Archbishop Christodoulos’s illness continued to divide the Church of Greece’s Holy Synod yesterday as Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos warned doctors to stop making public comments about the holy man’s health.

The Church hierarchs clashed yesterday over who would sit on the Synod’s committees over the next four years. Bishop Spyridon of Lagadas presented a list of names to the Synod but a number of metropolitans reacted angrily because they had not been consulted before the list was drawn up.

It was suggested that Christodoulos had formed the list but this only served to increase the anger among some bishops who questioned how this was possible since the archbishop was being treated for cancer.

Christodoulos is due to be discharged from the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami in two weeks, his doctor Andreas Tzakis said yesterday. The archbishop’s liver transplant was called off on Monday because the cancer had spread to his stomach.

The surgeon added that he had the results of a biopsy taken during the procedure but would await the outcome of further tests before making any public statement.

Meanwhile, doctors in Greece were warned to stop speculating about the archbishop or anyone else’s health publicly. Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said that a person’s health is “an acutely personal matter” and warned that he would be “very strict” with anyone who does not heed his warning.