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Published by the Financial
Times, March 14, 2005
Israeli ruling
leaves Greek church in a spin |
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By
Harvey Morris
In the latest twist in an
episode that has rocked the Greek Orthodox Church
of Jerusalem to its 16-centuries-old foundations,
an Israeli court has ruled that the 2001 election
of its patriarch, Irineos I, was illegal.
The case has exposed a bizarre tale of intrigue
involving a fugitive drug dealer, missing millions
from church coffers and an alleged assassination
plot against the patriarch by a priestly rival
that has left the Greek-born hierarchy and its
Palestinian laity reeling.
Coupled with allegations of illicit land deals and
sexual misconduct within the priesthood, the
crisis has prompted a senior churchman to warn of
a potential split in the Holy Land's richest
Christian institution. The Greek patriarchate is
Israel's biggest landowner apart from the
government, owning prime areas of Jerusalem real
estate that include the site of the Israeli
parliament.
The crisis has involved Israel's cabinet and the
Greek government. The latter this month dispatched
Panayiotis Skandalakis, deputy foreign minister,
for emergency talks.
The ruling this month against the Patriarch
Irineos by Israel's Jerusalem district court
related to his election by a 17-member church
synod to replace the late Diodoros I. Irineos won
seven votes against five each for his rival
archbishops, Corneleos and Timotheos.
A senior Palestinian-Israeli layman who brought
the case against Irineos alleged his election was
illegal because it was won with the help of known
criminals dispatched from Greece, including
Apostolos Vavilis; a convicted drug smuggler who
traveled to Jerusalem in 2001 when already on
Interpol's wanted list. He has since disappeared.
Mr Vavilis has been named in Greek investigations
as an associate of Archbishop
Christodoulos, head of the Church of Greece, who
faces a crisis of his own after
publicly apologising last month in the face of
allegations priests had been
involved in trial-fixing, smuggling and illicit
sexual escapades.
The choice of the 65-year-old Irineos was
immediately divisive. The Israeli
government, which along with Jordan and the
Palestinian Authority must endorse
the election, refused to recognise a patriarch it
saw as close to the late Yassir Arafat.
Greek and Palestinian prosecutors began
investigating allegations that Timotheos offered a Palestinian hitman $250m ( £130m) to
assassinate Irineos. A "confession" by the
would-be killer was found to be a malicious
attempt to discredit the patriarch's electoral
rival.
While the patriarch awaited Israeli recognition,
belatedly granted last year by the cabinet of
Ariel Sharon, prime minister, he entrusted church
finances to Nicolaos Papadimas, the patriarchate's
financial manager. Mr Papadimas has disappeared
with his Israeli wife since an indictment was
issued against them relating to between $1m and
$6m ($1.3m, £700,000 and $8.1m, £4.2m) missing
from church accounts.
The patriarch's problems did not end when Mr
Sharon reversed his opposition to Irineos. The
prime minister's rightwing opponents claimed the
endorsement was a payoff for Irineos's role in the
so-called "Greek island affair" in which it was
alleged Mr Sharon corruptly supported a resort
project in Greece by a leading Israeli developer.
Menachem Mazuz, Israeli attorney-general, last
year decided not to proceed with an indictment
against Mr Sharon. Oday Bajali, a Greek Orthodox
Israeli Arab who has closely monitored
developments, said no evidence had been produced
to link Irineos to the Greek island affair.
Patriarch Irineos contests the Jerusalem court
decision with an appeal drafted by Gilead Sher,
one of Israel's most prominent lawyers. Pending
the appeal, he remains in office despite the lower
court's order that Archbishop Corneleos, as locum
tenens or placeholder, must hold new elections.
The Irineos camp called on Corneleos to drop his
locum tenens role, but the patriarch's rival in
the 2001 election has told church members that he
will not do so.
At the roots of the crisis are tensions between
the Greek hierarchy and a Palestinian laity that
accuses it of leasing church land to the Israeli
government and developers at artificially low
prices.
In the Israeli-Arab town of Nazareth, where locals
have been fighting a plan to lease 100 acres of
church land to an Israeli developer, there have
been accusations of homosexual affairs within the
priesthood that echo the scandal in Greece.
Mr Bajali said the affair had little to do with
Greek-Palestinian rivalries or with the
allegations of homosexuality. "If it's a choice
between corrupt and homosexual priests, better the
homosexuals. In any case, the Palestinians aren't
capable of taking over if the Greeks left. We'd
just have to shut down the church."
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