Today, Monday, December 13, 2021, the Permanent Holy Synod of the Church of Greece of the 165th Synodal Period met, under the Presidency of His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Mr. Ieronymos. The historic visit of the Prime Minister Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis took place in an excellent atmosphere of cooperation, accompanied by the Minister of Education and Religions Mr. Niki Kerameos and the Deputy Minister under the Prime Minister and Government Spokesman Mr. Ioannis Economou.
After his address, His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Mr. Ieronymos presented to the Prime Minister the Commemorative Medal of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, the cutting of which he decided to commemorate the two hundred years since the beginning of the Greek Revolution.
A joint statement of the Prime Minister and His Beatitude was the need to show special attention and persistence in the general effort for universal vaccination of the population, especially in areas where there is low vaccination coverage. The importance of faithful adherence to prevention and protection measures against coronavirus was also recognized. The State and the Church of Greece, always in the context of their distinct roles and responsibilities, face not only the pandemic, but also those who instrumentalize it, seeking or even inciting tensions in the relations between the State and the Church.
Ecclesiastical property and legal framework for clergy set by Archbishop to Prime Minister
His Beatitude thanked the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education and Religions for the sincere cooperation in the direction of solving chronic problems, while he made special reference to the great reform of ecclesiastical education. He raised the main issues on the one hand the utilization of the church property in order to support the charitable work and the contribution to the national effort of recovery, on the other hand of the legislative rationalization and updating of the framework of 1945, which concerns the Clergy in our country. His Beatitude stressed that this does not entail any additional recruitment, apart from the regular and annually scheduled ones, of any form of permanence, and therefore no additional budgetary burden. The above issues have occupied the Church of Greece for a long time and obviously can not be resolved in a meeting, but must be the subject of a thorough and realistic study.
The Prime Minister warmly thanked His Beatitude for the very honorable invitation to attend the work of the Permanent Holy Synod, gave an account of the important changes promoted by the current Government so far to solve problems that plagued the Church for many years and congratulated the Permanent Holy for the Church’s support in dealing with the pandemic. Finally, he reiterated his intention to start a dialogue on the above-mentioned issues, focusing on social cohesion, fiscal discipline and transparency.
The Minister of Education and Religions referred to the confirmation of the relations of trust between the State and the Church and thanked the Permanent Holy Synod for the fruitful cooperation.
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