Officials with Orthodox churches in the United States have filed a lawsuit against a Washington state measure requiring priests to break the confessional seal after a similar lawsuit was filed on behalf of Catholic priests.
The Orthodox Church in America, the Antiochian Christian Archdiocese of America, the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas and the Western American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia as well as an individual Orthodox priest, are suing Washington’s Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson, the state’s Democratic Attorney General Nicholas Brown and every prosecuting attorney representing the counties in the state over the state’s newly passed law Senate Bill 5375.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington and comes less than three weeks after the Roman Catholic bishops who lead the three dioceses in the state filed a similar complaint over the measure.
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Approved by the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature and signed into law by Ferguson last month, Senate Bill 5375 amends Washington state law to require members of the clergy to report instances of suspected child abuse to law enforcement. The law singles out clergy as the one group that must report child abuse to law enforcement “solely as a result of privileged communication.”
The plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit have expressed concern that the law will force them to violate Orthodox Church teaching, forbidding priests from sharing information they learned during a confession.
The Orthodox Church in America’s Guidelines for Clergy states, “The secrecy of the Mystery of Penance, even under strong constraining influence, is considered an unquestionable rule in the entire Orthodox Church.”
“Betrayal of the secrecy of confession will lead to canonical punishment of the priest,” the guidelines assert.
The measure violates the plaintiffs’ rights under the Free Exercise, Free Speech and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Monday’s complaint alleges.
The lawsuit asks for an order declaring Senate Bill 5375 unconstitutional and enjoining its enforcement in addition to “an award of reasonable costs and expenses of this action, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.”
The new law is slated to take effect on July 27.
Examples of “privileged communications” not subject to the reporting requirements are communications between a client and an attorney and communications between a doctor and a patient.
Like Catholic clergy members, the lawsuit contends that Orthodox clergy members will risk going to jail or facing some other form of punishment rather than obey the new law requiring them to break the sacramental seal.
“St. Dimitri of Rostov (d. 1709) emphasized the importance of ensuring the absolute confidentiality of Confession. Priests ‘must die and be crowned with a martyr’s crown rather than unlock the seal of the confession,'” the filing reads.
“The Orthodox believe, in the words of St. Dimitri, that ‘it is better for the spiritual father to accept temporary death from people who kill his body but who cannot kill his soul than to be executed by God with a permanent death for the exposure.’ Down the centuries, countless priests have honored this counsel, submitting to torture and death rather than yield to demands from tyrannical kings, military dictators, and civil authorities,” the complaint added.
Members of the clergy are considered mandatory child abuse reporters in 28 states, with all but a handful including limited exceptions for those who are bound to confidentiality, according to the website Mandated Reporter Training.
The Washington law is backed by the Wisconsin-based progressive secular legal organization Freedom From Religion Foundation, which contends that the law “closes a longstanding and dangerous loophole that allowed clergy to withhold information about child abuse disclosed in confessional or pastoral settings.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
