The Orthodox Church suspended a priest in Athens after including two girls as altar servers in a church service. The Church of Greece is all-male and staunchly conservative.
A priest in Athens has been suspended after including two girls as altar servers in a church service, angering hardliners in the country’s all-male Orthodox church, his parish and media reports said Thursday.
The parish of Saint Nicholas Ragavas in the capital said Father Alexandros Kariotoglou had been “verbally” suspended by the head of the church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos.
The Church of Greece, which safeguards the country’s dominant Orthodox faith according to the Greek constitution, is all-male and staunchly conservative.
It opposes same-sex relations, premarital sex, and abortion and resisted efforts to limit liturgies and Holy Communion during the coronavirus pandemic.
No official reason was given for the suspension, but the row began after a picture of the two girls, dressed as altar servers and clutching candleholders, was posted on Twitter after Sunday’s service.
“Since when is it allowed to dress girls as little priests? This is a distortion of church tradition,” said an angry user.
The move immediately sparked a row on social media, with critics accusing the Orthodox Church of Greece of bowing to “fundamentalist” hardliners.
Ta Nea Daily reported that the Holy Synod, governing body of the Church of Greece, would meet next week to discuss the issue.
A theologian, author, and teacher for nearly four decades, Kariotoglou was a faculty member at St. Andrew’s theological college in Sydney and later taught migrant children in an underprivileged Athens neighborhood.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
