Greece’s Orthodox Church elected a moderate and popular bishop, Metropolitan of Thebes Hieronymos, as its new head on Thursday. Hieronymos, who was also a candidate 10 years ago against the late Archbishop Christodoulos, is regarded as a soft-spoken cleric, less fiery and less media-friendly than his predecessor.
Christodoulos died from cancer in January. He had led the powerful institution closer to younger people and worked to mend ties with the Vatican. More than 95 percent of Greece’s 10 million population are Orthodox Christians.
Hieronymos, born in 1938, had clashed with Christodoulos and refused to back the Church in large rallies in 2000 to oppose the then Socialist government’s plans to remove a reference to religion from EU-approved IDs, calling them “extremist gatherings”.
He won 45 of 74 votes in the second round of voting.
Hundreds of supporters and clerics had gathered outside Athens’ Metropolitan cathedral for a glimpse of their new spiritual leader, who has degrees in archaeology and Byzantine studies.
Many of them started clapping and cheering when a lamp outside the Athens cathedral, where the vote was held, lit up denoting a new archbishop had been chosen.
“We now have a strong archbishop and we will all back him in his work,” Metropolitan Ignatios, another candidate, said minutes after the result was announced.
Metropolitan Anthimos, who also ran for the top post, said: “This is a new start for our church and we will all move forward together.”
Hieronymos faces the task of restoring the Church’s reputation after a series of scandals in 2005 and anger at Christodoulos’ frequent interference in foreign policy and public life.
He must also restore relations with the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.
The Church of Greece’s ties with the spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians were damaged during Christodoulos’s tenure in a power struggle for control over some bishoprics.
Bartholomew, an ethnic Greek from Turkey, runs a tiny Orthodox community in what was once the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and needs outside support for his balancing act with the Turkish government.
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