Patriarch Kirill sent a letter to Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin with a proposal to hold a public discussion of the bill to ban LGBTQ people. In his address, the patriarch stressed that he supports such toughening in every possible way and is ready to involve the church in it.

“It seems that the toughening of the law on ‘homosexual propaganda’ (pardon the ‘-ism’) has been decided to be turned into a nationwide Orthodox reality show starring Patriarch Kirill and offended believers,” says journalist and LGBT activist Renat Davletgildeev. - What does this tell us? The fact that the current version of the law is likely to be adopted. The prefix “18+” will disappear from the text, and any conversation about LGBTQ will be finally taken into the gray zone. Legislators and homophobic patriots who sympathize with them will hide behind the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, tradition, faith and other Peters and Fevronies. The countdown has started."

This is not the only new initiative of the Russian Orthodox Church. Also, the Russian Orthodox Church prepared a draft prohibiting the exorcism of demons for money, the document was developed for three years. The draft notes that "exorcism is used only in cases of demonic possession." Conducting exorcist rites in case of mental disorders and diseases is prohibited, the project says, performing rites on simulators is unacceptable, as well as taking a fee for the rite.

“The performer of the rank of exorcism can only be a bishop or a priest who has received the blessing of the ruling bishop for this,” the document says. The Church expects a high spiritual life from the performer of an exorcism. Neither the exorcist nor his hierarchs (abbot of the monastery, etc.) should expect bribes for performing the rite. The performer of the rite of exorcism must have sufficient spiritual experience and awareness in order to identify persons who really need it.

There are actually a lot of announcements on the net about Orthodox rites of exorcism. Some offer not only the release of those possessed by unclean spirits, the expulsion of demons from the premises, but also "the solution of problems in business, judicial and administrative matters." Exorcism in Russian Orthodox practice is most often called a “reprimand” and is defined as a special church rite in which incantatory prayers are pronounced “with the aim of expelling evil spirits from a possessed person,” writes the BBC Russian Service.