The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has claimed Western values threaten to “destroy” the sanctity of his country and has appeared to blame Pride parades as a justification for Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Patriarch Kirill voiced his support for Russia’s military during his Forgiveness Sunday sermon and criticised Pride parades during his speech.
“Pride parades are designed to demonstrate that sin is one variation of human behaviour. That’s why in order to join the club of those countries, you have to have a gay pride parade,” he said, according to The Moscow Times.
The Russian church leader addressed the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a question of “which side of God humanity will be on”, while also taking an attack at the LGBTQ+ community.
On 24 February, President Vladimir Putin gave the go-ahead for Russian troops to attack Ukraine in an alleged effort to “demilitarize and denazify” the country.
The launched assault on Ukraine has displaced countless communities and forced more than one million people were forced to flee from their homes.
In his speech, Patriarch Kirill not only backed Russia’s “military operation” but called gay pride parades a “loyalty test” to Western governments and ideals.
“For eight years there have been attempts to destroy what exists in Donbas,” the Orthodox Church leader said. Donbas is a region of Kyiv that has been at war with the separatist groups since 2014.
“And in Donbas there is a rejection, a fundamental rejection of the so-called values that are offered today by those who claim world power,” he added.
“We know that if people or countries reject these demands, they are not part of that world, they become strangers to it.”
Patriarch Kirill harrowingly called the Russian invasion of Ukraine a conflict “far more important than politics.”
“If humanity accepts that sin is not a violation of God’s law, if humanity accepts that sin is a variation of human behaviour, then human civilization will end there,” he said.
Patriarch Kirill, whose name is Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev, became has held the position of Patriarch of Moscow in the Russian Orthodox Church since 2009.
The Russian has a history of supporting Putin’s regime and voicing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments. In 2017, the religious figure likened “so-called homosexual marriages” to nazism.
As reported by RIA Novosti, Patriarch Kirill stated “when laws are detached from morality they cease being laws people can accept.” The Church leader continued to make comparisons to laws in Nazi Germany.
This is not the first time Patriarch Kirill has made direct comments targeting same-sex marriage.
In 2016, he compared same-sex marriage laws to “Soviet totalitarianism” and described the right for LGBTQ+ people to get married as a threat to “humanity”.
Same-sex marriage is currently illegal in Russia and LGBTQ+ people face stigmatization within the country.
In 2013, the ‘gay propaganda’ rule was signed into effect by Vladimir Putin, and it banned the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual orientations to minors.
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