R.P.Ts. GIVES ASSURANCE THAT VACCINATION WILL NOT BECOME MANDATORY FOR ITS PRIESTS
Interfax-Religiia, 25 October 2021
The Russian Orthodox Church (RPTs) will not introduce compulsory vaccination for priests, the head of the synodal Department for Relations of Church with Society and News Media, Vladimir Legoida, reported.
"I do not think that the church will compel anybody. We stand for the free decision of the individual. Besides, some people have a medical reason against vaccination," Legoida said on Saturday on the "Soloviev LIVE" YouTube channel.
Earlier the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow patriarchate, Metropolitan Ilarion, spoke in favor of mandatory vaccination against the coronavirus for all priests, because they are in constant contact with a very large number of people. In his opinion there should be an exception made for those ministers of the church who have medical contraindications.
Legoida stressed that Metropolitan Ilarion
was expressing
his own personal opinion on the matter of inoculations for
priests, but as a
private individual he fully shares that opinion. "It's all quite
logical
there," he explained. (tr. by PDS, posted 25 October 2021)
METROPOLITAN ILARION CALLS FOR MANDATORY VACCINATION OF CLERGY
Interfax-Religiia, 25 October 2021
The head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow patriarchate, Metropolitan Ilarion, thinks that clergymen should be required to get vaccinated.
"I personally think that for clergymen, vaccination should be obligatory inasmuch as clergy are in constant contact with a very large number of people. Of course, there is an exception for those situations when there are some medical contraindications," the metropolitan said on air in the "The Church and the World" program on Rossiia24 television.
At the same time, he noted that in the Russian Orthodox Church, just as in the state as a whole, it is not usual to require clergy to undergo vaccination. (tr. by PDS, posted 25 October 2021)
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