In Finland, Constantinopolitan Church hierarch convicted of fraud

Archbishop Leo of the Constantinopolitan Church in Finland on the first day of the court hearing. Photo: Heikki Haapalainen / Yle

On February 27, 2026, the North Karelia District Court found former Archbishop Leo of the Finnish Orthodox Church (Leo Makkonen) – a Church within the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarchate – guilty in a case involving financial violations connected to the activities of the Karelian Language Society. Finland’s Yle News Service reported this.

The court sentenced the Phanar hierarch to one year and one month of a suspended prison term for fraud involving state grants and for violating bookkeeping rules under aggravated circumstances. The former secretary of the society received the same suspended sentence. Prosecutors had sought a harsher punishment – one and a half years’ suspended imprisonment along with community service for the former archbishop.

In addition, those convicted were ordered jointly to reimburse Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture more than 160,000 euros for damage caused by the subsidy scheme. Leo must also pay over 9,000 euros in additional compensation. The ministry’s legal expenses, exceeding 30,000 euros, were likewise imposed on the defendants.

The Karelian Language Society, founded in 1995 in Joensuu to support the Karelian language and culture, lost state funding in 2020 after suspicions emerged that the money had been used for purposes other than those intended. The ministry conducted a financial audit and demanded the return of subsidies granted in 2017–2019. Initially, the sum in question was 325,000 euros, but it increased due to accrued interest.

The verdict has not yet entered into legal force and may be appealed.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that a UOC community in Germany transferred to the Constantinople Patriarchate.

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