THE Church does not intend to keep quiet about politics, Archbishop Chrysostomos II said yesterday following new criticisms over his alleged support for President Tassos Papadopoulos.
One newspaper reported yesterday that the Church hierarchy was angered that the new Archbishop was appearing in so many photographs with the President. It is the third time recently that the Archbishop has come under fire over his politics in the run-up to the presidential elections.
He allegedly had a run-in with Greece’s Mega channel, which ultimately denied the reports that Chrysostomos had tried to push the station to promote the policies of Papadopoulos ahead of next year’s elections.
The Church has a sizeable stake in Mega, previously known as Logos.
Yesterday, the Archbishop said that far from keeping quiet about politics it fully intended to express his opinions about the presidential candidates and the Cyprus problem because the political issue was the “epicentre of the elections”.
“The Church is interested in the national issue and because of this we will look at the programmes of all the candidates for the presidency and their statements and we will form our own opinions,” he told CyBC radio.
“The Church will not close its mouth and leave things to develop.”
Asked yesterday about the allegations of his interference in Mega, he said that under the contact with the Greek channel, the station must follow the Church’s politics and not the company’s own politics.
“It is unthinkable that the station created by the Church could oppose the Church’s positions,” he said.
Recently, the Archbishop dismissed as an outright lie the notion he was rooting for Papadopoulos following a story in Politis suggesting that the Archbishop was doing far more than just identify with President Papadopoulos. It claimed Chrysostomos had been tasked with saying things in public which the President espouses but does not dare say himself for fear of a backlash.
The Archbishop responded that he respected all of the candidates but was not afraid to speak his mind when necessary. While the official Church would refrain from supporting any of the candidates, he said, it reserved the right to support “a certain line, which will be the Church’s line”.
Meanwhile, Papadopoulos was asked on Sunday to comment on Turkish press reports saying he would have a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat at the end of this month. He did not deny that such a meeting might take place.
“I believe that what is important, is not the meeting itself, but rather the stance of those who will participate in the meeting as well as what will be discussed,” he said.
The two leaders were due to meet last month but Talat pulled out at the last minute blaming the government for the fact that an English football team had withdrawn from a friendly with a Turkish Cypriot team.
