The priest was speaking a fortnight after an instruction by the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education reaffirmed the Catholic Church's "profound respect" for homosexuals, but said Catholic seminaries should not admit students for ordination who "practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'".

He told Russia's Interfax newsagency Orthodox leaders were "astonished" at attempts by Protestant communities "to revise Biblical teachings", believing it reflected their "dependence on influence from secular currents devoid of all moral foundations".

"Homosexuals should be viewed as people suffering from a serious illness," said Fr Vyzhanov, who handles the Russian Church's ties with Catholics. "If laypeople are forbidden to engage in homosexual acts, so much more should priesthood candidates and Church people seek not political correctness, but a firm foundation for their faith in life."

The comments came as another Russian Orthodox leader repeated his call for a "Catholic-Orthodox Alliance" to negotiate with European institutions and other faiths on behalf of "traditional Christianity".

"The main themes would be social, ethical and bioethical questions and family policy," Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, the Church's representative to the European Union, told an inter-Church conference in Vienna. "But the group could also work out a code of behaviour for Catholics in predominantly Orthodox countries and for Orthodox in Catholic countries. In this way, it could contribute to overcoming the problem of proselytism."

Catholic-Orthodox ties have long been tense in Russia and Eastern Europe over Orthodox complaints of Catholic proselytism, as well as over the revival of Greek or Eastern Catholic churches, who combine the eastern liturgy with loyalty to Rome and are known pejoratively as "Uniates" by Orthodox leaders.

An International Commission for Catholic-Orthodox Theological Dialogue met again this week in Rome, five years after breaking down over the issue of "Uniatism" at its last session in Baltimore, in the United States.

Bishop Hilarion said he believed Catholic Bishops' Conferences should "unite their efforts" with Orthodox Churches to stem Europe's "rapid de-Christianisation" and prevent the continent from losing its "centuries-old Christian iden-tity".

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