site.btaHoly Synod Says Istanbul Convention Gives Rise to Concern about Future of European Christian Civilization

Sofia, January 22 (BTA) - The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate has issued an address to the Bulgarian public and institutions in connection with the procedure for the adoption and ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention, the Synod said in a press release on Monday.

The Convention "gives rise to concern about the future of European Christian civilization because it features a new understanding of man, man as an autocratic master, man without God who follows his passions to the degree to which he can even determine his gender," the address reads. "This notion widely opens the doors to moral disintegration, which inevitably leads to the mental and physical destruction of man, to the 'second death', which is spiritual," the Holy Synod argues.

"There is no reasonable person in Christ who does not approve of the fight against violence in general, and particularly violence against women," the document says further. "The ideas set down in the Convention related to gender communication, attitude to religion, traditions, customs, education and others, contradict the inherent understanding of the Bulgarian people of faith, nationality, morality, honour, integrity, upbringing and family. Although a legal act, the Convention also has spiritual dimensions - it is a means imposing a system of values that is alien to us in order to allow society to be ruled by a new model, relevant to the needs of a small portion of it," the address asserts.