Metropolitan Hilarion asks priests not to refuse Orthodox and Catholic in marriage

Hat tip: M.C. Moscow, February 4, Interfax – Head of the Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk reminds that the Russian Orthodox Church accepts mixed marriages between Christians of different confessions.

“Basic Social Conception” allows mixed marriages, but not all priests follow this recommendation, “Metropolitan Hilarion said on Thursday in Moscow session of the Christian Interconfessional Consultative
Committee of the CIS and Baltic countries.

He said he often had to deal with complaints from believers as priests refused them in marriages with representatives of other confessions.

“Such problem exists, when, on one side, there is an official position and, on the other side, it is not known in practice,” the Metropolitan said.

Head of the Catholic Archdiocese of the Holy Virgin in Moscow Archbishop Paolo Pezzi urged the  participants “to mutual search of ways to overcome spiritual crisis” and to jointly work out a pastor attitude to consolidating the notion of traditional family, which a monogamous family with many children.