A controversial Cypriot bishop said it is hypocritical to mourn the child victims of a serial killer given the country’s high abortion rate.
It comes just days after he was slammed for telling his congregation gay people exist because pregnant women have anal sex.
Neophytos Masouras of Morphou said mourning the two children and five women killed by the island’s first ever serial killer is showing ‘the country’s hypocrisy’ as long as abortions continue.
The case, involving the worst peace-time atrocities against women in Cyprus in memory, triggered outrage and horror on an island where serious crime is relatively rare, and forced the resignation of the justice minister and the police chief.
Neophytos Masouras of Morphou said mourning the two children and five women killed by the island’s first ever serial killer is showing ‘the country’s hypocrisy’ as long as abortions continue
Nicos Metaxas, 35, told a court in the capital Nicosia last month: ‘I have committed abhorrent crimes’ before confessing to kidnapping and murdering five women and two children between 2016 and 2018. He was handed seven life terms.
All of Metaxas’s victims were from overseas – hailing from Romania, the Philippines and Nepal. The two children, aged six and eight, were daughters of two of the women.
‘You had three abortions, your own babies, and now hypocrite, you criticise Nicolas,’ Neophytos said in a speech given on June 25.
Cyprus decriminalised abortion in 2018, allowing women to terminate a pregnancy at up to 12 weeks, or 19 weeks in the case of rape. It is thought around 9,000 illegal abortions were taking place each year before 2018.
The controversial cleric’s comments come as he was slammed after telling a congregation at a primary school in Akaki, Nicosia District, that sexuality is passed on when expectant women enjoy anal sex.
He said: ‘It happens during the parent’s intercourse or pregnancy.
‘It follows an abnormal sexual act between the parents. To be more clear, anal sex.
‘You had three abortions, your own babies, and now hypocrite, you criticise Nicolas,’ Neophytos said in a speech given on June 25
‘[Saint Porphyrios] says that when the woman likes that, a desire is born, and then the desire is passed on to the child.’
The comments came during a series of ‘spiritual meetings of dialogue’ that came to an end this month, Cypriot LGBTI rights group ACCEPT said.
The footage from June was posted on social media and went viral, with Accept LGBTI Cyprus posting: ‘How are lesbians created?’
Another social media user wrote: ‘So, father, if the woman does oral, will the child become a dentist?’
But one person added: ‘The problem is not this ignoramus, the tragic problem is that there are thousands who believe him.’
Cyprus decriminalised homosexuality in 1998 and has rolled back previous conservative attitudes to homosexuality.
It outlawed discriminating against gay people in 2004 and brought in civil unions in 2015.
However, LGBTQ + people are not allowed to serve in the army and same sex couples are not allowed to adopt.