Our View: Tax gloat, a sad reminder of Archbishop’s boundless arrogance

THE PROVOCATIVE comments made by Archbishop Chrysostomos last week, after it was announced that the Church did not owe the Inland Revenue Department €170 million euros, were a sad reminder of his boundless arrogance. He sounded like a high-ranking, 18th century, cleric publicly announcing that the Church would carry on exploiting the privileges afforded to it by feudal society.
It was as if he was oblivious to the fact that he is living in a democratic society of the 21st century, in which all individuals and legal entities are supposedly equal before the law. And even though the Church has certain privileges safeguarded by the Cyprus constitution, we would not have expected the Archbishop to boast about them in the despicable way he did last week.
In effect he was advertising the fact that the Church would use its constitutional privilege not to pay any taxes on its many thousands of plots, like everyone else had to do. He told CyBC radio the following last week: “I state unequivocally that I will not pay a single euro, I do not recognise that I owe anything to the state and if you have the law, come and get it. That was my decision, it is final and nothing will ever change it.”
The Church had no intention to settle its tax debts because “the constitution protects us and these debts cannot be collected,” the Archbishop gloated. While the constitution does not exempt the Church from taxation on its assets, it includes a provision which prevents the state from collecting Church tax dues. The Inland Revenue Department cannot seize Church assets, for unpaid taxes, because the constitution stipulated that the written consent of the Chruch institution (monastery, bishopric etc) was necessary.
Chrysostomos felt so strong, that he even threatened to take the Inland Revenue Department to court seeking the return of money paid to it in the past by Church organisations that were unaware of the constitutional privilege. So when a few months ago the finance minister raised the issue of the Church’s tax debts, the Archbishop was not bluffing when he said he would not pay. The fact is the state does not have the power to make the Church pay its tax dues.
Of course, constitutional provisions are not written in stone; the constitution could be amended in a way that the Church would be deprived of this outrageously ridiculous privilege that is a throwback to feudalism. Whether the politicians, who enjoy a range of tax privileges themselves (non-taxable allowances that are factored into their pensions and duty-free cars) would vote through such an amendment is another matter.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.