{"id":8263,"date":"2017-09-06T11:25:19","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T05:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=8263"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:25:19","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T05:40:19","slug":"claims-parishioners-were-screamed-at-by-anti-same-sex-marriage-priest-who-demanded-his-flock-all-vote-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/claims-parishioners-were-screamed-at-by-anti-same-sex-marriage-priest-who-demanded-his-flock-all-vote-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Claims parishioners were \u2018screamed at\u2019 by anti-same-sex marriage priest who demanded his flock all vote no"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>Benedict Brook\/Pahichan – A MELBOURNE priest has come under fire for demanding his flock vote no in the upcoming same-sex marriage survey and for allegedly saying gay people should be shot.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Parishioner Liz Tasiopoulos claimed the comments were made by the priest at a service she attended at a Greek Orthodox Church in south eastern Melbourne on Father\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

She told news.com.au the language used was especially hurtful as it came during a service which included a memorial for a woman who had committed suicide because she had struggled with her own sexuality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe priest was screaming at us [that same-sex marriage] was blasphemy. The comments were so hurtful I couldn\u2019t stop crying,\u201d Ms Tasiopoulos said.<\/p>\n

It is the second time in less than a month that a Greek Orthodox priest has been accused of advocating gay people should be shot. In the earlier incident, the priest apologised but said he couldn\u2019t remember the comments.<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/div>\n

The incident reportedly occurred at Clayton\u2019s Greek Orthodox Church in Melbourne<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Following the latest allegations, news.com.au has contacted the church in question multiple times and the Greek Orthodox Church\u2019s Archdiocese of Victoria and Tasmania but has not received a response.<\/p>\n

Some parishioners have taken to social media to defend the priest, claiming that in Greek he said \u201cmy mouth is my gun\u201d, however no one has disputed the priest became agitated when some people challenged him on his anti-same-sex marriage views. But Ms Tasiopoulos has told news.com.au she stands by her claims.<\/p>\n

She said she attended a service at the church in Clayton on Father\u2019s Day. The service came 40 days after the death of her friend. The passing of 40 days following the death of a loved one is observed in Orthodox culture.<\/p>\n

Rather than reflecting on her friend\u2019s life, however, Ms Tasiopoulos said the priest quickly used the service to attack same-sex marriage.<\/div>\n

\u201cHe pointed out everyone was to vote no,\u201d she wrote on the Greek Mums and Bubs Facebook page, a post which has since been reportedly been removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen one lady stood up and said, \u2018I\u2019ll vote yes.\u2019 The priest (said), \u2018shame on you\u2019. She walked out, and then we all did as the girl we were there for was gay,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we walked, the priest said that all gays should be shot. He was yelling at us all standing in the rain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so disgusted by all of this that I will never return [to] church again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Tasiopoulos said some gay people also walked out of the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cA young man was in tears. I tried to console him as he had only just had the courage to come out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him God loves you, we love you, ignore him, while the priest was screaming at us that it\u2019s blasphemy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t fathom this much hate on Father\u2019s Day as (the deceased woman\u2019s) father was having to listen 40 days after he laid his only daughter to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident comes just a few weeks after earlier claims that another Melbourne Orthodox priest had made comments in church about shooting gay people.<\/p>\n

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\"Father<\/div>\n

Father Eleftherios Tatsis, of Red Hill Greek Orthodox Church, has apologised following reports he said people who voted in favour of same-sex marriage should be shot. Picture: Andrew Batsch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Johnno George slammed Red Hill Greek Orthodox Church, on the Mornington Peninsula, in a post online.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went with an open heart to celebrate the Virgin Mary \u2014 instead I got a hate speech about anti gay marriage and how he would shoot dead anybody who was gay and wanted to be married with a gun he keeps in the back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy church completely let me down today,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may have your own view of gay marriage but to talk about shooting people dead because of their sexual orientation is absolutely disgusting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was made very clear to me I was not welcome in the house of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Father Eleftherios Tatsis, of Red Hill church, responded to\u00a0SBS Greek News\u00a0<\/a>about the comments. He apologised but claimed he did not remember saying the words.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I lost my temper and said something I shouldn\u2019t have, I apologise, I\u2019m only human,\u201d he was quoted as saying in Melbourne Greek community newspaper\u00a0Neos Cosmos<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n

However the article claimed Father Tatsis also said gay people were \u201cpitiful\u201d during the interview and compared them to spoiled fruit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy own granddaughter tells me \u2018they are people too\u2019 and yes they are, and I love them,\u201d\u00a0Neos Cosmos<\/i>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut say you have a hamper full of oranges and one of those is rotten, all the oranges are going to rot\u201d.<\/p>\n

The same-sex marriage postal survey is due to be sent out to eligible voters on September 12.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the\u00a0High Court began hearing a challenge against the legal basis of the survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Same-sex marriage advocates argue it is unconstitutional to allocate $122 million of government funds to the postal vote when it could be decided in parliament.<\/p>\n

Copy :\u00a0http:\/\/www.news.com.au<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benedict Brook\/Pahichan – A MELBOURNE priest has come under fire for demanding his flock vote no in the upcoming same-sex marriage survey and for allegedly saying gay people should be shot.<\/p>\n

Parishioner Liz Tasiopoulos claimed the comments were made by the priest at a service she attended at a Greek Orthodox Church in south eastern Melbourne on Father\u2019s Day.
\nShe told news.com.au the language used was especially hurtful as it came during a service which included a memorial for a woman who had committed suicide because she had struggled with her own …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":8264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[621,492,490],"tags":[588],"class_list":["post-8263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-opinion","category-slider","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8266,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8263\/revisions\/8266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}