Just over a majority of lawmakers — 176 of 300 — voted in favor of the measure, while 76 rejected it. Several dozen more were not present and two lawmakers abstained.
Greece is the first country with Orthodox Christianity as its official religion to recognize same-sex marriage. The law also permits same-sex couples to adopt children.
The country had for years already extended some rights to cohabiting same-sex couples such as employment benefits.
The Greek Constitution stipulates that “the prevailing religion in Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ.”
“The Orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging Our Lord Jesus Christ as its head, is inseparably united in doctrine with the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople,” the constitution says, “and with every other Church of Christ of the same doctrine, observing unwaveringly, as they do, the holy apostolic and synodal canons and sacred traditions.”
The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece had previously come out against the proposed legislation, saying in a statement last month that “the duality of the sexes and their complementarity are not social inventions but come from God.”
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