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PRE-PUBLICATION. Archbishop Ieronymos, through his new book “Summary of ecclesiastical property”, reveals unknown details of the negotiations with Alexis Tsipras on State-Church relations. He claims that he was aware of the agreement and that Kyriakos Mitsotakis had given his consent.
By official order of the Holy Permanent Synod (PIC), which was fully informed, and not in secret and secret, as many hierarchs later affirmed, the negotiation of Archbishop Ieronymos with the then Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for the Church-State arrangement.
The hierarchs knew it, although in the end they frustrated the daring compromise of an agreement, which with the resolution of the ecclesiastical property issue could set in motion the autonomy process of the two institutions.
This is revealed by the publication of official synod practices in the archbishop’s new book “Summary of ecclesiastical property” (p. 127), excerpts of which have been pre-published today by “Ef.Syn”. The minutes leave no doubt about the full knowledge of the hierarchs about the content of the historic meeting of Archbishop Jerónimo II with former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the Palace of the Maxims, on the night of November 6, 2018, with the participation of two synodical delegates. Metropolitans of Ioannina Maximos and Patras Chrysostomou, spokesperson for the DIS at the time, as well as Bishop Salonon, director of the central ecclesiastical finance department.
Dialogues
In the last of the 7 chapters of the book entitled “The Last Effort”, the archbishop does not list only the minutes, which have a special value, nor only the dialogues that were discussed in the meeting with Al. Tsipras. He also reveals, through the presentation of the dialogues in the DIS that followed the day after the meeting at the Palace of the Maximum, his insistence on not getting into the “wheels of partisan controversies”, but also the fact that The Kyriakos Mitsotakis deal, then the official opposition leader, who was aware of the discussions and agreed, created reasonable expectations that the deal with Tsipras would go ahead.
“Thinking in these hours and days what obstacles could be created after the joint public announcement of the intention of the Agreement, I had been concerned about the following two questions: The first, if the case becomes the subject of partisan controversy. Fortunately, this did not happen and I was relieved when I heard Mr. Mitsotakis say last night that he welcomes New Democracy and will help, “says Mr. Ieronymos, adding,” So it looks like there will be cooperation on this issue. “Although some people may not like it, others are looking for something to win, but the problem is that we do not get into these wheels of controversy.”
The book, behind the detailed historical record of a subject such as ecclesiastical property, which contains the ideological controversies and the difficulties of separating the State from the Church, and in fact by an author who has been dealing with the subject for more than 50 years, also reveals the vision of the hierarchs themselves or of some of them, as well as Mr. Ieronymos towards the personality of Alexis Tsipras. This is what he writes in the preface to the last chapter about his acquaintances and discussions:
“We met the former prime minister through the blessed mayor of Levadia, Christos Paleologos. In the context of this acquaintance we met occasionally two or three times and of course our conversations concerned the general problems of our society and country.
After his election as Prime Minister of the country, he visited me ceremoniously and, among other things, raised the question, according to him, of the “rationalization” of Church-State relations. In fact, I remember his proposal “to the State to return to the Church the properties that it had granted since 1-1-1945 to take over the salary of the Clergy.” The thoughts and proposals of the Prime Minister convinced me that the respected and distinguished science professor, Mr. Nikos Alivizatos, with his collaborators, had done “a great job”.
“From the beginning to the end, the Prime Minister had an attitude of deep respect towards His Beatitude and towards us and towards the Church in general, an attitude that surprised me personally,” says the Metropolitan of Patras after meeting Alexis Tsipras. “I had not spoken to him or heard him negotiate with His Beatitude. He expressed his respect for the Archbishop and stressed that the Church and faith are integral elements of the identity of our People …
He began to talk about the issues concerning ecclesiastical property and said that he is in the mood to help so that pending debts and insolvencies – he used exactly these phrases – from the State to the Church are healed and so that we can move forward “, said the Metropolitan of Patras reporting. the Holy Permanent Synod.
