AUCCRO Calls the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and PACE Delegation to Object to Legalization of Same-Sex Partnerships in Europe

KYIV — The head of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO), the person in charge of external relations of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, Bishop Markiian Trofymiak, on January 21, 2010, forwarded an address to the Ukrainian authorities with a request to take into account the position of the Ukrainian public, including the churches and religious organizations, which strongly objects the support by Ukraine at the international level and introduction in our country of any initiatives aimed at propagating homosexuality and attempts to legalize same sex relations, reports the Institute of Religious Freedom. RISU’s Ukrainian-language web site posted this story on January 21, 2010. 

By the instruction of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, the address was forwarded to Ukraine’s President Yushchenko, Prime Minster Tymoshenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs Petro Poroshenko, head of the Supreme Council of Ukraine V. Lytvyn, head of the Party of Regions faction V. Yanukovych, head of the Permanent Ukraine’s Delegation in PACE Ivan Popesku, and the rest of the Ukrainian deputies, members of the delegation.

The documents stress that according to the materials posted by the web site of PACE, the consideration of this issue is to include voting for the proposal to legalize same sex relationships, recognition their status of “families,” and granting same sex persons the right to parent children together and adopt children of each other.   

According to Bishop Trofymiak, if the draft resolution, which is to be considered by the January session of PACE, is passed, in the future Ukraine will be required to make alterations to its national laws in order to introduce in these amoral initiatives.   

“We earnestly stress that the Ukrainian public and believing citizens, which according to sociological polls constitute 90% of the Ukraine’s population, strongly object this proposal,” stress the addresses of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations.

The addresses remind that “all the 19 religious associations, members of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations representing the beliefs and worldview of the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian society, in May 2007, unanimously passed the Declaration “On the Negative View of the Phenomenon of Homosexuality and Attempts to Legalize So-Called Same-Sex Marriages (Registration of Same-Sex Partnerships).”

“The believers have no hatred or bias against persons with homosexual inclinations, but the religious people cannot put up with homosexuality, other amoral actions, and their propaganda as a phenomena of spiritual and social life,” stresses the Declaration of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations.  

In view of the above, the AUCCRO calls the leadership of the Ukrainian state, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and members of the permanent delegation of Ukraine in PACE to be object this proposal during the discussion of the question of legalization of same-sex partnerships in Europe not only at the current session of PACE, but also in the future, during voting for respective draft resolutions and recommends PACE to be “against” this initiative.

In his final summary, Markian Trofymiak expressed his conviction “that such a position of the Permanent Delegation of Ukraine in PACE, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and Ukraine’s Ambassador to the Council of Europe will indicate the high moral standards in our country and will protect the future of Ukraine from the self-will of dissipation, immorality, and destruction of the institution of family.”  

According to the Institute of Religious Freedom, similar individual addresses were sent to the Ukrainian authorities personally by the hierarchs of a number of Ukrainian churches, including Metropolitan Volodymyr, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, Mykhailo Panochko, the president of the All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of Christians of Evangelical Faith – Pentecostals, and Bishop Viacheslav Nesteruk, the head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Associations of Evangelical Christians – Baptists.