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The Church of Greece could be set to take legal action against the employees of its non-governmental organization (NGO) Allilegi (Solidarity) after the results of an internal probe are made known to the Holy Synod today.

Sources said that the investigation has revealed that funds totaling some 10 million euros appear to be missing from the organization’s accounts.

It is thought that the money was spent on activities that had nothing to do with the NGO. There are questions about the outlay of some 150,000 euros on items that were given as gifts by the late Archbishop Christodoulos, as well as the purchase of cars that were used by some bishops.

Also, the Foreign Ministry is demanding the return of 5 million euros that it gave to Allilegi for the distribution of food abroad, which was never carried out.

 The head of the Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos, will attend a service in Kiev on Sunday despite threats by the Russian Orthodox Church that it could split from the Ecumenical Patriarchate over possible recognition of the Ukrainian Church.

The service in Kiev, held to mark 1,020 years since the Christianization of the Russians, has taken on an air of controversy after Russian Patriarch Alexy II launched a verbal attack against the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios.

Vartholomaios responded yesterday by sending a letter to Alexy calling his remarks “insulting.”

Alexy had called for Orthodox leaders to boycott the service in Kiev but, in a vote held by Greece’s Holy Synod yesterday, it was decided by 11 votes in favor to one against that Ieronymos should go. He will be accompanied by the bishops of Chios and Preveza.

Archbishop Ieronymos yesterday condemned “isolated nationalist outbursts... that do not serve the interests of the Church” in an apparent dig at Bishop Anthimos who has been outspoken on the Macedonia name dispute.

“Such phenomena endanger and undermine the viability and the serious nature of our positions,” Ieronymos said. Thessaloniki’s Bishop Anthimos, a vocal critic of perceived expansionism by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), has intensified his objections in recent months as Skopje and Athens fail to see eye to eye on the name dispute. “We will never accept the name Macedonia going to the neighboring country, which has stolen and usurped it,” Anthimos remarked last month.

In a related development, the Holy Synod elected three new bishops: Archimandrite Theophilos Manolatos was elected bishop of Lefkada, the See of Thebes was granted to the head monk of the local Osios Loukas Monastery and Archimandrite Kallinikos Demenopoulos was elected bishop of Paronaxia (Paros, Naxos and Antiparos).

The head of Greece's Church was responding to comments by FYROM's Archbishop Stephan. He had suggested over the weekend that Thessaloniki was the Balkan country's heartland.

«That's what happens when people exceed their role,» Ieronymos said. «The Church is supposed to unite people.»

Sources close to the archbishop said the comment was also aimed at critics in the Church of Greece who feel that Ieronymos is not as active as he should be in foreign affairs. Earlier this year, he made it clear he was against the Church's involvement in gatherings to protest the name dispute with Greece's northern neighbor.

His position was applauded yesterday by PASOK leader George Papandreou, who said he was in full agreement with Ieronymos's view on the separation of Church and state.

The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios (left), arrived in Greece yesterday for a four-day visit and talks with Archbishop Ieronymos (right). ‘In your venerable person, we have always discerned the good shepherd, the honest servant of the Church, the eminent theologist and scientist, the open-minded individual,’ Ieronymos told the visiting patriarch. Vartholomaios is also scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and President Karolos Papoulias.

The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios, and the head of the Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos, conducted a service together in Istanbul yesterday and pledged to work more closely.

Ieronymos has used his first official trip to the Patriarchate since becoming archbishop earlier this year to resolve past differences and place relations between the two churches on a new footing.

“We are brothers, united by a common faith and tradition,” said Vartholomaios yesterday. Ieronymos indicated a willingness to operate largely in the ecumenical patriarch’s shadow. “We have nothing to offer you other than the devotion that children can offer to their parents,” he said.

Ieronymos’s predecessor, Christodoulos, had often clashed with Vartholomaios over Church matters.

Archbishop Ieronymos was yesterday discharged from the hospital where he had been receiving treatment for a foot fracture. Ieronymos canceled a scheduled visit tomorrow to Istanbul, where he had planned to see Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios.

“The Church is what Christ wants it to be, not what people want it to be,” Ieronymos told a congregation at Kalamata Cathedral. “We are giving the impression that the role of the Church is to force people to be good,” he said. Ieronymos cited the example of Saint Dionysus of Zakynthos, who reached sainthood even though he had sinned by harboring a criminal.

The Holy Synod’s statement, apparently influenced by Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki, was a reaction to government plans to introduce a cohabitation law granting the same rights to couples who live together as those who are married.

The Synod’s reaction signals an about-turn for Archbishop Ieronymos, who last week appeared to accept that changing the bill was beyond the Church’s sphere of influence.

However, this was completely overturned yesterday when the Synod issued a statement saying that it did not approve of the government trying to make its proposals part of the country’s legal framework.

The new law is set to allow unmarried couples to make their relationship official and legally binding by signing a simple notarial contract. This would give each partner the same rights as if the couple were married.

The Synod said that the draft law constituted a “catastrophic bomb” being placed under the foundations of Greek society.

“The Church accepts and blesses the established wedding, according to Orthodox traditions, and considers any other type of similar relationship to be prostitution,” the Synod said in a statement.

Sources said that Ieronymos had wanted the Synod to adopt a more moderate approach in line with his comments last week but most of the other 12 members of the Synod seemed to favor a more outspoken stance.

“That was the opinion of one person, this is the opinion of 13,” said Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki, a member of the Synod, explaining the difference between Ieronymos’s position last week and this week.

The head of the Church of Greece yesterday gave a green light to the government's plans to introduce a law that would allow couples who live together to have the same rights as those that are married.

Justice Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis presented the proposals to Archbishop Ieronymos amid concern that the Church might object to the change of law.

However, Ieronymos, who was elected to succeed Archbishop Christodoulos last month, indicated that trying to interfere in the details of the law is beyond the Church's remit.

«The members of the Church follow the dictates of the Bible, the rules of the Church, the order of the ecumenical synods and the holy tradition,» said the archbishop.

«As a result, there are clear limits and in respect to this matter, the Church does not have the right to ask for it to be watered down or to have any other request granted.»

The new law is set to allow unmarried couples to make their relationship official and legally binding by signing a simple notarial contract.

The contract would remain in effect, thus ensuring full protection of both partners' legal rights, until they get married or one marries someone else.

There are no plans to extend the law to same-sex couples, although this may be considered in the future.

Yesterday's meeting came as a lesbian couple announced that they will try next week to become the first same-sex partners to be married in a civil ceremony by taking advantage of a 1982 law which does not specify that a civil union must be between a man and a woman.

Ieronymos appeared to take a philosophical approach to the changes that are afoot.

«Some people who have certain problems choose to regulate their lives in their own way,» he said.

«The Church cannot keep a check on this by enforcing measures like the police.»

The archbishop said that following his discussion with the minister he was confident that the proper research would be carried out to see what the public thinks of introducing a cohabitation law.