www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Russian priest fired for marrying gays

There was a German language news item on the Swissinfo website on 5. September 2003 about the Russian Orthodox Church firing a priest in a provincial city for coducting the first wedding of two homosexual men in Russia. The diocesan spokesperson said "This blasphemous ceremony can not be considered under any circumstances as a wedding." The marriage was declared invalid and homosexuality was declared as a mortal sin.
The marriage of homosexuals is a "tabu" theme in Russia, even though there have been 1993 legal civil weddings between gays. The Russian Orthodox Church objects to homosexuals and lesbians as teachers, command positions in the military and in the prison system.
(translated from the German article in Swissinfo)

Just found this article in English:
Priest expelled for marrying two men
By Julius Strauss in Moscow
(Filed: 05/09/2003)
The Russian Orthodox Church has unfrocked a priest for marrying two homosexual men, allegedly in return for a �300 bribe to ignore a ban on same-sex weddings.

Denis Gogolyev and Mikhail Morozov, who live in Nizhny Novgorod, 280 miles east of Moscow, took part in a hastily arranged ceremony this week.

After a full Orthodox wedding ceremony, Father Vladimir, a local priest, pronounced the pair man and wife and placed gold rings on their fingers.

Mr Gogolyev and Mr Morozov told local reporters that they had approached the priest because they suspected he might be amenable to a bribe.

Mr Gogolyev said: "When he baptised me he almost snatched the fee from my hand and I reckoned he must be greedy for more."

The three sneaked into an empty chapel on Monday afternoon. The couple, beaming with joy, donned gold crowns, an Orthodox wedding tradition, and held hands. "He didn't even frown," Mr Gogolyev said.

At one point Fr Vladimir paused and asked who would play the role of the man and who that of the woman. Mr Gogolyev said he replied: "It's the same to us, Father, we're both just spouses."

Viktor Malukhin, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, said yesterday: "Nothing of this kind has happened during the 1,000-year history of the Russian Church.

"According to Christian teachings, marriage is a free union of a man and a woman blessed by God while homosexuality is a sign of human nature obscured by sin."

The press service of the Nizhny Novgorod diocese issued a statement saying Fr Vladimir had been expelled from the church.

"This blasphemous act cannot be considered a marriage under any circumstances," it said.

Other denominations were swift to join in the criticism. "This is a mind-boggling crime," the Episcopal Church said in a statement.

Abdussamad Khazrat, secretary of the central spiritual authority of Russia's Muslims, said: "This is a huge sin that will bring down the punishment of the Almighty."

Fr Vladimir, who has since claimed that he was tricked into performing the ceremony, was not available for comment.

This is good news. I pray that our USA bishops will all follow this good Patriarch's example. Axios to him!!!

Dan Lauffer

Unless one of the men was dressed in a white gown with a veil, how can the priest claim that he was tricked?

Is it possible that one of the men dressed like a woman to trick the priest, then went out to tell the press a different story?

We had a case here in NC a few years ago of a Roman priest baptizing the baby of a lesbian pair. It hit the front page of the local paper the next day and made it seem like the priest was deliberately doing the Baptism to flount Church teaching. The priest's side of the story was that he didn't know the press would be notified and didn't realize that one of the people taking pictures was a reporter; he said since one of the women gave birth to the child, he was Baptizing the child of a parishioner and the other woman was the God-mother. My point is, his version of the story was very different from the version that the two women and the press put out to the public. Is it possible the same situation exists here?

Vie

I read in another report which for some reason I can't find that the couple paid a bribe to the priest in order to get him to do this. Moreover, the priest apparently asked which one was the bride. Seems as if the priest knew what he was doing. Then again, there may be some reason why I can't locate that article. :rolleyes:

Dan Lauffer

Maybe they tricked the priest into believing it was a wedding-by-proxy. One of the men may have originally pretended to be acting as proxy on behalf of a female relative. Then, the two men say the vows, etc., and go out and tell the press.

????????

This is the second bogus piece of trash that was put out by a Russian Gossip tabloid and picked up by the western press that Bishop Tikhon speaks about. Reference my post on the 'Killer Icon' thread.

OrthoMan

So are you saying it never happened, or that the priest wasn't tricked?

I'm saying taht according to info Vladyka Tikhon received from Russia, both stories appeared in a Russian tabloid akin to our 'National Enquirer' and was picked up by the western press.

As Bishop Tikhon said many of the former communist newspapers are now nothing more than gossip sheets and still very anti religion.

You can list it with stories like 'I was raped in a flying saucer' etc.

OrthoMan

official statement of the Moscow Patriarchate regarding this piece of trash -

[Viktor Malukhin, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, said
yesterday: "Nothing of this kind has happened during the 1,000-year
history of the Russian Church.

"According to Christian teachings, marriage is a free union of a man and
a woman blessed by God while homosexuality is a sign of human nature
obscured by sin."]

OrthoMan

Bob is right on this issue. These type of rags are becoming very popular in Eastern Europe, at least in Ukraine and Russia, and have an often anti-religious character. You can regularly read about priests with devil horns, priests released from UFOs for mind control, all kinds of moral excesses, all sorts of crazy stuff.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

This is enough to discredit the article.

Ha!

Logos Teen

Dear Logos Teen,

May I offer two possibilities for the Episcopal Church reaction? Either of these is plausible, however sad.

1.... The Episcopalians were looking in a mirror while speaking? :p

2.... The "mind-boggling crime" they were refering to was the Patriarchate's response of de-frocking the priest?

John
Pilgrim and Odd Duck

URL to the story, someone said they couldn't find it,
Art
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...;secureRefresh=true&_requestid=16064

Them Ruski commies are still fooling us. GRRRR... It's not nice to fool us.

I'm glad to read that the story is a fabrication.

Sorta of like "the Chechnyans are horrible terrorists." Or that "The Saudi's are moderates and are our allies" Or "The Baathists are peaceloving and fully representative of traditional Islam."

It's one thing to be fooled by ones own liberal media but to be taken in by the Russian media as well is too much.

Dan Lauffer