The first civic wedding of a lesbian couple took place in Greece on Friday, March 8, coinciding with International Women’s Day, after the country voted to legalize same-sex marriage.
Danai Deligeorges and Alexia Beziki tied the knot at the Athens City Hall in a ceremony conducted by the Mayor of Athens Haris Doukas and attended by dozens of friends and relatives. The room in a government building erupted in applause when the couple said their vows and hugged.
“Congratulations to this country,” the couple said.
Danai Deligeorges and Alexia Beziki are one of the first lesbian couples to wed in Greece after parliament passed a bill last month allowing same-sex couples to tie the knot, vindicating a decades-long LGBT campaign over marriage equality https://t.co/uzUVFr4kZP pic.twitter.com/BtXV7F7cxq
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 8, 2024
Lesbian couple in Greece overjoyed after wedding
“Now we’re able to confirm with a statement that: You know what? You weren’t doing all these things for nothing,” said Deligeorges before the ceremony, according to Reuters. “So, love wins.”
Deligeorges proposed to Beziki in 2022 when marriage for them was forbidden. Last month, Beziki gave birth, but under the law, Deligeorges was not recognized as a legal guardian.
The Feb. 15 parliament vote changed all that.
“It was a victory also for all the people who believe that all individuals should be seen for what they choose,” Beziki, a 43-year-old actress, told Reuters.
Many in the LGBT community believe the law does not go far enough. It does not allow LGBT couples to use assisted reproduction methods. Surrogate pregnancies will also not be extended to LGBT individuals.
Still, mayor Doukas said progress has been made. “It is our duty to safeguard that every citizen of Athens has the freedom and the right to live and love as they desire,” he told Reuters after the ceremony.
Beziki and Deligeorges were overjoyed. Deligeorges said she hadn’t felt this good since Greece’s surprise win at the European football championship in 2004. “We are finally seen,” said Beziki.
Greece approved a bill on same-sex marriage in a landmark reform promoted by the conservative government over the opposition of the country’s powerful Orthodox Church.
“The vote has passed: as of tonight, Greece is proud to become the 16th EU country to legislate marriage equality,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis posted on X. “This is a milestone for human rights, reflecting today’s Greece — a progressive, and democratic country, passionately committed to European values,” he added.
Mitsotakis, who personally spearheaded the bill, had urged lawmakers to “boldly abolish a serious inequality” in Greek democracy that had rendered same-sex families “invisible”.
Orthodox Church opposes same-sex marriage
Prior to the vote, the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, which heads Orthodox churches around the world, expressed its opposition to the same-sex marriage proposal.
“Marriage is the union of man and woman under Christ…and the church does not accept the cohabitation of its members in any form other than marriage,” the Ecumenical Patriarchate said.
It echoed a decision by the Holy Synod, the highest governing body of the Church of Greece.
The backlash from the Orthodox Church of Greece intensified earlier this week, with a regional bishopric imposing a religious ban on two local lawmakers who backed the reform.
Church authorities on the northwestern island of Corfu accused the two opposition lawmakers of committing “the deepest spiritual and moral error” in voting for the law, which was approved with cross-party support on Feb. 15.
Greece was the first Orthodox Christian country to legalize same-sex marriage.
Related: 1st Gay Couple Set for Marriage After Greece’s Historic Vote
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