[ALBSA-Info] Kathimerini, 25.08.2001

[Agron Alibali]

'Priests above kings'
Archbishop steps up attacks on government, stressing superiority

Archbishop Christodoulos and some of the bishops closest to him in his confrontation with the government over the identity card issue yesterday launched a new attack on secular authorities. Also, the Holy Synod announced officially that it will make public on Tuesday, August 28, the results of a petition calling for a referendum on whether citizens should have the option of declaring their religion on state identity cards. 
Speaking at a monastery dedicated to Saint Cosmas the Aetolian, Christodoulos quoted the firebrand 18th-century Orthodox missionary on the superiority of the sacred over the secular. 
"If you meet the priest and the king, you will greet the priest first, because the priest is superior even to the king," Christodoulos said. "But today most people have become secular and have traveled far from the truth of faith, they do not accept that priests are superior to kings and prime ministers and presidents." Christodoulos, however, said that he was not interested in playing a political role. 
This came just two days after the archbishop launched an attack on Prime Minister Costas Simitis, saying that he was not a political leader because, unlike his predecessor Andreas Papandreou, he did not bend in the face of public disapproval of his policies. The government responded to that attack by telling the archbishop to either stop meddling in politics or run for office. 
Yesterday, there was no official reaction to Christodoulos's comments but government sources accused him of trying to establish a theocratic state in Greece. "Just as he cannot distinguish between the signatures in his 'referendum' and the votes of the electorate, he is also mixing up the function of the priest with that of one who governs," one source said. Bishop Anthimos of Alexandroupolis, a keen advocate of the Church's position on ID cards, said that if President Costis Stephanopoulos does not take a stand on whether religion should be declared on the cards "we will have a crisis." Christodoulos is to meet with Stephanopoulos on Wednesday to inform him of the Church petition, which is said to contain about 3.5 million signatures. 
Opposition parties have avoided joining the fray. Only former Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis, the honorary president of the conservative New Democracy party, quoted the early 20th century statesman Eleftherios Venizelos yesterday, saying: "We must accept that there is no special 'God of the Greeks.' There is one God for all nations: Clear thinking, farsightedness, anticipation and staying in touch with reality."



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