GREECE
Athens News Agency
Thessaliotidos Metropolitan Theoklitos offered his resignation to the Holy Synod in writing on Tuesday, stressing that he was resigning from the Thessaliotidos diocese but not from the prelacy.
The metropolitan's decision, known several days beforehand, was made after his name was embarrassingly linked with that of jailed former archmandrite Iacovos Yiossakis, currently in Korydallos Prison facing charges of antiquities smuggling, and an emerging scandal involving both courts and clergy, in which judges were apparently bribed in order to hand out lighter sentences to known drug dealers.
Theoklitos, a former spokesman for the Permanent Holy Synod and a close associate of Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Christodoulos, insists that his intentions in recommending that Yiossakis be promoted were innocent and that he is resigning to avoid all hint that the archbishop was in any way linked with "covert" centres.