REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has caused controversy by blaming the rise of Daesh—in part—on homosexuality. Daesh is an Arabic acronym name for ISIS.

In an interview published on the church’s official website, he claimed that people were flocking to join the group because of the “godless civilization” of the West which celebrates gay pride, quoted from Albawaba.com.

He lamented what he apparently considered to be persecution of so-called religious values in the West, before going on to offer that as an explanation as to why one may join a group like Daesh.

He even called Daesh militants “honest” people who joined the group on “truly religious grounds.”

“We can have parades for the sexual minorities - that is supported - but a million French Christian protesters defending family values are broken up by police,” he said.

He argued that because “godless civilization is reaching maturity,” it is little wonder that people opposed to secularism and liberalism are joining extremist groups.

“Look how they [the West] build the world – an unholy world - but we invite you to build God’s world…And they [Daesh] respond to that; it is for this they give their lives,” he added.

“You become a fighter for the Caliphate. So what’s a Caliphate?,” he said. “It is a society centered around faith and God where people follow religious laws.”

This is not his first attack on the LGBT+ community, with comments in August 2013 on the topic of gay marriage causing controversy too.

“This is a very dangerous apocalyptic symptom, and we must do everything in our powers to ensure that sin is never sanctioned in Russia by state law, because that would mean that the nation has embarked on a path of self-destruction,” he said.

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