Cypriot hierarch: Archbishop set conditions for repaying his own loan

Metropolitan Tychikos and Archbishop Georgios. Photo: UOJ Greece

The legal representatives of former Metropolitan Tychikos of Paphos stated that Archbishop Georgios of Cyprus made repayment of the metropolis’s debt conditional on personal demands placed on the hierarch, according to a statement released by the metropolitan’s office on June 8.

According to the document, the matter concerns a pre-existing debt of the Paphos Metropolis to a bank amounting to approximately €3,242,899, excluding interest and other charges. The lawyers emphasized that this debt had arisen under Tychikos’s predecessor on the Paphos see – the current Archbishop Georgios.

The statement says that while still Metropolitan of Paphos, Georgios publicly promised that, if elected Archbishop, the Archdiocese would provide the funds needed to repay the debt. After his election, however, amid the issue of a Catholic delegation’s visit to Cyprus with the relics of Apostle Paul, the situation allegedly changed.

According to the statement, the Archbishop allegedly told the metropolitan at that time: “If you want me to repay the loan, you will receive the head and do what I tell you.”

The statement also says that, in order to repay the debt, the Archdiocese concluded a new loan agreement with a bank chosen solely at its own discretion, at an enormous interest rate of around 6–6.5%, while the market rate at the time was 3.5–4.5%. According to Tychikos, the metropolis’s accountant described the loan as usurious.

As security for the loan, two large landholdings of the Paphos Metropolis, then valued at around €5.5 million, were pledged to the Archdiocese, while the debt with interest had to be repaid within a compressed five-year period.

On May 22, 2025, the Synod of the Church of Cyprus removed Metropolitan Tychikos from the Paphos see by a majority vote of 10 to 6. One of the causes of the conflict was the hierarch’s refusal to receive in his eparchy a Catholic delegation with the relics of Apostle Paul, which had arrived in Cyprus by arrangement with the Vatican.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that Metropolitan Tychikos had been evicted from the Paphos Metropolis building.

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