Activists from a fundamentalists Russian Orthodox organization held a protest before the opening ceremony of an international gay and lesbian film festival in Moscow, the Ridus information agency reported on Thursday.
Members of the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers and the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods gathered at a Moscow movie theater on Thursday evening and kicked off their protest reciting the prayer “Lord, Save Thy People!”
In turn, gay rights activists attending the Side-by-Side film festival tried to hand out gay community badges to the protesters, but were rejected.
The protesters claimed that festival attendees were in the pay of exiled tycoon and bitter Kremlin foe Boris Berezovsky and charged that gays were trying to impose an “authoritarian society.”
"We were chanting ‘Perverts out of Russia!' and they: ‘This fascism will not stand,’" protest coordinator Yury Ageshchev said.
Police were on hand but did not intervene in the standoff.
"I think we won a major spiritual victory,” Ageshchev said.
The protesters said they would file a complaint with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who "allowed all this sodomy.”
“We, Orthodox people, will not remain silent,” he said.
The protest came as a shock to the foreign guests attending the festival, liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy reported. Swedish director Ella Lemhagen said that the event showed the difficult situation faced by the gay community in Russia.
Lemhagen also criticized laws banning "propaganda of homosexuality" among minors that have recently been adopted in some Russian regions, saying that such bans often lead to increased violence against gays.
