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Bulgarian Bishop's Antigay Awards


Plovdiv Bishop Nikolay X390 (ON IMAGE) | ADVOCATE.COM

Plovdiv Bishop Nikolay (pictured) of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church on Monday awarded an antigay local mayor and prosecutor for defending "the sanctity of marriage, family, and statehood."

Sofia News Agency reports that Nikolay bestowed high honors to both men for their support of an ordinance that would ban displays of sexuality in public in the city of Pazardzhik, located about 70 miles southeast of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

"There is something called public morality," Nikolay said at the award ceremony. "The 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."

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Steven
    Date posted: 9/8/2010 10:59:09 AM
    Hometown: Orlando

    Comment:

    I agree with you and i don't dispute how rediculas he is but you can not put everyone in the same catagorie just because he is ignorant does not make everyone else the same we have to be above the bigatry thats thrown at us no matter what if we don't thats make us no better then they are .

  • Name: Darina
    Date posted: 9/8/2010 8:18:20 AM
    Hometown: Stara Zagora (Bulgaria)

    Comment:

    Come on, His So-Called-Eminence is just ridiculous to the sensible Bulgarians.

  • Name: Steven
    Date posted: 9/8/2010 8:04:01 AM
    Hometown: Orlando

    Comment:

    as a man of Bulgarian desent and a gay man and a Orthodox christian it can be difficult at times but you have to understand the culture and the Orthodox faith its not a faith of hate but like any religion you will find intolerent people and that includes bishops to but there are many that have a good heart but you have to understand the culture its very different than american culture and their centurys of difficulties and gays in Bulgaria ,Greece and all over the balkans love their faith and culture.

  • Name: Fred Stanley
    Date posted: 9/7/2010 11:40:07 PM
    Hometown: Palm Springs, CA

    Comment:

    Nikolay is a definite closet case!!!

  • Name: senlin
    Date posted: 9/7/2010 11:07:36 PM
    Hometown: baltimore

    Comment:

    I think it would also be helpful in things like this to discuss the context of the situation, rather than just yell at people. Like most of eastern Europe, Bulgaria is dealing with the aftermath of the USSR break-up, which includes 1) the religious upheaval that followed mandated atheism, and 2) tumbling population numbers. So you can bet traditional religious leaders in Bulgaria, as well as in the whole region, are extremely defensive about both protecting their unstable grasp on their religious authority and confronting their country's serious demographic problems. I think that's where a lot of reactionary homophobia comes from, and it would be wise to understand that.

  • Name: mike
    Date posted: 9/7/2010 10:41:43 PM
    Hometown: cincinnati

    Comment:

    Is Bulgaria in Africa?

  • Name: Mark
    Date posted: 9/7/2010 8:31:07 PM
    Hometown: WF

    Comment:

    Pedophilia is okay but not being born gay/lesbian? Could you imagine what would happen to this monster if he did this against black people? People like this persecute gays/lesbians because we let them. When will we learn to finally fight?

  • Name: Gurka von S.
    Date posted: 9/7/2010 5:57:52 PM
    Hometown: Europe

    Comment:

    Europe's Orthodox Christian Churches allow the lower clergy to marry and form a familiy, but higher up in the hierarchy the churchmen are supposed to be celibate. That many of them are gay is of course no big secret. I have heard people saying matter-of-factly that priest NN must have slept with the bishop in order to obtain a certain privilege they were talking about. No big surprises here, and demonstration of their Protection of the Christian Family is part of the game.

  • Name: Dana
    Date posted: 9/7/2010 3:39:09 PM
    Hometown: Leominster

    Comment:

    Awards should be given for terrorists like this?

  • Name: Jerry
    Date posted: 9/7/2010 3:24:48 PM
    Hometown: Los Angeles

    Comment:

    Whether Bulgarian, Greek, Russian or Serbian, the Eastern Orthodox Church has been officially homophobic and homohateful for so long that they've forgotten their own history. For several hundred years, up until the Middle Ages, same-sex unions were blessed by thr church. The texts-in different languages- have been re-discovered and published (see Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe- John Boswell).



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