.
“If we are to live on as a nation, as a society and as a human civilization, we must not venture to challenge the God-given laws,” the Russian patriarch said.
Gospodi, pomilui!
The Russian Orthodox Patriarch, ladies and gents. Doing his bit – and ours – for the New Evangelization.
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I wish more of our own bishops would be this plain-spoken.
As an aside, I must plead ignorance on Russian orthodox ritual. What is he doing with the candles?
All this obsessing. Who am I to judge?
Kudos indeed.
Only, forgive me, I have the odd feeling that untruths and incorrectnesses, however peripheral in the context, may go on to do damage. (I might think about fostering the “sin=sexual sin” prejudice, here.)
In this spirit: no, Your Holiness, that part about the heathens not justifying sin is wrong.
See the First Rome’s XII tables on murdering deformed children, all cases of legal persecution, or the Soviet paragraph which even made deviance from the Communist doctrine a crime. Not to mention my own country’s law’s history.
I love that picture.
Looks like all the prayers asked for by Our Lady for Russia.. worked.
He’s right of course. The combination of what men and women have done to marriage with the birth control pill and this new and monstrous implementation of homosexual marriage is murdering civilization. And he is also right that there was no pagan society, no matter how rife homosexual behavior was in those social settings, that would have thought that the ‘marriage’ of a man with a man or a woman with a woman was anything but complete and total lunacy. The popes, especially Benedict XVI but all the way back at least to Leo XIII, at least have been telling us that our sexual mores will destroy us but nobody wanted to listen, including a lot of bishops.
Gotta love Patriarch Kirill, he is a fearless warrior against secularism.
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Where in at personal risk, EBen Rants!
“Never in the history of mankind have state laws been used to justify sin.”
And compare to http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/eric-holder-extend-benefits-same-sex-couples-article-1.1606971
“Attorney General Eric Holder announced that same-sex couples will be allowed to claim a number of benefits, like spousal privilege, that were previously reserved just for heterosexual couples. The attorney general made the announcement during a speech at the Human Rights Campaign.”
So…………..what does this really mean?
Think back to the halcyon days of yesteryear when it was “supposed” and possibly actually done, that Presidents of the US and the members of their administrations and their appointed Office holders operated from a sense that it was their duty to promote healthful, wholesome, “traditional values” in keeping with the Nation’s need to foster and protect the most cherished and valued of Nation sustaining units…………the “Family” which was to produce healthy, well adjusted and properly trained and educated children who would become the productive, responsible citizens necessary to sustain the vitality of the Nation and to preserve and protect it from harm.
Today, we are faced with nothing less than an administration, ne, an entire governmental system hell bent, bound and determined to rip that social contract asunder. They do this by promoting and protecting the so-called rights of something on the order of less than 1% of the population.
Do they do that because they fear that 1% will rise up and rebel and threaten the government? Of course not. They do that as an “in your face” assault on all those previously described as clinging to their God and the Bible. Their assisted by their henchmen/women in the so-called Main Stream Media which has become for all practical purposes nothing more than paid lackeys of the Progressive Leftists that feed the cultural concepts to be embraced by this government as the “New Normal” to be embraced by all “politically correct” and proper thinking “citizens”, (subjects) of the government.
Behind this, at the root of their thought processes, is the true reason they do this; not out of fear, but because they can, and because they’re determined to show “Christians” that they can because its in their power to do so.
Make no mistake about it, they’ve declared war on traditional Christians, their values, their families, their children. They’ve declared war………..on YOU! And when the buy or steal the 2016 “election” for Hilary, I have no doubt this “war” will become up close and in-your-face personal.
The Russian Orthodox Patriarch, Vladimir Putin, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, they all know this is quite true.
I’m beginning to more understand why Jesus said to the weeping women on the Way of the Cross, “Weep not for me, women of Jerusalem, but for your children!”
Friday, a day of penance and reparation: huh? what? why?
Abortion: legal. Divorce and remarriage: legal. Sodomy: legal.
Thank you Patriarch Kirill; why is it so rare that anyone makes the obvious point that certain things are sins because they have bad consequences, and sexual sin, because it undermines healthy families, has bad consequences for entire societies? Pace Imrahil, but I suspect that this is what Patriarch Kirill meant: sins against the natural order. The pagan Romans, for all their decadence, were horrified when Nero conducted a mock “marrriage” with one of his freedmen.
Iacobus M \
http://vitafamiliariscatholica.blogspot.com/
Miss Anita Moore: In the top photo, the Patriarch is blessing the faithful with a dikerion (double-branched candlestick), which represents the two natures of Christ. In the bottom photo, he is blessing with the trikerion (triple-branched candlestick), which represents the Holy Trinity. Both candlesticks are used by Bishops in the Eastern Catholic & Orthodox Christian Churches.
As the congregation bows to receive the blessing, we acknowledge Jesus Christ as our true Lord & God, yielding our will to His that His kingdom may become a reality in us.
We cannot justify and legislate for sin! What a concept. Perhaps had we embraced this some decades ago 55 million unborn Americans would not have been killed and we would not be facing the destruction of marriage and family–the fabric of society–as we are now.
Would that we had more courageous voices among our shepherds.
StJude says: Looks like all the prayers asked for by Our Lady for Russia.. worked.
Well…they will, once Russia reunites with the Pope.
P.S. I would not give Vladimir Putin too much credit for being a friend to Christianity. He was a colonel in the KGB. You don’t get to be a colonel in the KGB by being a paragon of holiness.
ReginaMarie, thank you for explaining the blessings with the candles!
Miss Anita
Actually in both pictures he is using both a dikerion and a trikerion – which is typical for the blessing. (You can see easily 5 flames if you can’t see easily 5 candles).
Regina Marie,
Thank you for the explanation. That is one of the few things I actually learned in high school religion, go figure.
So, it appears that Russia has been fully consecrated to Our Lady. When is this going to happen for the US?
Meanwhile, “Some in church may be homophobic and be guilty of ‘Godopobia'” says Archbishop of Dublin Dr. Dairmuid Martin, but that gay people should not be excluded from ‘celebrating their union’ by a different means (other than civil marriage). [See links to Irish Independent News articles below.}
Anyone know how much it would cost me for a flight (literally and figuratively) from Cork to Moscow?
http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0209/503216-diarmuid-martin/
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/homophobia-insults-god-says-archbishop-of-dublin-29994342.html
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/some-in-church-may-be-homophobic-says-archbishop-martin-29993220.html
Axios!
And thanks to Fr. Z for posting this. There is a short video of scenes from yesterday’s service commemorating the Holy New Martyrs of Russia on the web, but it didn’t include the sermon which I would not have been able to follow anyway.
Sorry. One of the links I posted is to an RTE News summary of Archbishop Martin’s thoughts.
Homosexual acts are sins indeed. So are the numerous acts of violence, terror, and abuse against human rights carried out daily by the Russian regime of Vladmir Putin, a regime with which the Russian Orthodox Church has fully identified itself.
The answer to secularism is not Erastianism.
Not that this is something in which the entirety of the Russian Orthodox Church is complicit; but Christians should be careful identifying the interests of Christianity with those of the Russian government.
Just for purposes of enlightening one as ignorant as me, what, pray-tell, is the precise definition of ‘homophobia’?
The Oxford Dictionary defines it as ” an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people”, the modifiers to ‘aversion’ being the words ‘extreme’ and ‘irrational’.
One would presume therefore that one may have a rational and reasoned aversion to homosexuality without being a ‘homophobe’, i.e. the burden of which accusation being on the party asserting my aversion is ‘extreme and irrational’.
Am I wrong?
It would be good to read an accurate translation of the full text of the sermon.
And can anyone sketch a fine sense of exactly how ‘courageous’ this may (or may not) have been, in a Russian context? For this was “after a liturgy […] in commemoration of the Russian Orthodox Church’s New Martyrs and confessors”, that is, all the (Orthodox) faithful – including many thousands of those in Orders – murdered and/or persecuted by the Soviets, the same Soviets who were the first in the world in legalizing same-sex relations and abortion. When he says, ““Never in the history of mankind have state laws been used to justify sin”, he is inescapably implicitly criticizing the pioneering Soviet “state laws” in this (as well as, presumably, implicitly commending any post-Soviet – or even, in some cases, Soviet – subsequent rejection of such laws) – so Imrahil’s example of “the Soviet paragraph which even made deviance from the Communist doctrine a crime” may well be implicitly included in the scope of his statement. There is presumably also a level of implicit criticism of the constant fawning of the Patriarchal Hierarchy theoughout the Soviet period on that horrifically ‘pioneering’ Soviet state – the tone of which is at the least distinct from the structure – from Khrushchev on – whereby the current Soviet dictator would criticize his predecessor.
I’m sorry. I can’t get past this patriarch’s ostentatious style. Clearly, he’s not heard the carnival is over. And why is he obsessing over issues like this?
Are those neon signs to the right and left above the Patriarch? Just wondering…
Miss Anita, I laughed out loud at your comment about Putin and the KGB. I needed the laugh today. Thanks.
What does an ally have in common with a brother?
Hint: It’s a difference from what a friend is.
Well, you can’t pick them.
That said, I wonder how evil Russia’s policy really is; I mean precisely so, “wonder”, i. e. do not know. I do see that in the media, Russia is today most criticized for her stand against homosexual activists. The law on homosexual activism – at least as it stands – is however a rather moderate one, and does not mention the sin itself at all. Thus, receiving my information from partial informers… I wonder.
Dear @Iacobus M, thank you for your kind mentioning! It was precisely my point that if he meant “sins against the natural order”, I think he should say so.
[And then, “sin against the natural order” is in a sense a technical term: any sin is against the natural order; though these ones add a certain deviation from the natural order not present in the other sexual sins. And another difference of homosexuality, not unimportant, is simply that it is not really so much among the temptations of normal people. However, how many know that the term “contranatural sin” as officially defined also includes masturbation?]
Robbie, the Patriarch’s “style” is not ostentatious but is normal for Orthodox and Eastern Catholic worship.(Of course an ordinary parish would not have so many clerics; this is a Patriarch, of a status like to that of the Pope.) Such worship is supposed to be “heaven on earth” so that you feel almost as if you are with the angels around God’s throne. It is supposed to appeal to all the senses, and to lift the heart to God with its beauty. Our Western worship can do this also, if it is done right.
Susan Peterson
Miss Anita… I cant believe I am going to defend Putin but here it goes.
Putin attends church.
He said this in a National speech last summer :“Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values… Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan.”
One article I read said that because Vladimir Putin attends church regularly, is publicly seen kissing icons of the Virgin Mary it has spurred a revival in Russia. Putin even delegated 100 million dollars of public money to rebuild Christian Churches.. and the public is fine with it. His words were this when he announced the money would be spent “to restore holy sites, monasteries and churches destroyed during last century’s atheist drive by the Soviet Union against religion. ”
He told George W Bush that his mother gave him a blessed crucifix from Jerusalem and he always carried it. The crucifx was found perfectly intact after a fire. It was because of this conversation about God that GW Bush said he looked into his eyes and got a sense of his soul. He carries it on him every day.
The Russian Orthodox church called Putin a ‘God Given Leader” and Putin gets political and moral counsel from them.
Putin ran against the communists in his elections.
Do I think Putin is a wonderful guy who would never harm a fly.. no. But he isnt the devil either.
Robbie: As for the ostentatious style of the patriarch…in the Christian East (both Catholic & Orthodox), ornate priestly vestments are much like icons. They are like windows through which we look to see Christ. As St. John Chrysostom said, vestments serve to hide & submerge the personality of the priest so that the faithful, seeing Christ through the vestments, may know that it is He (Jesus) who teaches & sanctifies through the priest. Additionally, such vestments serve as a reminder of the fact that in Baptism God “removed the garment of our misery & clad us once more in the robe of glory” (St. Gregory of Nyssa). In putting on bright & ornate vestments, the clergy are to clothes themselves in the robes of the Spirit. Such vestments are directed toward transforming the celebrant as he assumes the garment of the divine in preparation for the liturgical celebration.
eyeclinic: Those aren’t neon signs, but light reflecting off of gilded painting.
Sonshine135
“So, it appears that Russia has been fully consecrated to Our Lady. When is this going to happen for the US?”
Nope. It was actually ‘the world’ that was consecrated several times to Our Lady, as can, God-willing, everything else under the sun; everything, except of course, for Russia. Didn’t you know? We’re supposed to be inclusive and not offend anyone! Or something… Meanwhile the errors of Communism have spread worldwide and even in the U.S. as Sr. Lucia said would happen, because of course Russia was never consecrated. There’s always some excuse not to do it and never to involve the world’s bishops. God forbid Catholic Bishops obey something the Pope commands them to do! And if you think Russia today is some shining example of what Our Lady would be happy with, despite the nice progress in contrast to the West, then Our Lady has some seriously low standards. Maybe she got the Vatican II memo…
But let no one be fooled. This ‘homosexual controversy’ is merely part of a larger geo-political game the West is playing by trying to find any excuse to slander Russia and Putin for protecting Snowden, and refusing to go along with the G8 to bomb Syria over fictitious reasons. Those terrorist incidents in Sochi, and the leaked phone call of U.S. diplomats interfering in the democratic process of the Ukraine, aren’t happening for no reason. Time for everyone to start looking at news outside of the Western Corporate-owned propaganda media circle.
If we were to entertain the possibility that Mr. Putin is a ‘clever devil’, an astute, cynical, politician, what answer might we find to the questions, why does he think it worthwhile appealing to Christians, in and out of Russia, and ‘using Christianity’ yet more broadly – even seemingly fomenting Christianity where it is not yet found to appeal to?
The west is full of thuggish politicians openly attacking Christians and Christianity, other thuggish politicians proclaiming themselves the truest of Christians in their support of same-sex causes, abortion, etc., and many orthodox Christians, lay and in Orders, on all levels, understandably timid about speaking out in the face of all the thuggery, but where are those analogously thinking it worthwhile to appeal and support as Mr. Putin does?
Why such a difference, whether he be sincere or merely calculating?
This does not simply look like Stalin’s allowing things to loosen up a bit and exploit the Christians for what they might be worth after Hitler turned on him. Nor simply like the odious appeals to western Christians through the Moscow Patriarchate for the four decades or so after Stalin found open opposition to the Allies more opportune than being one of them.
Just what is going on?
@StJude:
I agree. Putin might not be a canonizable saint (I’m not either), but at least he is responding to God’s grace and his heart is in the right place. So what if he’s a former KGB agent; St. Paul used to persecute Christians before his conversion.
On the other hand, we have European Socialists and American Democrats actively and maliciously promoting and legalizing sinful acts and passing them off as “good.” Never in my short 34 years on this Earth did I think that, in a short span of one generation, I would live to see the West so de-Christianized and advocating Evil, while the former USSR, having recognized its errors, is now the protector of Christiandom.
Oh, I’ve been to Peter and Paul Cathedral where the Royal Martyrs are.
When I was in Russia, we were at St. Nicholas Church in St. Petersburg; it’s a double-decker church, imagine a huge Cathedral with a second floor with the same size space for Mass, we were told that an Admiral came there and asked what he must do; cross himself, etc. He was told that above all he must bow to the Crucifix. The priest knew that if he did so, everyone else would follow suit…note that St. Nicholas is patron saint of sailors.
Miss Anita Moore, O.P. says:
StJude says: Looks like all the prayers asked for by Our Lady for Russia.. worked.
Well…they will, once Russia reunites with the Pope.
Do you mean the way the West is united with the Pope?
Putin:
http://gloria.tv/?media=551340
about the 2 & 3 candle blessing- the hierarch will bless the people and sing ‘Our master and our hierarch, may the Lord protect you for many years…’…he blesses in this way 3 times during the Liturgy (natch) and the people respond in this way (in Byzantine Catholic churches as well)
“Never in the history of mankind have state laws been used to justify sin.”
I understand what he’s getting at — the use of state laws to justify homosexual activity is perhaps unprecedented in recorded history — but it seems to me that state laws have been used to justify other sins such as slavery, genocide, religious/ethnic persecution, oppression of the poor and defenseless, and (of course) abortion and infanticide for millennia.
Carolyn Moynihan has an interesting post, “Russia, gay rights and the protection of children”, at MercatorNet, in which she writes (referring to a BBC resume), “Homosexual relations were decriminalised in 1993 and the age of consent is 16, the same as for heterosexual people.”
She also quotes the BBC, “Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s urbane foreign minister, put it like this: ‘Homosexuality, as you know, used to be a criminal act in the Soviet Union. This article in the criminal code has long been repealed and homosexuals can do their thing absolutely freely and without punishment.’ ”
Could Patriarch Kirill also be implicitly criticizing this current status quo in Russian law – and ministerial thinking? Or does he consider a decriminalization which includes the setting of a legal “age of consent” to be other than a being “offered to justify the sinful ruining of this life [“a person’s intimate life”] by laws”?
Dear @bookworm, exactly.
Though if you allude to the current practice of abortion – we’re still not in any country I’m aware of dealing with state-law precisely justifying sin here. The State is neglecting his duty to punish and embank; but he is not promoting by law that abortion be a good thing. It is not the State that aborts. It is the individual mothers.
[Hm… you cannot, as a State, just wish that people act well without satisfying the natural and just desire of the law-abiders that the law-breakers be put in their place. That has been proven pretty much any time the State ceased to act.]
For similar reasons, I do not think (dear @Venerator Sti Lot) the Patriarch applied to the changing of the Russian law (which after all has reasons on the pro side too), nor his minister’s words (who in the words you cited gives all indication of being in an apologetic Western interview defending his country for reason of it outlawing homosexual activism). But what is certainly included in what he means is the “homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality” approach often present in Western laws, and homosexual marriage.
Raymond agreed…. the West must destroy Putin.. he embarrassed Obama over Syria last fall , took in Snowden and doesn’t run around waiving a rainbow flag.
Propaganda machine in the West is in full destroy mode.
Remember when we use to laugh at the propaganda machine in Russia 20 years ago.. seems we have that in the US now.
ReginaMarie
I was being sarcastic.
robtbrown says: Miss Anita Moore, O.P. says: StJude says: Looks like all the prayers asked for by Our Lady for Russia.. worked. Well…they will, once Russia reunites with the Pope. Do you mean the way the West is united with the Pope?
Total non sequitur. The state of things in the West has absolutely nothing to do with whether Russia acknowledges and submits to the authority of the Pope.