ALLEGED pornographic material featuring a senior priest from Limassol and a young boy caught in sexual acts could be presented to the Holy Synod today.
The material has been handed to Paphos Bishop Chrysostomos, the locum tenens of the Archbishopric throne, who has promised to examine the evidence himself and, if he deemed it necessary, present it to the Holy Synod today.
The disturbing revelations were made by Greek daily Politis yesterday, which also claimed that the Limassol Metropolis had dismissed the photos as unauthentic and refused to carry out an investigation into the matter.
When contacted by the Cyprus Mail yesterday, Bishop Chrysostomos said he didn’t believe the material given to him was sufficient to incriminate the cleric in question and that he believed the photographs were montages. But he did say the photos would be given to experts for examination to determine whether they were real or whether they had been modified.
“I don’t think it is proper to discuss the matter further, without having sufficient proof,” said Bishop Chrysostomos.
The locum tenens said he would be discussing the matter today with Limassol bishop Athanasios, though not during the Holy Synod meeting.
“I will discuss the matter first with the Bishop of Limassol, who is directly concerned with this, and then if there really is an issue, we will certainly discuss it with the Holy Synod,” he concluded.
According to Politis, the suspicious photographs arrived at the daily paper last Friday, when they contacted the spokesman for the Limassol Metropolis, George Eliades.
From the word go, Eliades apparently doubted the credibility of the photos, saying they had been meddled with.
But Politis reasoned that the material had been put through a computer programme where detailed examinations proved that the photos were authentic and had not been interfered with.
In turn, Eliades asked the paper to delay publication of the specific article and was reluctant to submit the Limassol Metropolis’ position on the matter.
He later allegedly proposed the photos be examined in the special police lab; a proposal that was accepted by Politis. According to the paper, since then there has been no further contact.
On Saturday, Politis claims to have received a call from a well-known businessman in Limassol, Michalis Christodoulides, who requested a meeting with the paper’s journalists and said he was acting on behalf of the Bishop of Limassol.
When they met on Sunday, Christodoulides said that the Bishop of Limassol was willing to investigate and solve the case because he was seriously concerned over the matter; especially seeing that the priest in question regularly received confessions from underage children and teenagers.
It was then agreed that the paper delay the publication of the article for a week so that the Limassol Bishop could act quietly and without interruption.
But then, on Tuesday Christodoulides contacted Politis and told them that he would no longer be acting on behalf of the bishop, as the Limassol Metropolis had decided to make a complaint over the case to the police.
Limassol police yesterday denied any knowledge of the case, despite the fact that Politis claimed the CID department was in the process of investigating a case of “conspiracy, blackmail and presentation of photographs with the intent of extracting money” against the daily.
