Pope Francis' recent endorsement of same-sex civil partnerships has led Roman Silantyev, the leader of the Orthodox Church’s World Russian People’s Council, to predict that a large number of Catholics will convert to Orthodox Christianity or Protestantism. He accounts this to the fact that the Orthodox Church "doesn't compromise" on its conservative values. It seems unlikely that large scale conversion will occur, but it also seems equally unlikely that the Pope's support of the LGBT community will lead to any change in the Orthodox Church's stance on same-sex partnerships, which they currently strongly condemn.
A current legal loophole allows same-sex marriages to be recognized by Russian authorities if the marriage was registered abroad. According to the Vedomosti daily newspaper, Putin has proposed draft amendments to Russia’s Family Code that forbid “immoral interpretations” of international treaties governing family affairs in order to close this loophole. A partner at a reputable law firm in Russia described the use of morality to determine what gets banned as legally “strange” to Vedomosti, yet this is wording is not at all surprising based on the government's past usage of rhetoric such as the preservation of "traditional values" when defending its actions. This wording also gives the government flexibility and power because morality is subjective, which means that any international ruling they claim to be immoral could be overruled in Russia.
