Tartu, Estonia - The Russian Federation's leading specialist on sex issues has denounced the Russian Orthodox Church for conducting what he says is "a crusade against sex" and thereby contributing to the rise of sexually transmitted diseases in that country, an attack that has brought a sharp rejoinder from the Patriarchate.
In an article published in the Urals edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda last week, Igor Kon said that the church's effort to suppress sex is having the most negative consequences, which include rapid increases in the number of sexually transmitted disease like HIV/AIDS and syphilis.
"In Russia, there is a crusade against sex," Kon said, with "the church attacking from all sides and against all positions." But he warned that while "one must not eliminate sex, one can destroy culture." And that, he suggested, is precisely what the Russian Orthodox Church is doing.
This is not the first time Kon, who has written numerous books and articles about sex over a distinguished career of more than 30 years, has lashed out at prevailing orthodoxies on sexual questions. At the end of Soviet times, for example, he achieved national prominence for his role in questioning the sexual Puritanism of the Communist Party.
Then and in the Russian Federation more recently, he has been an outspoken advocate not only a more open approach to sexual issues of virtually all kinds but also of expanded efforts to combat sexually transmitted diseases.
Clearly his decision to criticize the Russian Orthodox Church in such harsh terms reflects both his longstanding views and his concern, one shared by others as well, that the Patriarchate has acquired unprecedented influence and power in the Russian Federation of Vladimir Putin.
But in attacking the church, Kon clearly touched a very raw nerve. And spokesmen for the Patriarchate quickly fired back, harshly criticizing Kon for what they said was his fundamental ignorance of the church's teaching on human sexuality and also for being out of step with the attitudes and values of contemporary Russian society.
Boris Kosinskiy, the press secretary for the Orthodox Church's Yekaterinburg and Verkhotursk eparchate, responded first. He said that it is important for the church to promote sexual restraint among young Russians in the same way that U.S. institutions, which have far greater resources at their disposal now do as well.
He said, "The theme of sexual culture is all very well for professors," but he noted that they must take care in what they say and how they say it because "experience shows that such lectures (can) generate among young people an outbreak of sexual crimes and abortions."
Meanwhile, Aleksandr Makarov, a representative of the Patriarchate's External Relations Department, told Interfax on Wednesday that the church does in fact "try to prevent such forms of sexuality as homosexuality, bestiality, incest, and other perversions." Its position on these things, he continued, understandably causes their advocates to protest.
But Makarov continued, the church has a moral and indeed patriotic duty to take the stand because "there are many examples in world history where the legalization of sexual debauchery quickly lead entire peoples to their graves."
Rejecting Kon's suggestion that the church is against legitimate human sexuality, Makarov made what he clearly must believe is an unanswerable argument: Statistics show, he said, that "the families of Orthodox priests on average have more children than do the families of sexologists or sexual pathologists."