CWN - The largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches has severed its ecumenical dialogue with two Protestant communities.
The Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations explained:
On May 16, 2015, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland allowed ordination of gay people in civil partnership and on May 21 voted to continue the study of this matter aimed at an extension of the adopted decision. On May 17, the Synod of the United Protestant Church of France allowed a possibility of blessing the so called same-sex unions … We state with profound grief that today we have new divisions in the Christian world not only on theological problems, but also on the moral issues.
Citing similar reasons, the Moscow Patriarchate previously severed its dialogue with the Episcopal Church and the Church of Sweden.
The Church of Scotland, Calvinist in its origins and Presbyterian in its government, dates to 1560, while the United Protestant Church of France dates from a 2013 merger of France’s main Reformed and Lutheran bodies.
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