Russian Orthodox patriarch criticizes US secularization, same-sex marriage

October 30, 2015

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow met with the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association on October 28 and expressed appreciation for American evangelical Protestants’ defense of Christian moral principles.

“Spiritual and religious life in the West has undergone radical changes in the recent years,” Patriarch Kirill, who leads the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches, told William Franklin Graham. “Western civilization and Western countries ceased to identify themselves with Christian tradition and adopted an idea of society in which Christian moral values should not be dominant.”

Patriarch Kirill added:

And then, legislative solutions were taken in many countries, the United States of America including, which allow same-sex marriage, equaling it to natural marriage that the Lord has given us in commandment. People who do not want to abide by these solutions may be subjected to repressions. Today, Christians who uphold the intransient importance of Christian moral values had to become confessors of the faith living under various kind[s] of pressure … This gives us a sign of hope: there are people among Western Christians akin to us in ethical principles, sharing them with the Russian Orthodox Church.

 

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Further information:

• His Holiness Patriarch Kirill Meets With William Franklin Graham President Of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (Moscow Patriarchate)