16 February there was a discussion with the members of LGBT-organizations on Radio Rainbow. The cause for the theme of the program “Unedited and uncensored with Sergey Pedde” was the seminar, that was held with the help of Moscow Helsinki Group on the base of the LGBT Rights movement and was named “Homophobia and the Church”. The participants of the program were the coordinator of LGBT Rights movement Vjacheslav Revin, the ordained deacon of the Association of the Apostolic tradition Community and the director of the Saint-Petersburg LGBT-organization “Coming Out” Valerij Sozaev and also the ministry coordinator «Nuntiare et Recreare»
After many discussions within the program “Unedited…” the editorial staff made a decision that there is a need of periodic talk of LGBT activists with the representatives of the Church. This time they were talking about the history of the attitude of BC civilizations and early Christianity to the questions of one-sex love. Mister Sozaev and mister Revin clearly explained to the listeners a different version of the Old Testament, they pointed the reasons, motivations and consequences of the Church point of view and marked out the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church (the Moscow patriarchate) to the LGBT-groups.

Vjacheslav Revin underlined that often the official position of the church based on the selective quoting of the Bible and Holy Fathers so that the faithful are under the false impression of definite blame of homosexuality in the Holy Bible. Mister Revin analyzed the story about Sodom and Gomorrah in detail and pointed out that these two ancient towns were ruined not because of mass homosexuality of their citizens. According to Valerij Sozaev many thing are still controversial and need more detailed study. This concerns not only the questions of social-cultural context of the Bible, but also of the vocabulary of the holy books. Because of ambiguity and ambiguity of the interpretation there rises the feeling of homophobia of the Bible. The participants of the talk underlined that in the Testament there are no words of the Christ in which he could blame one-sex relationships.

Both guests of the show emphasized the need of the conversation between the LGBT-organizations and the Church to reach mutual understanding and tolerance. “The confrontation, opposition and mutual hostility of the LGBT and the Church leads only to the deplorable result”, - resumed both speakers of Sergius Pedde.

This was only the first step. In the joint plan of “Coming Out”, LGBT Rightsand Radio Rainbowthere is a awareness of need and wish to proceed such meetings in the air to give the listeners of the radio and readers of the “Coming Out” and LGBT Rights the opportunity to learn the point of view of the LGBT-organizations about communication with the Church. The recording of the show with Valerij Sozaev and Vjacheslav Revin you can listen on the site of Radio Rainbow

Sergius Pedde. Special for the LGBT-organization “Coming Out” and LGBT Rights

Translated by Lena Zheleznyak