By Charlie Charalambous
A GROUNDSWELL of protest is brewing among Church faithful claiming they are being prevented from seeing their “brainwashed” daughters confined to a convent outside Nicosia.
A number of parents who have young daughters at the Ayios Heiraklidios nunnery have appealed to the Holy Synod to allow them access to their loved ones.
Many are concerned about the high-handed way they have been treated, and have voiced real concern about their children’s apparent fervour for monastic life.
Limassol Bishop Athanasios has come under strong criticism for his “egoistical and indifferent” behaviour towards parents wanting to see their daughters.
During his time as Abbot of nearby Machairas, the nunnery came under the aegis of Athanasios, who is seen as the prime instigator of a new Orthodox fundamentalism sweeping the Church.
Ayios Heiraklidios was at the centre of a “hostage” controversy in December 1997, after it was claimed a bright Cyprus University graduate had been brainwashed by Athanasios and the convent’s mother superior.
In a desperate attempt to get 23-year-old Nectaria back home, her father — a Paphos priest — planned a daring kidnap bid outside the convent gates.
Although the abduction was successful, Nectaria returned to the convent where she remains today.
Her father. Papakyriacos Tryphonas, from Letymbou, Paphos, is one of the parents wanting his daughter to come home because he claims “Christian love does not thrive at Ayios Heiraklidios”.
Nectaria’s mother has fallen ill since the whole incident and is being treated at Nicosia’s general hospital, Tryphonas says.
Paphos district official Yiannakis Papantoniou has written to the mother superior of Ayios Heiraklidios, saying he wants his daughter home “to make absolutely sure she is mature enough to take on the burden of monastic life”.
He also said that neither the mother superior or Athanasios were “qualified to instill Christian love, which is evident in your arrogant behaviour towards me and my wife.”
In her reply, the mother superior has reportedly defended Athanasios, saying his interest in the girls was purely “spiritual”.
“The devil has something to do with this case because he is the enemy of love,” said the mother superior in her letter of reply to Papantoniou.
