By Charlie Charalambous
THE HOLY Synod will meet today to decide the future of two priests allegedly photographed leaving a Paphos brothel.
One of the two “will definitely be defrocked”, Archbishop Chrysostomos said yesterday.
The photos, apparently taken several weeks ago and broadcast by Antenna television last week, have caused severe embarrassment to the Church, which is currently investigating Bishop Chrysanthos of Limassol on allegations of fraud.
After an ID parade at the Archbishopric in Nicosia on Monday, the two priests were recognised as coming from the Limassol area.
One of the priests is the former priest of Ayios Tychonas, Father Papayiannis; he left the Church when he apparently eloped with a Romanian stripper over three weeks ago, abandoning his wife and four children to live abroad. He is thought to have since changed his mind and returned to Cyprus.
“As you know, the priest of Ayios Tychonas left his family behind to run off with some Romanian woman,” Bishop Chrysostomos of Paphos told reporters on Monday night.
According to church sources, the Ayios Tychonas priest “defrocked himself” when he took his unscheduled leave; all the Holy Synod now has to do is make the defrocking official when it meets today.
However, the case against the second priest in the photograph, identified as being from the village of Handria, is less clear cut, although Church sources say Archbishop Chrysostomos has been “convinced of his innocence”.
The Archbishop confirmed yesterday that the fate of the two priests would be decided today.
He said the Ayios Tychonas priest would be definitely defrocked.
“One will certainly be defrocked, and the second will be disciplined,” Archbishop Chrysostomos told reporters.
And he added that other charges had mounted against the Ayios Tychonas priest.
One witness, who works in a cabaret, phoned Antenna earlier this week claiming that the priest had approached him asking if he could supply him with women.
The Handria priest is thought likely to face a lesser punishment.
He telephoned Sigma TV earlier this week – from his mobile phone – to protest his innocence and claim that he was only outside the alleged Paphos brothel by chance, after accompanying the Ayios Tychonas priest, who is his relative.
“He (the Ayios Tychonas priest) said ‘let’s go to Paphos’, so I went along for the ride, and we found ourselves outside the building. He went into the building for a few minutes and then we left together,” the Handria priest told Sigma.
Father Papayiannis is thought to have been visiting his Romanian girlfriend.
Police have questioned three men on suspicion of pimping and using the apartment building as a brothel, where Romanian artistes are accommodated by a nearby cabaret.
The Holy Synod may also today consider the next step in the case of Bishop Chrysanthos, and whether an ecclesiastical court of 13 bishops should be convened to try him for alleged breaches of Church law and possibly have him defrocked.
As there are only eight Orthodox bishops in Cyprus – one of whom is Chrysanthos himself – others from Greece, Egypt and the Holy Land would have be called upon before the court can convene.
