ARCHBISHOP Chrysostomos II yesterday warned that the state would be faced with the wrath of the Church if the Interior Ministry did not accept a request for an upgrade of the construction co-efficient of Church land in Engomi to cover the cost of rural priests’ salaries.
“Priests help the Cypriot people and everyone is obliged to support priests. If they want to cut their salaries let them do it, and they will be faced with us at the Thermopylae,” the Archbishop said, referring to an ancient battle between the Greeks and the Persians.
The state has until now been paying the salaries of rural priests, based on a 1969 agreement between the Church and the state, which granted 16,000 donums of Church land to the government in return for the state payment of salaries for rural priests.
The agreement has cost the government millions over the years while its returns from the land have been minimal.
Neither have the title deeds for the land been transferred yet, mainly due to the fact that approximately 13,000 donums of the land is in the occupied north.
The 1969 agreement had been raised by the Archbishop under the Presidency of Tassos Papadopoulos when the Church expressed its willingness to grant the state the title deeds for the 16,000 donums.
The current administration, however, considers the matter politically sensitive and has raised the issue of stopping the priests’ salaries. According to Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis, it was actually the Archbishop who suggested to the state that the Church should cover the priests’ salaries.
“Following the initiative of the Archbishop we had a meeting and he voiced the suggestion that we could discuss returning the land to the state and the Church undertaking the payment of priests’ salaries. In this spirit, we cannot make hasty moves as certain problems may be created and I am referring to the church land in the occupied areas,” Sylikiotis said.
Archbishop Chrysostomos, however, insists that if the state stops covering the salaries of village priests, it must compensate the Church by raising the construction co-efficient of Church land in Engomi, thus enabling the Church to develop its land in the area.
“To secure this amount that the government has been paying priests in the countryside, I have to make use of some land. And I am making a proposition: the Church has land in Engomi, if you raise its construction co-efficient and then stop paying salaries. Thus, we can come into an agreement,” the Archbishop said yesterday.
Sylikiotis, however, clarified that the 1969 agreement and the construction co-efficient of Church land in Engomi are two separate matters, as the latter forms part of the dialogue on the final form of the Engomi Master Plan.
“These are matters that have to do with the discussion for the re-drafting of zones, which is an open and transparent procedure. It is not related to the salaries of priests or the transfer of land to the state,” Sylikiotis said.
