The days following Christmas have been a good opportunity for Orthodox priests across Romania to encourage parishioners to back a campaign for a change to the constitution outlawing same-sex marriage. Dozens of people attending the cathedral in Timisoara, in western Romania, queued to sign the initiative, after their Bishop, or Metropolitan, encouraged them to do so during the Christmas mass. Priests in the Iasi region, while blessing people’s houses for the Epiphany Day used the occasion to ask them to back amendments to the fundamental law, according to media reports.

Clergy want to gather at least 500,000 signatures in order to organise a referendum proposing that the constitution describe marriage as a consensual relationship between a man and a woman alone. Currently, the constitutional article use only the words “between spouses” when referring to the marriage partners.

Church leader Patriarch Daniel said that Orthodox believers “must support the Church’s effort to protect the natural, traditional and universal family, and resist some new family models that consider the natural woman-man union only one model among others”. More than 85% of Romania’s population of 19.5 million belong to the Orthodox Church. Read more via Balkan Insight