Romanian Orthodox Church to march for Christian family values
The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church decided on Thursday to organize a large march this spring in support of traditional, Christian family values. Romania Insider reports that “March for Life 2017: Help Mothers and Babies—They Depend on You” will take place on March 25, the day that new calendar Orthodox Churches celebrate the great feast of the Annunciation, when the Lord Jesus Christ was conceived in the womb of the Theotokos by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.
“Through this event, the values of the traditional Christian family will be declared in all dioceses of the Romanian Patriarchiate,” according to the Church’s statement.
The Church has decided now to organize a march as liberal factions in the country have long been aiming for an abandonment of moral values and are expected to soon organize a referendum to change the way family is defined by the Orthodox nation’s constitution. The next hearing in the ongoing case of a Romanian man who wants his “marriage” to an American man legally recognized is scheduled for late March.
Proposals towards this end have been repeatedly rejected by parliament. In 2015, Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church called upon the governing body to reject the third such proposal in recent years, noting that the Romanian Constitution (Art. 48) and the Civil Code (Art. 258) both understand marriage as between a man and a woman.
In 2016 the Coalition for Family collected three million signatures in support of a constitutional amendment to more strictly identify marriage as being only between one man and one woman—an initiative supported by the Romanian Orthodox Church.
The Synod also addressed the issue of children left behind by diaspora parents. “They suffer especially because of the lack of the physical and emotional presence of their parents,” the Synod declared, encouraging Romanians working abroad to take their children with them or to return home to their children.
Source: Pravoslavie.ru
