A court in Aigio acquitted Metropolit of Aigialia and Kalavryta Amvrosios of hate speech and opened the Pandoras’s box with some media to describe the decision as “shame” and many Greeks in social media to speak of “impunity” and a “parody” of a trial. In his testimony at the court, Amvrosios not only he did not regret but he also said “if I had I gun and the law would allow me I would use it against them.”
He was sued by nine citizens, after he published a long statement in his blog in December 2015, in which he spew hate and poison against homosexuals describing them as perverts that others should “spit on them, they are no humans.” A months later, he was sued for public incitement to violence (hate speech) and abuse of ecclesiastical office for his homophobic diatribes.
Amvrosios was the first high-ranking official and church member to be brought to trial for hate speech.
In the court Amvrosios claimed with this phrase he metaphorically meant politicians for having voted in favor of the “civil partnership” and not homosexuals.
At the end of the 9-hour long court session nobody was indeed surprised that the prosecutor recommended that Amvrosios should not found guilty. He had accepted the clergyman’s claim that the article was allegedly against politicians and not homosexuals.
- “If I had a gun and the law would allow me I would use it against them.” Amnvrosios said this showing the picture of a young man dressed as priest during a Gay Pride Parade.
- “Gays are not God’s creations. Because God did not create perverts.”
- “Homosexuals are not God’s children. They can only be accepted if they repent.”
- “God is loathing of them.”
- “The law made by the state to recognize homosexuality is wrong in the law of God.”
