Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All-Greece

Update (Nov. 17): Italian Mayors Order Crucifixes Put in Classrooms in Revolt against European Court Ruling. Polish president and Greek Orthodox Church also hit out at decision against crucifixes in classrooms (Source: LifeSiteNews.com)
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From the Zenit news service:

ATHENS, Greece, NOV. 16, 2009 — The leader of the Greek Orthodox Church is ready to convoke an extraordinary synod to strategize how to combat a European Court of Human Rights decision that ruled crucifixes in schools are a violation of rights.

“Majorities also have rights,” Ieronymos II said in a statement that L’Osservatore Romano reported today. Continue reading →

From Kathimerini:

The Church of Greece’s finances are in rude health, according to a report handed to Archbishop Ieronymos this week, which indicated that the church made more than 7 million euros profit in 2008.

According to the internal report, which was seen by Kathimerini, almost 20 million euros of revenue flowed into the church’s coffers last year, mostly from the renting out of church property. It also earned some 4.5 million euros from investments.

During 2008, the church spent almost 12.5 million euros. The biggest outlay, just over 4 million euros, was for sponsoring events. Almost 4 million was spent on salaries.

Last year, the robust state of the church’s finances also allowed it to buy 1.6 million shares in the National Bank, taking its stake in the lender up to 7.7 million shares.

From Kathimerini:

The Church of Greece is hoping that the government will take seriously the request it made this week for help in making best use of some of the thousands of properties it owns so it can fund a number of charity projects.

Sources told Kathimerini yesterday that the Church is hopeful that Public Works Minister Giorgos Souflias, who met with Archbishop Ieronymos on Wednesday, will respond favorably to the request. The Church wants the government to help it develop some of the properties in Athens, including one in the upmarket neighborhood of Kolonaki, as part of a plan to build rehabilitation centers for drug addicts, old people’s homes and care centers for cancer sufferers and autistic children.

After Wednesday’s meeting, Souflias acknowledged the archbishop’s “burning desire to make a contribution to society but which requires work and funds for which he has requested our support.”

(Ecumenical News International) — A group of Orthodox clergy in Greece, led by three senior archbishops, have published a manifesto pledging to resist all ecumenical ties with Roman Catholics and Protestants.

“The only way our communion with heretics can be restored is if they renounce their fallacy and repent,” the group said in a “Confession of Faith against Ecumenism” that they circulated recently.

“The Orthodox church is not merely the true church; she is the only church. She alone has remained faithful to the Gospel, the synods and the fathers, and consequently she alone represents the true catholic church of Christ,” says the document.

The signatories say they wish to preserve “irremovably and without alteration” the Orthodox faith that the Early Church had “demarcated and entrenched,” and to shun communication “with those who innovate on matters of the faith”.

The list of clerics backing the manifesto is said to include six metropolitans (Panteleimon of Antinoes, Seraphim of Kythira and Antikythira, Kosmas of Etolia and Akarnania, Seraphim of Piraeus, Jeremiah of Gortyno and Megalopolis, and Artemios of Raskas and Prizrenis, Kossovo and Metohia), as well as 49 archimandrites, 22 hieromonks, and 30 nuns and abbesses, as well as many other priests and church elders.

The signatories note that many Orthodox patriarchs and bishops have, “essentially placed themselves outside the church” by abandoning its “uniform, steady and unswerving stance,” and attempting to impose a “new dogma and ecclesiology” that all denominations formed part of the church. Continue reading →