Ukraine Religious Leader Who Blamed Same Sex Marriage For Coronavirus Tests COVID-19 Positive

Irony seems to have played a cruel game with people who have either denied the existence of coronavirus or blamed it on some community who they did not approve of.

The most recent addition to that list is of a church leader who blamed the emergence of coronavirus on same-sex marriages - he has tested positive for COVID-19. 91-year-old Patriarch Filaret is in the hospital after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 during a routine testing.

According to the Ukrainian website 112.international he has also developed pneumonia.

AFP

A statement on Facebook confirmed the diagnosis, ¡®We inform that during planned testing, His Holiness Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv and All Rus-Ukraine tested positive for Covid 19. Now His Holiness Bishop is undergoing treatment at a hospital¡¯.

Filaret is the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv, hence is one of the country¡¯s most prominent religious figures with about 15 million followers.

He received heavy criticism from LGBT groups for his comments about coronavirus back in March. Back then in a TV interview he said that the outbreak was "God¡¯s punishment for the sins of men, the sinfulness of humanity. First of all, I mean same-sex marriage."

Maria Guryeva, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International Ukraine at the time said, ¡°Such statements ¡­ are very harmful because they could lead to increased attacks, aggression, discrimination and acceptance of violence against certain groups.¡±

Also Read: Pakistani Cleric Blames COVID-19 Outbreak On Immodest Actions, Wrongdoings Of Women

Twitter/@apostrophe_ua

Metro UK reports, Kiev-based group Insight said it was taking legal action against him because his comments risked fueling hatred and discrimination.

A group spokeswoman told Reuters that they wanted an apology for disseminating false information from both the Patriarch and the TV channel that aired the interview.

This is not the first time a religious leader has blamed coronavirus on a community. In March, Shia scholar Hadi Al-Modarresi made a ridiculous claim that the Coronavirus outbreak in nothing but 'Allah's punishment against China'.

The 63-year-old cleric who is regarded as one of the most prominent Shia leaders in Iraq was quoted saying in a video, ¡°It is obvious that the spread of this virus is an act of Allah. How do we know this? The spread of the coronavirus began in China, an ancient and vast country, the population of which makes up one-seventh of humanity."

Iraqi Islamic Scholar Hadi Al-Modarresi, Prior to Being Infected with Coronavirus: The Virus Is a Divine Punishment against the Chinese pic.twitter.com/7NiQki6qBy

¡ª MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 9, 2020

The scholar went on make a racist claim that the "tyrannical authorities in China have laid siege to more than a million Muslims and placed them under house arrest."

"Allah sent a disease upon them and this disease laid siege to 40 million [Chinese people]. The same niqab that they mocked has been forced upon them, both men and women, by Allah, by means of the state authorities and officials.¡±

Ironically, the leader himself ended up testing positive for coronavirus.

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