Ukraine Church Leaders Reject Constitutional Move on Same-Sex Rights

The Catholic Herald (UK) ^ | 7/26/15 | Jonathon Luxmoroe

[marshmallow]

A letter to the Ukrainian president said the constitutional ammendment would 'seriously threaten' family life

Ukrainian Church leaders condemned plans to permit same-sex partnerships under a series of constitutional reforms.

The Ukrainian parliament has been debating the issue of same-sex partnerships while plans call for adopting the amendments in autumn.

The amendments were drafted as pro-Russia rebels continued to hold the eastern region of the country and also have been criticised by Russia for allegedly failing to include enough autonomy for the separatist-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as outlined in a February cease-fire agreement.

The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations, a group of 19 churches and faiths including Catholics and Orthodox, have issued a letter in response to the amendments.

Yesterday, the council said in their letter: “These provisions threaten to plunge the Ukrainian state into the abyss of immorality and sin, to destroy the family as the basic social institution and popularise relationships between persons of the same sex which are unnatural for human beings.”

“In its appeals, our council has stressed the need to incorporate, in one way or another, principles of identity and human relations which are traditional for Ukrainian citizens,” the council said.

[marshmallow]

This may open the eyes of some church leaders in the Ukraine and perhaps one or two Freepers regarding the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The European Union-loving, westward looking Ukraine has quite a different agenda to Russia and it doesn't involve traditional Slavic culture and spirituality. It hankers after the secular, humanist, amoral society that currently afflicts the US and Western Europe.

Sodomy might be celebrated in western and central Ukraine but it will go nowhere in Crimea and the Donbass.

[Sacajaweau]

Probably a deal....We’ll train your troops if you mandate gay marriage. Signed...Obama

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

The European Union-loving, westward looking Ukraine has quite a different agenda to Russia and it doesn't involve traditional Slavic culture and spirituality. It hankers after the secular, humanist, amoral society that currently afflicts the US and Western Europe.

Your words fit into Russian propaganda that aims to make the Russian invasion about establishing a united Russian world with "Russian culture and spirituality." But the Russkies have been killing Protestant and Catholic leaders in East Ukraine, and the Russian Orthodox Church itself is more cultural than spiritual. Less than 1 or 2 percent of Russkies even attend church on an Easter, and the Russian Patriarch is literally one of the richest men in the world and is a known KGB Agent and informer. The ROC is nothing more than an arm of the state and aids it in its many crimes and sins against Christians both in Russia and abroad. Therefore, to attempt to make this an issue of "this is why we should let Russia rule Ukraine," is simply disgusting nonsense.

That said, the response by the churches in Ukraine is very strong in comparison to what ours did, which never sent such a united response condemning homosexual sin. Let us hope that this fails in the Ukrainian parliament, which, by the way, we were also told by Russian propagandists on this forum was controlled by extreme Rightists (evidently they cannot make up their mind who is running Ukraine).

[marshmallow]

Less than 1 or 2 percent of Russkies even attend church on an Easter.......

Like most of the tripe you post, this is about 30 years out of date.

From the Pew Research Center (2014):

Across all three waves of ISSP data, no more than about one-in-ten Russians said they attend religious services at least once a month. The share of regular attenders (monthly or more often) was 2% in 1991, 9% in 1998 and 7% in 2008.

Church attendance at Easter is difficult to ascertain but is traditionally higher than at other periods. Nevertheless, according to a European Social Survey published in The Economist, in 2010, the percentage of Russians who never attend a religious service (i.e. never attend at Easter) is approx 34%, below that of supposedly enlightened western countries such as Germany, Britain and France, whose non-attendance rates are 36%, 52% and 54% respectively.

Critically, the trend in religious observance in Russia is upwards. Is it necessary to state the direction of the trend in the West? At some future point the lines will cross, if they haven't already.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Interestingly, your link supports me in general when I said that the ROC is more cultural than spiritual. The title of your link says:

"Russians Return to Religion, But Not to Church"

And the entire paragraph from which you gain your excerpt:

"But for most Russians, the return to religion did not correspond with a return to church. Across all three waves of ISSP data, no more than about one-in-ten Russians said they attend religious services at least once a month. The share of regular attenders (monthly or more often) was 2% in 1991, 9% in 1998 and 7% in 2008. This suggests that although many more Russians now freely identify with the Orthodox Church or other religious groups, they may not be much more religiously observant than they were in the recent past, at least in terms of attendance at religious services."

If only 7 percent are even attending just once a month as of 2008, that is still a very pathetic number.

Is it necessary to state the direction of the trend in the West? At some future point the lines will cross, if they haven't already.

You are talking about a country where Joseph Stalin icons are produced and paraded with, because he is viewed as a "late" convert to Orthodoxy who saved Russia from the 5th columnists, namely Jews and other "subversives."

Your Russophillia is shameful.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Exactly. Welcome to the new results of western influence. How tragic.

[marshmallow]

Interestingly, your link supports me in general when I said that the ROC is more cultural than spiritual

My link entirely eviscerates your argument. It shows that at least 10% of Russians attend at least once a month. If 10% attend at least once/month, the number at Easter will be substantially higher, as my other link detailing non-attendance clearly shows. The figure will be closer to 20%. The non-attendance rate in Russia is lower than in most Western European countries. Did you miss that?

Your statement that....."Less than 1 or 2 percent of Russkies even attend church on an Easter......." is only out by a factor of 10.

Congratulations.

Real numbers are a problem, aren't they, when you live in 1962?

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

My link entirely eviscerates your argument. It shows that at least 10% of Russians attend at least once a month.

It says 7 percent. The 1 in 10 was "about", not an actual number. They rounded up from the 7 percent. Either way, compare to the United States:

"The average responses for this measure for all of 2006 were 31% reporting attending once a week, 12% almost every week, 15% about once a month, 28% seldom, and 14% never.Those who reported attending at least once a month -- 55% of the current sample -- were asked to explain why they attend."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/27124/just-why-americans-attend-church.aspx

Russia suddenly the new home of Christianity based on attendance? Nope. Based on what they teach and believe? Definitely not.

By the way, considering Russians routinely discriminate against Catholics both within Russia and in East Ukraine (where they are murdered), I have a hard time understanding your insistence that Russia is a savior of Christianity.

[dfwgator]

If anything the “savior” of Christianity will be Russia’s arch-enemy, Poland.

[marshmallow]

Russia suddenly the new home of Christianity based on attendance?

Learn some history.

Russia goes back over 1,000 years and for all but a 75 year period in the 20th century when it embraced official state atheism, that history was Christian. There's nothing "new" about Christianity in Russia. This is not some sort of aberration. The aberration was state atheism. The country is currently convalescing itself back to its historical status quo.

The speed and intensity of the atheist takeover in Russia should serve as a lesson to modern Western nations which paint themselves as nominally "Christian", when current events make it clear that they're anything but.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

This is a very stupid post. Not even during the days of the Czars was Russia a Christian paradise. If anything, Russia was still a tyranny with a long history of repression and cruelty. And you are making this argument after already being disproven about the nature of Russian society. You have no clue of what you speak, but only make noise.

[marshmallow]

This is a very stupid post.

Not as stupid as your laughable claim that ..".....Less than 1 or 2 percent of Russkies even attend church on an Easter...

Have you managed to find a source for that fantasy yet? A link would be good. Back it up. You wouldn't want us to think you pull this stuff out of the air, would you? We're waiting.....

Would you like me to shove the European church "non-attendance" stats in your face again? You know...some real numbers, not made up stuff! That's right..the numbers that show that church non-attendance is higher in Western Europe than in Russia. What have you got to say about that? Anything?

Not even during the days of the Czars was Russia a Christian paradise.

Clearly. A "paradise" is not prey to revolutionary ideas which is why you won't find the word in my post. In order for atheistic ideologies to gain traction, Christianity must first be brought into disrepute, one way or another. Yet the Christian religion was transmitted and nurtured essentially intact in Russia for 1,000 years. That's a long time and it doesn't happen without the religion being deeply engrained in the culture. In no sense is it "new" (your word).

Do you think "Christian" America will last that long? Think we'll persevere for another 800 years now that sodomite "marriage" is on the books? Not that we have a single faith to transmit due to the increasingly fragmented nature of the Christian religion in this country.

Here's a clue for you. The biggest threat to liberty, especially religious liberty, in this country, is no longer Russians. It's Americans. If current events haven't taught you that much, you're beyond my reach.

The future will see darkness descending on an increasingly hedonist, do-what-you-will, anti-religion America making life increasingly hard for Christians at home while doing little to alleviate the sufferings of those abroad, even as it is fending off Islamic terrorism. Russia, on the other hand will be moving in the opposite direction, heading out of darkness into the light, most likely with the help of other formerly communist but now increasingly Christian countries and I will take great pleasure in pointing it out to you as it happens.

Compare religious belief and practice in America and Russia in 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2015.....the lines point in opposite directions; one's going north, the other is going south.......you can see that...right??

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Here's a clue for you. The biggest threat to liberty, especially religious liberty, in this country, is no longer Russians.

Russia is still engaged heavily in subversion and disinformation, including propping up international Communism and terrorist groups across the middle east and Iran. Russia is still part of the anti-American, anti-Christian axis. I know shirtless Putin gets you all hot and bothered, but you are talking about, again, a State that actively persecutes Roman Catholics and Protestants. I do not understand why you continue to support them and put forward the propaganda that Russia's Christianity is somehow ascendant.

[Cossak]

My friend's mom of Polish origin was activist in Catholic church in our town until her death in last year, never heard about repressions for that activity. German church is popular place for those who love organ music, organists from Germany are playing there on regular basis. There are two Christian churches not far from my home with South Korean priests who are evidently not Orthodox, I know at least two other Cristian non-Orthodox churches, even attended once very interesting lecture about love in one of them. Not once boys from USA invited me to attend services in their church. If somebody of those confessions would be repressed by Russian authorities Western media would not silence it. I live in Vladivostok.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

"The killings in Slovyansk, eastern Ukraine, galvanized Christian outrage. Nearly a year later, pro-Russian separatists still dominate the eastern region and non-Russian Orthodox religious groups face many hardships, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Forum 18, a religious liberty news service, also reports new concerns about religious freedom in Crimea, the former Ukrainian autonomous republic, annexed by Russia in March 2014.

Last week, top Christian leaders, mostly Ukrainian, gathered in London and signed a resolution, condemning the ongoing violence and aggression and remembering the four men who were murdered.

...

It [the Resolution] notes: Protestants and Catholics experience “violent persecution” at the hands of pro-Russian separatists.

Any religious group not associated with the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church “suffers disproportionately.” This would include Ukrainian Orthodox churches, Kiev patriarchate.

Pro-Russian groups have seized church buildings and educational facilities of Baptists and Pentecostals, using them for military barracks or other purposes."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2015/may/violence-persecution-spread-in-eastern-ukraine.html

"KIEV/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- One year after the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia, Ukrainian Christians say they are still facing persecution there by pro-Russian separatists who already killed several believers.

Evangelical congregations in particular have come under severe restrictions in Crimea, according to activists and church officials.

In comments distributed by the Voice Of the Martyrs Canada (VOMC) advocacy group, a key church leader said separatists accuse evangelical Christians in Ukraine of spying for the West.

"Separatists have confiscated their church buildings," added the official, only identified as "Paul" amid security concerns. Paul, who reportedly planted many churches in the former Soviet Union, said some believers in occupied areas were even killed."

http://www.bosnewslife.com/34987-ukraine-evangelicals-persecuted-killed-in-crimea

"A demolition crew used the cover of night — and police protection — to demolish a Pentecostal church in Moscow September 6, according to a European news source. Vasili Romanyuk, pastor of the Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church in eastern Moscow, told the Oslo-based Forum 18 News Service that an unidentified crew, backed by local police, arrived at the church around midnight, and by morning had disassembled most of the three-story structure. The congregation had apparently been attempting to work with government authorities to secure the legal authority to keep its building at the location, but had been beaten by a court order.

“In human terms, this is barbarism,” Mikhail Odintsov, a Russian human rights spokesman, said. “This is the Soviet approach, to come in the middle of the night with mechanical diggers. This is unacceptable.”

The evangelical congregation was established in 1979 by Serafim Marin, a pastor who had spent nearly 20 years in Soviet labor camps for his Christian faith. The church “gained registration with the Soviet authorities as an autonomous Pentecostal community in the late 1970s,” reported Forum 18. “However, the city authorities forced it out of its first building in 1995. The replacement 'temporary' church — bulldozed [September 6] — was built on the current site in 1995-6.”

A spokesman for the Moscow city government defended the demolition, insisting that “everything was done at the decision of the court.”

Pastor Romanyuk told Forum 18 that he was awakened around midnight as the demolition crew began its destructive work, but was powerless to stop the action. “The workers didn't say who they were or who had sent them,” Romanyuk recalled. “They showed no documents. They did all this with the protection of the police....” According to Forum 18, the demolition workers “broke into the building, cut all the telephone lines, and seized the mobile phone of the female caretaker. She was taken off to the police station, where she was held for the next three hours while the destruction began. She was not allowed to contact other church members while she was held.” Romanyuk noted that while the congregation had long tried to work with city officials to save the building located on land leased by the city, the bureaucrats consistently refused to provide the church with the proper documents, and prevented it from connecting to city water, electricity, and sewage services. “We put a lot of our resources into this building,” he told Forum 18. Church members warned that other faith communities are not safe from the Russian government's increasingly oppressive hand. “This precedent shows that the authorities can unilaterally cancel a rental contract and can then seize the building from any church community,” they wrote in an e-mail.

Romanyuk said that all the church's valuables were confiscated from the building, including service books and utensils used for the eucharist. “Church members say that while the destruction was underway, men in plain clothes, who called themselves druzhinniki (civil volunteers), circled the site,” reported Forum 18. “As church members began to arrive to try to salvage what they could from the wreckage of the building, the men in plain clothes refused to allow them access, and behaved 'highly aggressively,' church members complained.” Church members later wrote that “a car was destroyed, while a generator, the mixing desk with microphones, musical instruments, and other valuable items were taken away,” and a church safe was broken into. “Eyewitnesses report that violence occurred, too,” they added. “A hail of stones rained down on church members trying to take photographs. Mechanical diggers destroyed most of the building.”"

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/12816-russian-christians-fear-persecution-on-rise-as-moscow-church-building-demolished

There is much more where all this came from.

I live in Vladivostok

I am convinced you are perfectly aware of these things, as I have seen you deny on this forum other things despite their being rather infamous, such as homosexual rape culture in the Russian military.

[Cossak]

Those religious liberty proponents are silencing numerous killings of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine by pro-Western believers, destruction of churches they are making for years on regular basis. Two days ago they have tortured and murdered Orthodox nun in Kiev. They continue practice started in 1914 when they murdered 140 thousands Orthodox Ruthenians in concentration camp Talerhof.
Galitsian Nazi's collaborators believers of Ukrainian Catholic church committed numerous crimes against Jews, Poles, Belorussians and fled to Canada by the end of WWII, they did not change their views and ways, they where waiting opportunity for revenge, they were and are embraced by the West, all they doings blessed. They complain when they are paid in same coin, no wonder. When punished for they crimes they claim they are innocent victims and are repressed on religious ground.
To characterize marginal phenomena as culture is absurdity. Using such logic we can claim US has baby murdering culture because of some percentage of insane marginals and perverts.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Those religious liberty proponents are silencing numerous killings of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine by pro-Western believers

Why would Catholics and Protestants cover up the murder of Orthodox Christians? First of all, there is no such thing as Russian Orthodox. Only 7 percent in all of Russia even go to church once a month, and your church is run by a "former" KGB agent. That is like having the Gestapo heading your church. The people doing the murdering, who are doing it in the name of the ROC, are fighting under Neo-Nazi and Communist banners. They are even screaming about the "evil Jewish Banderovites":

""This is a frontline of Slavyansk. Just a few kilometers away there are the Hitler and Jewish-Banderovite troops ... I would like to appeal to all of our fathers, brothers and sisters, all of Russian people. I encourage them to join the rows of all the defenders not only in Slavyansk, not just in south-east Ukraine, but throughout the whole Rus. For this is a religious war. In fact, it is the Vatican, schismatics, heretics and all traitors of Christ that attacked us for the Jewish-Banderovite money,” said one of the gunmen, Alex Dobychin."

http://risu.org.ua/en/index/all_news/community/religion_and_policy/56901/

That is how stupid your countrymen are. They string together Jews and Nazism into the same sentence, showing they do not even understand their own slurs. If you have evidence, you should post your links of these "Orthodox Nuns" and the like being tortured and murdered in Kiev, rather than just making the claims.