The Tsipras government officially responded on Friday to an earlier decision taken by the powerful Orthodox Church of Greece’s Holy Synod to exclude the issue of public sector salaries for its clergymen from any future dialogue on church-state relations.
An announcement by Greek PM Alexis Tsipras’ office said the government is preparing a draft bill based on a joint Nov. 6 announcement by the premier and Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos. The pair abruptly revealed that discussed the prospect of removing Orthodox clergymen from civil service rolls and, instead, providing the Church with an annual “subsidy” – cited at roughly 200 million euros.
In a strict reply to the Holy Synod decision, the Maximos Mansion said the salary regime for clergymen is the responsibility of the state, where the final decision lies.
The announcement added that the draft bill, based on the Nov. 6 statements by Tsipras and Ieronymos, is a historic step in “rationalizing relations between the church and state” in Greece. The government side said the legislative initiative will be released to a special committee established by the Holy Synod before being tabled in Parliament.
