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Ieronymos to avoid politics

Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

Archbishop Ieronymos is seen yesterday at Athens Cathedral where he led his first service since being appointed head of the Church of Greece. Ieronymos pledged not to interfere in in-party politics, clearly differentiating his stance from his predecessor Christodoulos.

Archbishop Ieronymos yesterday pledged to avoid interfering in politics, distancing himself from his predecessor Christodoulos, during his first service at Athens Cathedral.

The 70-year-old moderate reformist, who was officially enthroned as archbishop on Saturday, also praised Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios, who had frequently clashed with Christodoulos. Vartholomaios is “a man deeply rooted in tradition but who also understands the issues of our times,” Ieronymos said, calling for all Orthodox churches to rally around the Istanbul-based patriarchate. Reacting to the archbishop’s speech, Vartholomaios said he was “extremely moved” due to the occasional “misinterpretation” of his role.

But the new archbishop did promise to continue his predecessor’s efforts to open up the Church to young people, saying he would set up a youth council to advise him.

Ieronymos also pledged to cooperate with the state on fighting poverty, supporting disabled citizens and boosting the social integration of immigrants.

sirtaki

this is fun

from kathimerini

‘Your Christodoulos...’

By Nikos Konstandaras

Archbishop Christodoulos, blessed with great intellect and emotional intelligence, understood as few politicians and fewer clerics how to sense the pulse of the people, how to express their feelings and lead them where he wished. In his 10 years on the archbishop’s throne, he harvested the joys but also the bitterness that comes of a life in the public eye. With his unprecedented influence and popular support, he placed the Church at the center of public life, not flinching from an all-out clash with the government of Costas Simitis or with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He dreamed of seeing the Archbishopric evolve into a patriarchate. But he also saw people close to him get caught up in a scandal involving influence peddling between clerics and judges, in 2005, and he saw them pilloried on television. (And he learned that familiarity with the camera guarantees no immunity.)

Christodoulos was fully aware of the potency of the great machine of power that he commanded. But what gave him strength, what pushed him beyond the limits of his religious role, was not his position as a general but as a simple soldier. This was confirmed during his illness and with his death. The senior cleric gave way to the human being, and the human Christodoulos moved even his sternest critics. And he was moved by the simple, human love that the people showed him – a love unrelated to high office, to political influence, to dreams of leading the nation. This is the Christodoulos the crowds braved freezing temperatures to honor as he lay in state this week. They went for the man, not for the state funeral. But even such rituals have their unmistakable symbolic value: the dead archbishop, on the gun carriage, passed by the closed Parliament and the monument loved beyond all other by this nation – the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The tomb of the anonymous, the humble man, the only one who will not be forgotten.

funeral pictures. tributes but also mutterings about difficulties- patriarch etc..

Thousands flock to archbishop’s funeral

Petros Giannakouris/AP

The body of Archbishop Christodoulos is carried through central Athens, followed by senior clerics and politicians, at his funeral procession yesterday attended by thousands.

Thousands of Greeks filled the center of Athens yesterday to pay their last respects to Archbishop Christodoulos, who was given a state funeral following his death from cancer on Monday at the age of 69.

President Karolos Papoulias, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis as well as ministers, bishops and a 12-member delegation from the Vatican attended a requiem mass at Athens Cathedral, where the archbishop’s body had lain in state.

The mass was led by Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios, who flew to Athens from his base in Istanbul. “With his actions our brother enriched the Church of Greece... (his) death is a great loss for the Orthodox world,” said Vartholomaios, whose relations with Christodoulos had been strained due to a dispute over the management of certain Greek dioceses.

Petros Giannakouris/AP A group of Orthodox priests gather at the First Cemetery after the burial of Archbishop Christodoulos. Hundreds of clerics attended the funeral along with a delegation from the Vatican.

Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis also spoke about the archbishop, credited with opening up the Church to young people and mending ties with the Vatican.

“Today we bid farewell to an important Greek. We hope your work will find competent successors,” he said.

After the service a 21-gun salute boomed as Christodoulos’s open casket was carried through the city center to Athens’s First Cemetery. Hundreds of priests and a 900-soldier guard of honor escorted the gun carriage carrying the coffin, followed by thousands of Greeks of all ages. Mourners lining the streets cried out “immortal,” “martyr,” “farewell” as the coffin wound through Syntagma Square, past the site of the Temple of Zeus and on to the city’s historic cemetery.

Schools, courts and government offices remained closed as Christodoulos was granted honors normally accorded to heads of state. World political and religious leaders, including the Russian and US presidents, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain and Pope Benedict XVI sent messages of condolence.

The Holy Synod is to elect a new archbishop next Thursday. Contenders include Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki and Bishop Ieronymos of Thebes.

funeral today

Funeral for Greece's church head

Archbishop Christodoulos was a popular public figure in Greece

The funeral of the head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, is due to be held in the capital, Athens.

The archbishop died on Monday, aged 69, after suffering from cancer.

The funeral, with full state honours, comes after four days of official mourning across the country.

Thousands of people have already paid their last respects to the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, whose body lied in state at Athens' cathedral.

Aborted surgery

Archbishop Christodoulos was a colourful and controversial figure, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Greece.

He defended the church's pre-eminent role in the state and upheld Hellenism - the national character and culture of Greece, our correspondent says.

They [the government] are trying to take away our society's Christian and Orthodox identity... because they hate God Archbishop Christodoulos

But critics said that under Archbishop Christodoulos, Greece remained a country which discriminated against those who were not Orthodox, including Catholics and worshippers of other branches of Christianity.

The archbishop was diagnosed with cancer of the liver and large intestine in 2007.

He was treated in the US for 10 weeks, but a liver transplant operation last October was aborted as the cancer had spread.

He died at his Athens home on Monday morning. Church officials said he had refused hospital treatment in the final weeks of his life.

The Holy Synod, the church's top decision-making body, has now less than 20 days in which to elect the archbishop's successor.

Controversial remarks

Elected as church leader in 1998, Archbishop Christodoulos was known as a fierce and outspoken defender of Greece and the role of the Orthodox Church within it, our correspondent says.

The archbishop once said that when ancient Greeks were creating the lights of civilisation, Europeans were living in trees.

Archbishop Christodoulos paid a historic visit to the Vatican in 2006

He said Greeks lived in paradise compared to other Europeans because they had a strong faith, built churches, followed traditions and resisted globalisation.

Archbishop Christodoulos opposed Turkey's efforts to join the European Union, describing the Turks as barbarians.

The archbishop clashed with the Greek government when the authorities wanted to remove religious status from identity cards.

"They are trying to take away our society's Christian and Orthodox identity, using various groundless arguments, because they hate God and want to marginalise the Church," he said.

The democracy of death

By Pantelis Boukalas

A death, even when expected, is still a death. It is “Untaught material” (as Kiki Dimoula tells us in her “Ode to a Desk Lamp”) for the departed and for those who remain, however many times we have been witness to the mystery of death and as equipped as we believe ourselves to be, others by philosophy and reflective poetry, who insist on the naturalness of the event, and others by their faith and the promise of an afterlife. The death of Nonna, the mother of Gregory Nazianzinos, was also expected, but this did not stop the great theologist from composing 51 inscriptions for her funeral in an effort to digest an event which, despite his intellectual acuity and the ideological preparedness that he gained from his faith, he could only see as a terrible loss.The death of Archbishop Christodoulos was also expected. And this liberated the ambitions of his hopeful successors, ambitions his closest associates deem insulting. Arguing that priests are also only human cannot compensate for the feeling of hubris provoked by the factionalism, even if briefly and tactfully expressed in public. The human qualities of the archbishop do not appear to have been taken into account in the long pre-prepared flattering (though not short of hypocrisy) obituaries. Future assessments will show whether the head of the Church of Greece for the past 10 years made history and in what manner. All we can say now is that he was a part of history, political and ecclesiastical. He was among the most profoundly political of bishops, passionately serving the ideal of a national Christianity that does not arise from the scriptures – and perhaps this is what touched so many people. “Which is king or soldier, rich or poor, righteous or sinner?” asks a Byzantine hymn. A harsh lesson on the “democracy of death,” but how better to sum up man’s lot?