Russian Patriarchate support Pope on condoms stance

The Russian Orthodox Church supports the position of Pope Benedict XVI rejecting condoms including in order to prevent HIV infection.

"It is incorrect to consider condoms as a panacea for AIDS," the deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin told a round table in Moscow on Friday, commenting on the international row concerned with the pope's statement in Africa.

AIDS can be prevented not by contraceptives but by education and a righteous life, the priest said.

"If a person lives a sinful, aimless and senseless life, uses drugs and is lewd, some disease will kill him one day, neither a condom nor medicine will save him," Fr. Vsevolod added.

Currently some organizations speaking on AIDS are seeking to simultaneously preserve the ideal of sexual freedom and the fight against AIDS, he said. It is impossible to reconcile these things, he said.