Gay Armenians in Sweden can marry and be blessed in a church ceremony

There is a small but active Armenian community in Sweden.

Wikipedia: Swedish-Armenians are Armenians living in Sweden. The number of Armenians is around 8,000 and they come mainly from countries in the Middle East. Recently Sweden is seeing some influx from the Republic of Armenia as well. Most Swedish Armenians live in Stockholm, with a significant number in Uppsala.

Not only gay Armenians in Sweden can marry (gay marriage has been legal in Sweden from 1 May 2009), but those preferring church ceremonies can now be formally blessed in a church wedding as approved by the Church of Sweden.

Armenian online news outlets such as Tert.am and Capital business daily carry the news.

Sweden’s Lutheran Church Allows Gay Marriage

Tert.am

Sweden, already a pioneer in giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children, becomes one of the first countries in the world to allow gays to marry in a major Church, report AFP and Reuters news agencies.

Sweden's Lutheran Church decided Thursday to allow gay marriages in its places of worship, five months after they became legal.

The Church of Sweden, which was the state church until 2000, had backed the parliament's adoption of the gay marriage law, which took effect on May 1. But it deferred its synod's decision on church weddings until now.

The church said in a statement it would begin wedding same-sex couples on Nov. 1.

A church official said individual priests would still not be required to perform gay marriages. However, local churches would have to ensure that they could wed same-sex couples, if necessary bringing in an outside priest to perform the ceremony.

The country's smaller Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches said they were disappointed by the Lutherans' decision.

"It is with sadness that we learn about the decision by the synod of the Church of Sweden," Fredrik Emanuelson, a leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and Orthodox church senior official Misha Jaksic said in a joint statement.

"In our churches and communities, we will not unite homosexual couples since it is in complete contradiction with the tradition of the church and our vision of creation," they said.