The first surrogacy program in Russia was successfully implemented in 1995 at the IVF centre of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Institute in St. Petersburg.[26] Public opinion in general is surrogacy-friendly; recent cases of a famous singer and a well-known businesswoman who openly used services of gestational surrogates received positive news coverage. Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox Church has officially condemned surrogacy. As regards the baptism of the children born through surrogacy, the Russian Orthodox Church holds that a "child born with the assistance of “surrogate motherhood” can be Baptized according to the wishes of the party that will be raising it, if such are either its “biological parents” or its “surrogate mother,” only after they have recognized that, from the Christian point of view, such reproductive technology is morally reprehensible and have borne ecclesial repentance – regardless of whither they ignored the Church’s position consciously or unconsciously