Head of Top Russian Church Compares Same-Sex Marriage to Nazism

‘So-Called Homosexual Marriages’

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, the most powerful religious leader in Russia, this weekend compared same-sex marriage to Nazism. Patriarch Kirill‘s comments come amid reports of kidnapping, torture, and murder of gay men in concentration camps in Chechnya, in the North Caucasus of Russia.

“Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Orthodox compared the adoption of homosexual marriage laws to the adoption of laws in fascist Germany,” The Moscow Times reports.

Kirill attacked what he called, “so-called homosexual marriages,” saying laws that allow same-sex marriage “break with the moral nature of man,” according to a translation from RIA Novosti. 

He also called same-sex marriage a threat to family values, TIME magazine reports, in an article titled, “Russia’s Highest Religious Authority Just Compared Gay Marriage to Nazi Germany.”

“And when legislation breaks ties with morality, it ceases to be a law acceptable to people, it causes protests,” Kirill said while in Kyrgyzstan at a signing for his new book.

Kirill enjoys the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has increasingly embraced the church in an attempt to add to his power base. 

Last year Kirill and Pope Francis met in Cuba, a meeting that had not taken place between the heads of the two churches in 1000 years. They used the historic event to attack same-sex marriage.

American anti-gay activist Franklin Graham, who serves as the head of his father’s Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, has met with Kirill and Putin and sung their praises. In late 2015 Graham traveled to Russia, met with Kirill, praised Vladimir Putin, attacked America under Barack Obama, and denigrated gay people. “I call for prayers for the president of Russia, who is protecting traditional Christianity,” Graham told Kirill.

Earlier this month Vice President Mike Pence met with another of the Russian Orthodox Church’s leaders, Metropolitan Hilarion. He “was staying at the Trump International Hotel,” Religion Dispatches reported, adding Hilarion “has worked tirelessly in recent years to cultivate relationships with Catholic and Protestant supporters of ‘traditional values’ abroad, in order to work with them to promote Christian supremacy at the expense of women’s and LGBTQ rights.”

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Image by Larry Koester via Flickr and a CC license