Met. Luke responds to letter from Ombudsman’s Office on LGBT discrimination

Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhia and Melitopol. Photo: hramzp.ua

On January 5, 2021, Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko) of Zaporizhia and Melitopol published an official response to the letter of the Representative of the Verkhovna Rada’s Human Rights Ombudsman regarding the “discriminatory” statements of the hierarch against LGBT people.

Having reported that the said letter, dated September 17, was received by the diocese only in the last days of the past 2020, Metropolitan Luke noted that “some enemies of the Church had already ranted about this answer at the end of September, and now we, with a clear conscience, can also give an official answer."

“In the letter sent to my name, you, referring to the protection of human rights, criticize how, based on the Christian doctrine, sin is criticized on our Telegram channel, and human rights are hence allegedly infringed,” the hierarch addressed the author of the letter received from the Ombudsman’s Office. “But the question arises: why does your ‘defense’ infringe on the rights of the majority of the world's population, if we talk not only about Ukraine, but internationally? We all know that the majority of the world's believers professing three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – adhere to a common teaching on the attitude towards the sin you advocate for."

Metropolitan Luke reminded the Representative of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights of the relevant quotes from the Gospel, the Pentateuch of Moses and the Koran and asked if he would like to ban them “as books unnecessarily humiliating human rights” and “initiate a ban” in Ukraine wthin a pilot project and then also worldwide on the confessions of the Abrahamic religions despite the fact that modern civilization emanated from them?"

The hierarch emphasized that he does not call for violence but asks “only to think about what the Ukrainian people are persuaded into when sinfulness is spread under the guise of tolerance.”

“Today, when there is an obvious propaganda of sin, as a result of which the birth rate of Ukrainians sharply decreases, a religious person and a patriot cannot be idle onlookers of the extinction of the nation. Likewise, a citizen of Ukraine who loves his country should not be complacent about the degradation in society leading to the destruction of the Ukrainian nation,” summed up the Metropolitan.

We will remind, earlier, Metropolitan Luke spoke out against the LGBT march in Zaporizhia, calling for a ban on public demonstration of sin. In turn, LGBT rights defenders accused the hierarch of incitement to discrimination and sent an appeal to the Verkhovna Rada’s Human Rights Ombudsman with a request to assess the bishop’s statements, which “contain explicit hate speech”.

The UOJ also wrote that the priests of the Zaporizhia Diocese of the UOC sprinkled holy water on the square where the LGBT march took place.

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