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MOSCOW, July 6, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A high ranking bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC, also known as the Moscow Patriarchate) has declared that refusing to accept an experimental vaccine against COVID-19 constitutes a “sin” for which people must spend the rest of their lives repenting.

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, the titular Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and chairman of the Department of External Church Relations for the ROC made the statement as part of an interview with Russia 24, a state-run televised news channel in Russia. The metropolitan explained his position, stating that “the sin is to think about yourself but not to think about the other person,” implying a moral obligation of vaccinating against COVID-19 for the common good. “We must now think of others first,” the bishop added, without making any distinction between accepting vaccines which are developed in connection with abortion and those which are not throughout the interview.

The bishop stressed that individual members of the faithful “are responsible — each of us — not only for ourselves and not only for our loved ones, but also for all those who come into contact with us” when it comes to limiting the spread of the novel coronavirus. He went as far as to urge that “anything that contributes to the spread of the virus has to be temporarily suspended.”

The Russian government has recently begun implementing coercive measures on citizens to take their internally developed Sputnik V jab by ordering some employers to have over half of their staff vaccinated or face fines. In addition, Moscow authorities have demanded hospitality providers to only serve vaccinated individuals (or those who can prove they are otherwise immune), according to a report in The Telegraph.

The report details that in the wake of such impositions, some Russians hesitant to take the vaccine have been seeking falsified COVID vaccine documentation to bypass restrictions without having to submit themselves to the experimental jabs. Hilarion indicated disgust for the forging of COVID vaccine documents, declaring that “every person who forges a [vaccine] document, he becomes a potential killer of other people.” He advocated for such people to spend time “behind bars.”

Hilarion described “a lot of people” approaching him “who have lost their loved ones because of their carelessness, because of their negligence, because someone propagandized them, because they were confident in their own health … now they’re suffering from remorse.”

“All your life, you have to make up for the sin you committed,” Hilarion advised, adding his own suggestion that “the rule should be that if you don’t want to get vaccinated, stay home and don’t go out.”

In answer to a question from a viewer on the increasingly publicized harms of the newly developed COVID vaccines, Hilarion responded that he does not recognize any problems arising from the jabs, deeming so-called vaccine hesitancy “stupid.” “I think what we all need to do now is to put our private opinions aside and to listen to what the authorities say and what the medical authorities say,” he lectured.

Further praising the vaccine program, the bishop added that because of COVID vaccines, “the pandemic will end when we want it to end.” At the moment, “people are not being vaccinated fast enough,” according to Hilarion, but the crisis “is going to end … when people like you [the skeptical caller] stop being stubborn and get vaccinated.”

Metropolitan Hilarion does not speak for the entire ROC, and, in fact, the current leader of the ROC, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, intervened to stop the abbot of the prominent Valaam Monastery from mandating the monks there to receive the jab or face expulsion. Kirill’s deputy administrator, Bishop Savva of Zelenograd, issued a statement June 30 confirming that “[t]here can be no question of ‘eviction’ due to non-vaccination.” Despite his wish not to impose vaccination, Kirill did receive a COVID vaccine in March.

Beside disputes over the legitimacy of mandating vaccines, the ROC is currently reassessing its stance on in vitro fertilization (IVF), a method of childbearing separated from sexual intercourse and condemned by the Catholic Church.

The ROC issued a draft document suggesting that “given the significant development of reproductive technologies,” IVF may be an acceptable method of conceiving children “for spouses who are in childbearing age,” forwarding the document to the church’s dioceses for consideration of an exception to its now-negative determination on the procedure.

Based on the abortive nature of IVF, “the Orthodox point of view” as things stand is that “all kinds of extracorporeal fertilisation (IVF) involving the production, conservation, and purposeful destruction of ‘spare’ embryos” are “morally inadmissible.”

Opinion on any change of stance remains divided among the hierarchs of the ROC.