Greece's parliament decided on Wednesday to launch an investigation into a land swap between the state and a monastery that has put pressure on the conservative government for weeks.
The opposition challenged the conservative government to explain the deal in which state-owned property was given to the Vatopedi monastery in return for cheaper land.
Although no money changed hands, media said the state lost 100 million euros ($128.6 million) worth of property in the swap which was intended to resolve the monastery's land claims in northern Greece.
After seven hours, all parties agreed to the probe being conducted by a 23-member committee, which will have 45 days to issue its findings. Any evidence of ministers' wrongdoing could lead to the removal of their parliamentary immunity.
"The government may have a marginal majority but it has lost people's trust, it is bankrupt, sinking day by day," main Socialist PASOK opposition leader George Papandreou told parliament. "Our country cannot and must not sink with it."
A judicial probe indicated the monastery got prime, state-owned real estate in exchange for cheap land. Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, leader of the New Democracy party, asked parliament to set up an investigating committee.
But opposition parties criticised him for asking for the committee only after two prosecutors resigned from the judicial probe, saying the evidence had led to deputy ministers and that they had no authority to investigate.
PASOK, which has surged ahead of New Democracy in opinion polls, demanded a more powerful parliamentary investigation that could remove politicians' immunity.
The socialists told parliament it should investigate government spokesman and Minister of State Theodore Roussopoulos, then-deputy finance and now deputy Foreign Minister Peter Doukas and then-Agriculture Minister Evangelos Bassiakos for possible breach of faith.
"I am the target of an unprecedented political attack, of political cannibalism to be exact," Roussopoulos, one of Karamanlis' closest aides told parliament, and asked for the committee to shed light on the case.
The prosecutors who resigned last week said their calls for the case to be given to parliament had been blocked by their superior, who instructed them how to conduct a new enquiry.
The 1,000-year-old monastery, one of the largest in northern Greece's all-male monastic community of Mount Athos, has denied any wrongdoing and said it would resort to the courts.
Then-merchant marine minister, George Voulgarakis, whose wife acted as an agent in the deal, resigned last month. He said no laws had been broken.
