By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer After Elton John announced last weekend that he and his male partner had fallen in love with, and wanted to a adopt, a 14-month old HIV positive child they met while touring the Ukraine, the Orthodox Church there called him a “sinner” and thanked God that the country’s laws would prevent him from adopting the child. John, who is 62, and his longtime partner, David Furnish, 47, met the child, named Lev, at a children's home while at an event supporting youngsters with HIV through his charity. While both men are above the age limit for adopting children in the Ukraine – 45 - John’s 2005 “civil union” with Furnish is not recognized as a marital union. “Elton John will not be able to adopt a Ukrainian child and if he files that request we will unfortunately deny it,” Yuriy Pavlenko, Ukraine’s Family, Youth and Sports Minister, told the Associated Press. “The law is the same for everybody: for a president, for a minister, for Elton John.” While there is some talk that Ukranian legislators might try to put through a bill that would relax the restrictions and allow the singer to adopt the boy, the Orthodox Church is unwavering in its opposition to such an adoption. "Thank God it's impossible under Ukrainian law for Elton John to adopt a child,”  Fr. Georgy Gulyaev of the  Diocese of Donetsk told London’s Daily Mail.   "The Church is strictly against same-sex marriages and the damage they cause. It's written in Holy Scriptures that homosexual marriage and relations is a sin. It is a sin, it is against nature, and it represents the dead end of human development. "People pretend to have good intentions, create semi-marriages and so-called families, and moreover they dare to adopt children. Unlike people who are blessed by God to create natural families, these are people who succumb to their passions. "This is definitely a sin, there is no other word for it, and the church will never agree that people who have created same-sex 'marriage' could also dare to adopt children. "This applies to all, including Elton John. He is a sinner." © All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com