Furious with the situation in Ukraine and the actions of some hierarchs, Archbishop Chrysostomos, Archbishop of Cyprus.
Specifically, in his morning statements on state radio, His Beatitude condemned the invasion of Ukraine and demonstrated that "what Putin is doing makes no sense, to kill, to destroy a country."
He noted that he understands the attack on soldiers but not the flattening that is taking place. "Only crazy people do such a thing. I am sorry because people are being killed," he added.
"I don't know if this man is in his right mind. Can he be leading a nuclear country?" he asked.
"Foreign policy is implemented by the Primate."
At the same time, His Beatitude took a swipe at the decision of some prelates to make trips abroad without prior discussion, demonstrating that foreign policy in the Church is set by the Primate himself.
Specifically, the Archbishop said: "everyone wants to do their part. The day before yesterday I was notified by a third party that St. Tamasu was going abroad. I asked where he was going. I said if he is going to Moscow, not to go."
"Because the foreign policy of the Church is not implemented by the despots, it is implemented by the Primate," he explained, while adding: "then I heard that he was going to Ukraine, in the end he ended up in Poland."
"Where did he get permission from? Do you see how we behave?" the Archbishop asked, noting that "some people do not respect the Synod, the church, man who is the image of God and do not serve man."
"We are committed to serving the church. The church is not the building, but the whole of the people. Sometimes we lack morality and it makes me sad. This island remained Greek because we had the church, woe betide us if we lower its level now," he stressed.
In addition, His Beatitude said that through their silence or through their kindness and goodness he tries to bring unity and keep the church of Cyprus in line, but as he said, "to the ears of those who do not listen".
"I held a Synod, before the great Synod we held in Crete, and I said that there we must present ourselves prepared. We went divided and everyone wanted to do his part and we were offended. I was trying to keep the height of the Church, but the others were spoiling it," he added.
"I did not sit around boasting that I am an Archbishop"
As for the priests who have aspirations for the archbishopric, His Beatitude stressed that they will have to work hard, while referring to the Cyprus problem and President Anastasiades.
"We may disagree with the President of the Republic, but the whole picture that we both show is that we have friendly relations, very friendly relations. To disagree is not bad. Blaming him is bad... If all the brethren don't come down to earth and understand that positions are not to saturate ambition, both in the State and in the Church, we are going wrong. And when I came as a candidate, my goal was to make cuts that the Church needed and I praise God that I succeeded," the Archbishop said.
He went on to say that "whoever the Synod chooses must work and from the first moment I came here, I opened my door and welcomed everyone. All of us must serve our people. We will behave as the mother of that people. For fifteen years I have not boasted that I am an Archbishop, nor will I do so, no matter how long I live."
"Everyone told me to cut salaries, I said no"
Finally, referring to the resources of the church and how much it has been affected by the crisis of recent years, the Archbishop made it clear that "the church takes very good care of the resources it has and is fully aware that this money is the people's, I don't show, I believe it."
"We had the banks and we were getting nine to ten million a year, we got screwed. I won't go into the reasons why the banks collapsed, it's not our fault, it's other people's fault and anyone who has a question let me come and explain it. Everyone told me to cut wages, I said no, we have the hotels. Thank God the hotels did well. Then the pandemic came along and disabled us. The hotels closed. Well you can't just sell water and juice. With that you can only pay the employees. We have shares in the cement factories. They've been shut down for a while. We got stock in the airports, the airports went out of business. We were stuck and even I could not think of a solution," His Beatitude explained.
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