In Nizhny Novgorod, an Orthodox priest married homosexuals

According to Komsomolskaya Pravda , an Orthodox priest married a homosexual couple in Nizhny Novgorod.

Denis Gogolev and Mikhail Morozov announced their intention to get married on the air of the “Domino Principle” program, and then everyone present in the studio was sure that the Orthodox Church would not agree to perform the sacrament.

Nevertheless, KP claims that the wedding took place on September 1, and it was performed by a Nizhny Novgorod priest, whose name the newspaper does not report. The Russian Orthodox Church has not yet officially responded to the publication, but Komsomolskaya Pravda contains a comment from Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who recalled that the Church has an extremely negative attitude towards same-sex marriage, an Orthodox priest does not have the right to marry such people and for such an act may be defrocked.

The Nizhny Novgorod diocese refused to comment on what happened. Priest Igor Pchelintsev, responsible for press relations, said: “This is impossible, we cannot say anything about this.”

On September 4, it became known that the priest who performed the ceremony, after an investigation carried out by the diocese on September 2, was banned from the priesthood. According to the representative of the diocese, Igor Pchelintsev, who told reporters about this, what happened is “a pre-planned provocation, designed to scandalously attract attention to the problem of same-sex marriage.” Igor Pchelintsev also emphasized that “the Russian Orthodox Church, of course, condemns the very idea of ​​“same-sex marriage” and traditionally, following the Holy Scriptures and Tradition of the Church, condemns homosexual relations as a mortal sin.”

On September 9, it became known that even his son knew nothing about the fate of the priest who married homosexuals. According to one version, Father Vladimir Enert was secretly taken from the Makaryevsky Monastery, where he was sent after the story of the wedding was made public - the nuns of the monastery claim that the priest was taken away on the Volga in an unknown direction. According to another version, he is still in the monastery, but the diocese is hiding it. Neighbors say that things were being loaded from the priest’s apartment all night.

According to Regions.ru , the priest's son's threats against a gay couple, which were reported in the press, turned out to be a fiction.

On October 6, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church recognized the wedding of a homosexual couple as blasphemy, “violation of the foundations of morality, the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and the canonical norms of life of an Orthodox Christian, and therefore without grace-filled and legal force” and decided to deprive priest Vladimir Enert and priest Mikhail Kabanov “as an accomplice.” sacrilege."

Deputy Chairman of the DECR Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said that the period for which the Nizhny Novgorod priest is defrocked has not yet been determined: “It happens that this punishment is imposed for a certain time, it happens that it is imposed untimely. It often happens that after repentance, after the passage After a certain time, this punishment is lifted and the priest is allowed to serve again."

One of those who got married, Denis Gogolev, told a Rosbalt correspondent that the chapel in which the wedding took place was destroyed several days ago. “The church has become a vicious institution, it’s almost a sect,” Gogolev said. “It has spat on its own canons.” “Only Lenin and Stalin demolished churches.”

The press secretary of the Nizhny Novgorod diocese, priest Igor Pchelintsev, said that the dismantling of the chapel was not connected with the wedding of homosexuals, it was just that it had long been planned to build a church on the site of the chapel.

Vladimir Enert himself denies his guilt and expresses disagreement with the decision of the Holy Synod to deprive him of his episcopal rank. According to him, he did not perform the wedding, and the photographs published in Komsomolskaya Pravda are fake. The priest believes that the hierarchy should check the authenticity of the photographs before making a decision. V. Ehnert stated that he “will never abandon either God or the cross,” since he served in the priesthood for 20 years.

A church investigation conducted under the leadership of Bishop Georgy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas showed that the wedding photographs were not fake, and the ceremony was indeed performed by a priest. But the Church, despite the perfect ritual, refuses to recognize homosexuals as spouses.

Sources

• M. Chizhikov, M. Bulgakova, A. Barinov. For 15 thousand rubles, a Nizhny Novgorod priest married the “gay” // KP. 2003. September 2
• A. Liss. Two gays got married in Russia // BBC. 2003. September 2
• A Nizhny Novgorod priest who “married” two men is banned from serving // Portal-Credo.ru. 2003. September 4.
• DOCUMENT: Official statement from the press service of the Nizhny Novgorod diocese // Ibid.
• Ivashko S., Mikhailova T. The Russian Orthodox Church debunked the gay couple // Gazeta.Ru. 2003. September 4.
• "The other day": Wedding affair // Portal-Credo.ru. 2003. September 8.
• Nizhny Novgorod. Even his son knows nothing about the fate of the Orthodox priest who married a gay couple // Regions.Ru. 2003. September 9.
• The Holy Synod decided to depose the priest Vladimir Enert, who “married” two men in Nizhny Novgorod // Week. 2003. October 6.
• Vsevolod Chaplin comments on the decision of the Synod concerning Nizhny Novgorod priests // Religion and Society. 2003. October 7.
• In Nizhny Novgorod, a church in which homosexuals got married was demolished // Rosbalt. 2003. October 7.
• In Nizhny Novgorod, a chapel where gays were married was dismantled // Religion and Society. 2003. October 7.
• The Nizhny Novgorod priest who “married” gays says that he was “framed” // Religion and Society. 2003. October 10.
• An investigation conducted in the Nizhny Novgorod diocese refutes the former priest’s statement that he was unjustly defrocked // Sedmitsa.ru. 2003. October 16.