Archbishop gives Tychikos 10 days to meet him before Synod acts

Archbishop Georgios has given former Bishop of Paphos Tychikos 10 days to meet him before the Synod reconvenes to consider his case, saying the Church cannot allow the dispute to drag on indefinitely. Speaking on Sunday after a memorial service for the late Archbishop Chrysostomos II in his home village of Tala, Georgios said he was still waiting for Tychikos to follow through on his request for a meeting. He said even a bishop suspended from his duties must answer to the Synod and cannot travel freely around Cyprus and Greece without being accountable to anyone. The case was not discussed at the Synod’s previous meeting as Tychikos had first asked for a personal meeting with the archbishop. Georgios said Tychikos sent a letter through representatives shortly before that session. The archbishop accepted the request in the hope of resolving the dispute, but said Tychikos appeared unwilling to attend once his office communicated the reply. Asked what would follow if Tychikos continued to delay after the next meeting, Georgios said any final decision would be taken collectively by the Synod and not by him alone. He said Tychikos must first renounce views he appeared to hold that the Ecumenical Patriarch is heretical, address his rejection of the Council of Crete and deal with allegations of financial irregularities at the Paphos bishopric. The archbishop said Tychikos would have a place at the Holy Archbishopric if he met those conditions. Georgios also addressed a letter sent to priests on the position they should take towards the Church of Cyprus, and dismissed the possibility of a separate church on the island. He contrasted Cyprus with parts of Africa, where he claimed rival groups could set up churches in makeshift buildings and pay priests to move between denominations or schismatic churches. Such practices would not take root in Cyprus, he said, because the Church belonged to the people and its priests understood the seriousness of their responsibilities. He rejected reports of sacraments being performed in private homes, saying the ceremonies had no religious validity. He compared those conducting them to a “child imitating the words of a priest”, and said a “defrocked clergyman deprived of God’s grace could not administer valid sacraments”. Georgios warned the small number of people attending such services that they were not taking part in genuine sacraments and were “placing a further spiritual burden on themselves”. He identified the man reportedly conducting the ceremonies as a Romanian former priest who had been defrocked and had previously belonged to the Antiochian Church in Great Britain.