Scandal Ruptures Church-State Relation in Greece
A flurry of controversy surrounding the highest members of the Greek Orthodox Church has prompted the Mediterranean nation’s Prime Minister to call for a “total clean-up” of the church.
A flurry of controversy surrounding the highest members of the Greek Orthodox Church has prompted the Mediterranean nation’s Prime Minister to call for a “total clean-up” of the church.
"We hail every effort by the Church to proceed with an internal clean-up, a clean-up which is obligatory if the prestige of the church is to be maintained. That is why compromise must be ruled out, in favour of bold decisions," said Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, in a speech to the parliamentary group on Tuesday.
Karamanlis’ statements came days after Greece’s Orthodox Church suspended a senior bishop for “ethical” misconduct and embezzlement of parish funds.
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Metropolitan bishop Panteleimon of Attica, who was suspended for six months pending a church probe into the allegations, is one of dozens of clergy pressed with a wide array of charges. According to the Associated Faith Press, the allegations have been fueled by the “nightly broadcast on private television stations of alleged wiretaps of telephone conversations containing lurid financial and even sexual details.”
The allegations have also spread as far as the Greek Orthodox Church’s highest ranked member, Archbishop Christodoulos. Police are probing to see if he wrote a letter in 1996 appealing to a judge to support a request for a drug trafficker to be released from custody.
Meanwhile, a suspended priest who has been charged with antiquity smuggling and a major trial-fixing scandal has been arrested after being placed at flight risk. According to reports, the priest, archmandrite Ioakovos Giosakis, allegedly corrupted four law offices in several trial cases.
The church meanwhile proposed amendments to its legislation to simplify procedures required to prosecute members of the clergy. Furthermore, the reports have shown a growing interest in separating the Orthodox church – Greece’s official religion – from the state. Some 97 percent of the country’s nearly 11 million native-born residents follow the Greek-Orthodox tradition.
