Ecclesiastical outrage grows after legislation passes, with authorities on Corfu banning two MPs from religious rites
Helena Smith Athens
Outrage in the Greek Orthodox church over the government’s “demonic” decision to legalise same-sex marriage has intensified, as prelates demanded that punitive measures be taken against MPs who backed the landmark law.
Clerics have called for “immoral lawmakers” to be ostracised from the church, and ecclesiastical authorities on Corfu have announced that two local MPs would be banned from participating in any religious rites.
Accusing the deputies of committing “the deepest spiritual and moral error” in backing the bill on 15 February, the island’s bishopric urged the parliamentarians to repent.
“For us, these two deputies cannot consider themselves active members of the church,” it said in a statement. “We exhort them to repent for their impropriety.”
Failure to do so, the bishopric added, would automatically result in the lawmakers being excluded from the Christian rite of communion and other church events.
Greece became the world’s first Orthodox Christian nation to pass legislation permitting same-sex marriage when 175 MPs from across the political spectrum voted in favour of the reform last month.
Backed by the centre-right prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the law also extended the recognition of parental rights to gay couples, although it stopped short of allowing them to have children through surrogacy.
But Mitsotakis faced harsh criticism from the Orthodox church. Greece’s spiritual leader, Archbishop Ieronymos, regarded as a moderate in a church hierarchy that had described the bill as “pure evil”, suggested the vote be put to popular referendum in a nation where marriage equality is supported by only a narrow majority in polls and openly opposed by MPs in the governing New Democracy party.
Leading church figures had argued that the law would lead to same-sex couples demanding other rights and to the dismantlement of the Greek family and society.
Signalling that it was on a collision course with the government, the church’s governing body, the Holy Synod, announced that a service on 24 March marking Orthodox Sunday – one of the holiest days in the eastern Orthodox calendar – would not be held, as is tradition, in the capital’s cathedral, but in a smaller church to which the president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, had not been invited.
Ieronymos and other synod members also made clear they would decline the president’s invitation to a meal, usually attended by the country’s secular and spiritual leaders, on the same day.
One cleric confided that the archbishop had been “distressed” by the news that Sakellaropoulou had attended a celebratory dinner with government officials after the vote in a restaurant owned by a member of the LGTBQ+ community.
An open letter to Bishop Ambrosios called for Mitsotakis and MPs who backed the legislation to be excommunicated, saying: “Our Orthodox church is under siege … A revolution should be called against all those diluting the law of God. The protagonist of this moral crime, the prime minister of Greece and the 175 deputies in the Greek parliament, should be excommunicated.”
Ecclesiastical fury spilled into the public domain within days of the first same-sex marriage taking place at a town hall in Athens.
On Tuesday Ieronymos voiced his displeasure with the law, telling reporters he hoped none of them ever entered “marriages of such a kind”.
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