About seven months ago, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the Minister of Education, Niki Kerameos, had visited the Holy Synod where they had received information about the problems which, as church sources said, concerned the organic positions of the clergy.
Plus, it seems that opens the way for the settlement of 2,311 seats for the Church of Greece and another 955 for the Church of Crete.
The changes are contained in to the draft law of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs “New Horizons in Higher Education Institutions: Strengthening the quality, functionality and the connection of higher education institutions with society and other provisions” submitted to the Parliament.
In practice, law 536 of 1945 provided that the State could pay on its payroll a total of 6,000 clergy of the Church of Greece.
In other words, the country's Constitution provided for 6,000 seats. At the meeting between Archbishop Hieronymos and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the former had mentioned, among other things, that since its passage, Law 536/1945 “fell short of reality”, since it had a provision for 6,000 clergymen, while 7,151 were already serving. The Archbishop even mentioned that at the moment there are 8,300 clergymen serving in the Church of Greece, while in the last decade this number has decreased by 8% (in 2011 there were 9,018 clergy serving).
The additional clergy were and are paid by the State in the normal way, despite the fact that the forecast remained at 6 thousand. Now, with the law initiated by N. Kerameos, the 2,311 posts that were “in the air” are added, as well as 955 organic posts for the Church of Crete.
According to government sources,“this does not mean that there will be 2,311 and 955 new recruitments of clergymen since they already exist, serve and are paid by the state and of course there will be no change in their salary or insurance situation”.
The distribution of these positions to the Metropolises will be made by the Holy Synod, followed by the corresponding presidential decrees. The organic posts will belong to the respective Metropolis, as they are designated.
If a diocese wants to hire clergy in addition to the provision, it will have to pay them privately.
They were paid by the State anyway
The whole movement on the issue concerning new organic clerical positions in the Church of Greece has been going on for months. between the two sides (it was frozen after the outcry in the midst of the pandemic), and the issue has also been raised on church-related websites. It is noted here that in 1969 the Church had increased its organic positions to 8,000 from 6,000 and since then the demand for adjustment has been ongoing, until we reach the current number.
It is also noted that the priests are employed by the Metropolises, which are ecclesiastical NEDs. Clergymen, according to the Council of State, are considered by the regulations of the Church of Greece as “ecclesiastical employees”, and are paid by the State as far as organic positions are concerned, without being subject to the Public Employees Code.
Specifically, the Greek State is committed to pay annually to the Church in the form of a subsidy an amount equivalent to the current salary costs of active priests, which will be adjusted according to the salary changes of the Greek State. It is indicative that in a related discussion in 2019 the then Minister of Education of the SYRIZA government, Kostas Gavroglou, had stated that if the Court of Auditors asks to know why all these non-organic priests are being paid, they may find themselves in the air. Something that is now being “sorted out” with a government “bull”.
Beyond that, as has been made known for the time being, with the new bill the I. Synod will be able to elect as many bishops as it deems necessary for its needs, but if the post for which they are elected is not one of the posts provided for, then no change will be made to their payroll.
It is also known that according to the new bill there will be salary cuts for clergymen who are prosecuted by the justice system for felonies or criminal cases. In case of prosecution, the cleric's salary will be reduced to 50% until the case is finalized. In the event he is found guilty, his salary will be completely suspended and the organic position will be vacated and in the event he is acquitted, all money withheld will be returned to him in full.
The entire draft law you can see it here.
