Wednesday September 8, 2010
Bulgarian Bishop Honors Mayor with Award for Banning Gay Pride Parade
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
SOFIA, September 8, 2010, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The mayor of the city of Pazarzhik, Todor Popov, and local lawyer Stefan Yanev have been awarded a prestigious award for their role in keeping a “gay pride” parade out of the city.
Bulgarian Orthodox Church Bishop Nikolay of the Plovdiv Diocese presented the pair with the highest order of the Plovdiv Bishopric, the “Holy Apostle Hermas” medal.
Last month, municipal authorities in Pazardzhik passed a bylaw banning displays of sexuality in public, a measure intended to preclude any possibility of a homosexual “pride parade” being held in the city.
The ordinance came about a month after such parade took place in the capital city of Sofia in June, which the Sophia News Agency said was attended by several hundred people.
A homosexual rights organization subsequently appealed the ordinance before the local Prosecutor’s Office. Prosecutor Yanev upheld the Pazardzhik municipal ordinance in an official decision, citing “natural law,” and “propriety,” and determining that public display of one’s sexual orientation constitutes “debauchery.”
Though Yanev’s decision was directed at any display of sexuality in public – “homosexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality, pedophilia, zoophilia, gerontophilia, necrophilia, and fetishism” – his decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Administrative Prosecutor’s Office in Sofia, which ruled that the ordinance was illegal and contrary to national and international legal norms.
Bishop Nikolay, who declared the Sofia Pride homosexual parade an “epitome of depravity and sin” praised Popov and Yanev for their contribution to “standing up for Christian values, defending Orthodox Christian morality and spirituality, the sanctity of marriage, family, and statehood.”
“There is something called public morality,” declared Bishop Nikolay upon bestowing the medals.
“Society is not obliged to watch how somebody is sticking into its eyes their own travesty, and to watch how somebody is destroying the souls of our children, and pours poison into the very idea about the sanctity of the bond between a man and a woman that forms a family. The task of the Orthodox Church assigned by our God Jesus Christ himself, is to protect the moral and ethical principles of scripture. The job of the church is to condemn the devil when he tries to destroy this holy order.”
The bishop reminded those present at the ceremony that in June the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church denounced the Sofia Pride homosexual parade.
“The Holy Synod is resisting decisively any public and shameful demonstration of sodomic sin that destroys the traditional foundations and values of the Bulgarian people and brings enticement into the views of our children and youth,” he said, commending Mayor Popov and Prosecutor Yanev as an example for Orthodox Christians.
The Supreme Administrative Prosecutor’s Office in Sofia may be contacted through:
Nikolay Markov, head of the Department of Public Relations
1040 Sofia, Vitosha #2
Phone: 011 359 9219 209
Fax: 011 359 9815 832
Email: [email protected]