Contactly fight

The Russian Orthodox Church broke out official contacts with the Church of Scotland and the united Protestant Church of France. The corresponding statement of the Communication Service of the Department of External Church Relations is published on the website of the Moscow Patriarchate. The reason for the decision was called the rejection of the position of Scottish and French Protestants on the issue of same -sex unions.

On May 16, the statement said, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland allowed the priests of homosexuals in the Civil Union to priests. On May 21, the Assembly advocated further study of the issue "in order to further expand the decision," emphasized the Russian Orthodox Church.

Meanwhile, on May 17, the Synod of the United Protestant Church of France made the blessing of the same -sex unions.

These decisions, noted in the Moscow Patriarchate, "seem incompatible with the norms of Christian morality." "Having a firm position based on the Holy Scriptures, the Russian Orthodox Church consistently declares the inadmissibility of the mentioned innovations in moral teaching," the document emphasizes.

The Russian Orthodox Church noted that gaps with foreign Christian faiths, due to various views on the attitude to homosexuals, occurred earlier. So, in 2003, the Moscow Patriarchate suspended contacts with the bishopal church in the United States, after an open homosexual was built to the rank of its bishop. In 2005, relations with the Church of Sweden were torn when it blessed the same-sex unions.