Russian Pentecostals fear doctrinal division over same-sex marriage
10-12-2025
Eastern Europe
William Immink, CNE.news
LGBT activists march toward the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy. Photo EPA, Massimo Percossi
Eastern Europe
Recently, prominent evangelicals in Russia warned church-goers about the Word of Life church and its leadership in Sweden.
Many Russian Christians believe that the church is giving in to progressive ideas of Western societies, as the head pastor Rune Borgso now seems to support same-sex marriage because his son got married to a man.
Leaders of the Russian and Armenian churches of the Word of Life movement have spoken out.
The conflict came to light through the critic Alexey Alexeev, a Pentecostal that publishes YouTube-videos “exposing” church leaders and Christian movements.
Whereas most of the time, Alexeev seems to be seeking likes and views, this time his video was spot on.
Showing Instagram posts, he warned Russian believers to stay away from pastor Rune Borgso, the Swedish Word of Life minister whose son got married to another man.
On his channels on YouTube and the Russian social media VKontakte, Bible Today, Alexeev spoke out against the Swedish leadership, but also against the Moscow Word of Life leader, bishop, Matts-Ola Ishoel.
“The Swedish church elite sank into sodomy”, the YouTuber states. “They have raised their kids as LGBT people and want to raise our kids the same way”, he warns.
LGBT values
According to Alexeev, pastor Rune Borgso, who speaks Russian well and has served in Russia since the 1990s and early 2000s and until recently visited the country often, is guilty of promoting LGBT values.
For example, he refers to a deleted Instagram post in which Borgso wrote “welcome to our family” to the husband of his son. According to Alexeev, this quote alone shows that the church leader is “unrepentant” and “promoting LGBT values”.
Many evangelicals and Pentecostals took the words of Alexeev with a grain of salt, until a renowned bishop from the Word of Life church hierarchy, the Armenian bishop Artur Simonyan, also spoke out against the international church leadership in Sweden.
According to the website of the Union of Russian Evangelical Christians, Simonyan called same-sex marriage “horrible and disgusting” and an “abomination before God.”
Bishop Simonyan expressed particular outrage about the fact that Borgso senior had publicly welcomed his new son-in-law into the family. “You cannot fondle sin and welcome it”, Simonyan stated, asserting that the Word of Life movement remains faithful to its doctrine and does not accept homosexual marriages.
Caucasus
In the article on cef.ru, the Armenian bishop assures believers that he took action to address the situation. He reported contacting church leaders in Sweden, including senior pastor Carl-Gustav Severin of the Word of Life church in Uppsala.
According to Simonyan, he received confirmation that Rune Borgso no longer holds an official serving role within the Swedish Word of Life organisation.
Another Word of Life pastor, David Petrosian from the southern Russian city Vladikavkaz, also stated he did not agree with the fact that the church leadership tried to keep the same-sex wedding silent.
Petrosian calls the situation a “scandal” and says it is not okay that pastor Borgso publicly rejoiced about the fact his son married another man. The reaction of the Word of Life leadership should have been “stronger in condemnation and more decisively”, he states on Instagram.
The fact that both church leaders, Simonyan and Petrosian, are from Caucasus Muslim majority regions is no coincidence, says one believer in a reaction to the YouTube video that Alexey Alexeev published. “Of course, this [situation] causes conflict, especially among the Caucasian pastors, but no one else dares to go into direct confrontation.”
The person comments that “it is necessary to shed light on these disgusting acts and the double, hypocritical standards of these so-called ‘servants of God’.”
Outside Pressure
Armenian bishop Simonyan states that believers must understand that the church leadership in Sweden is under pressure for its adherence to the traditional Biblical view of marriage. He says that there is a big external push to bless the same-sex union.
No leader from the Word of Life church has blessed a same-sex union, the Armenian bishop assures, even Carl-Gustav Severin, who still states he “stands for the fact that marriage is a union between one man and one woman”.
To put an end to any rumours, bishop Simonyan said that if the Word of Life movement ever changed its position and should begin to recognise same-sex unions, he would be the first to leave the movement.
He also directed followers to an official statement from the Swedish Word of Life church, which confirms that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman.
In this statement, it says that “any other interpretations of marriage that contradict this clear Biblical model cannot be approved in the teaching and practice of Word of Life churches”.
Futhermore, the church leadership urged believers “not to support questionable information that sows discord” saying that some commentators and critics “distort the position of Word of Life churches”.
The Word of Life movement, founded by Swedish church ministers, has a significant international presence, with influential churches across the post-Soviet space, Scandinavia, and beyond. The developing story is closely watched by many international church movements.
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