From nationalism – to homosexualism

Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. (James 1:8)

Over the last 15 years political elites of Europe have finally set a course for revising the notion of family and marriage at the legislative level. Since 2001 most Western European states have been adopting laws that enshrine “semi-sex unions” and even the rights of “homosexual couples” to foster children who’ve been expropriated from heterosexual families.  

One can affirm a tendency towards advancing such laws looks truly bulldozing. Dispersing of protestors against legalization of “same-sex marriages” in France, turning a blind eye to large-scale demonstrations in Italy, conscious  funding of LGBT-communities by American GOs and NGOs etc. Apart from that, there has gained popularity “political intimidation”, forcing the Eastern Europe countries to adopt the regulations of such kind.

If you want a “visa-free regime” – organize “gay-parades” or take an action plan, recognizing transsexuals, “same-sex cohabitations” (for a start) and other “delights”. In Ukraine this process is in full swing. Although the President personally assured representatives of the Ukrainian denominations that such laws will not be approved, it’s hard to believe his promise.

The tendency, undermining valuable social benchmarks, has also affected religious institutions of the world. The most liberal Western Protestant denominations have made it legitimate to have homosexual episcopate and even so called “gay-weddings”, among them – the Scottish Church and the Episcopal Church in the USA.

All Christian confessions in Ukraine have condemned the initiatives like that. However, some of them have yielded to the pressure of secular-liberal ideology. On the eve of holding a notorious “gay-parade” in Kiev, former chief of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic – Liubomir Guzar – gave a fairly ambiguous assessment of “homosexualism” phenomenon: “There is a fact which is not to be denied and SHOULDN’T BE DENIED, that is, there is a certain amount of people who, according to various reasons, and let’s finally admit it – BY THE WILL OF GOD – are prone to such sexual orientation. It is a fact”.     

The above statements are surprising. Recently, when giving his comments on the initiatives of the Ukrainian politicians regarding legalization of “gay-marriages”, Liubomir Guzar  said, “As for same-sex marriages, this is just abnormal. God created a man and a woman who are supposed to get married. There can’t be homosexual marriages,” he underscored. “In Western Europe and Northern America they allow for such liberalism. It resulted, as it can be seen, in belittling the morality and fundamentals of our life. This is wrong. They (representatives of sexual minorities ed.) cause much ado, organize different events, processions, as if they were the elite”.

In less than a year Guzar began to express his viewpoint in a more composed and less categorical way. Anyway, he has changed his position not for the first time. Let’s compare two of his reflections over the last years.

June 2013: “Nationalism cannot be a Christian virtue, since it is imperfect, makes a person restricted and self-centered”.   

November 2013: “Basically, the word “nationalism” indicates a positive sign of a human – love for the nation”, “it is good to be a nationalist. A lot of peoples across the globe, irrespective of the level of their culture, are proud of their nationalism”.  

One could argue that Liubomir Guzar meant something else, something different and so on. In this case he’d rather have given his opinions more clearly. “Patriotic” denominations, like the Greek-Catholic Church of Ukraine, have been evidently entrapped. On the one hand, they unquestionably lobby a course towards “eurointegration”, on the other – they are unable to abandon an entrenched Christian conservatism. There is an opinion that sooner or later they will have to “work off” the support of the state authorities, thus being hostages of the “eurointegration” course.    

Eventually, the whole Ukrainian society is going to be confronted with this dilemma: a well-situated and wealthy life or unshakeable God’s laws and Christian values. The temptation is very powerful so many will fall. We will all have to defend our values in the conditions of the liberal-secular pressure, and, to some extent, it’ll be akin to a great deed. What we must begin with is to purify our minds, because “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways”.

Read also

The Pope’s visit, Maidans and the “break from Moscow”: winners and losers

Yelensky admitted that John Paul II’s visit was a step “away from Moscow” and was linked to the two Maidans. Let us look at what the UGCC gained from it – and where it brought the rest of Ukraine.

Kokhanovska's excommunication: What the Odesa decree left unsaid

A conflict has arisen in the UOC over a decree issued by the Metropolitan of Odesa barring human rights activist Viktoria Kokhanovska from Holy Communion.

The burning Lavra: Why a Christian cannot be part of a war of hatred

The burning roof of the Dormition Cathedral is an image of our age.

The Lavra strike: a wound, a weapon, or a warning?

After the strike on the Dormition Cathedral, some spoke of barbarism, others of “deserved” retribution, and still others of the UOC joining the OCU. Yet almost no one spoke about what matters most. So what is it?

From pride to the altar: how the LGBT agenda enters church consciousness

In Europe, it is currently the season of gay pride parades. Some church structures are also rushing to express their solidarity. How does this affect church consciousness?

Chronicle of the reprisal against UOC clergy

A documented summary of known cases of detention, forced mobilization, and dispatch of UOC clergymen to military units – and why this is precisely a reprisal.