The Orthodox Church treats people with non-traditional orientation with pastoral responsibility, not driving them out of churches, but helping them to overcome their unnatural attraction, said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.
“We treat people with non-traditional sexual orientation with pastoral responsibility. We do not expel these people, we do not excommunicate them from the Church. They come to us for confession. We work with them, we help them overcome this attraction, if they really strive to overcome it,” His Eminence, Metropolitan Hilarion said during the Church and World program, according to the press service of the Synodal Department for Church’s Relations with Society and Mass Media.
However, as the archpastor emphasized, the Church will not follow the trends that are accepted today, for example, in psychological practice, when certain inclinations are declared not a reason to work on oneself, but simply one’s peculiarity that must be realized.
“We cannot agree with this in any way,” stressed Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk.
Answering those who declare that homosexuality is just a feature of some part of humanity, which also occurs in the wild, and therefore you just need to accept non-traditional orientation as one variant of the norm, the hierarch reminded that in human society it is correct to distinguish between one’s inclinations and one’s way of life.
“For example, we know that some people have or develop alcohol addiction. Moreover, we know that parents with a drinking problem sometimes have children who later, as adults, also begin to drink. Is it hereditary or acquired? Each person chooses his or her own way of life,” Metropolitan Hilarion pointed out.
In this regard, the metropolitan stated that if some people choose a lifestyle associated with same-sex relationships, this means that they consciously take a position that contradicts the teachings of the Church.