Bulgarian bishop Nikolay plans to award highest distinction of the Plovdiv Bishopric to Pazardzhik mayor Todor Popov and prosecutor Stefan Yanev for upholding a municipal ban on displaying one's sexual orientation.

Metropolitan bishop Nikolay, who is notorious in Bulgaria for his hardline Christian stance, praised the Pazardzhik officials for “honorably upholding of Christian values and defending Orthodox morality” and went on to muse on the unity of law, ethics, and religion.

“With his professional position, Prosecutor Yanev has shown that when looked at through the prism of common values, law and morality can be in harmony with each other, which harmony lies in the foundations of the Orthodox understanding of a legal order based on faith in Christ and the norms of public propriety and order confessed by Christians,” reads the official statement of the Plovdiv Bishopric.

Metropolitan Nikolay has thus effectively expressed his desire for formal legislation based on Christian scripture and dogma.

Prosecutor Yanev upheld the Pazardzhik municipal ordinance in an official decision filled with extensive deliberations on human sexuality, “natural law,” and “propriety”, and essentially determining that public display of one's sexual orientation constitutes “debauchery.”

Yanev's decision was fortunately overruled by the Supreme Administrative Prosecutor's Office in Sofia.

The Pazardzhik ban is manifestly seen as directed against gay persons and has provoked ire from rights organizations and glee among some in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

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