Ieronymos ire at nationalists
Archbishop Ieronymos yesterday condemned «isolated nationalist outbursts… that do not serve the interests of the Church» in an apparent dig at Bishop Anthimos who has been outspoken on the Macedonia name dispute. «Such phenomena endanger and undermine the viability and the serious nature of our positions,» Ieronymos said. Thessaloniki’s Bishop Anthimos, a vocal critic of perceived expansionism by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), has intensified his objections in recent months as Skopje and Athens fail to see eye to eye on the name dispute. «We will never accept the name Macedonia going to the neighboring country, which has stolen and usurped it,» Anthimos remarked last month. In a related development, the Holy Synod elected three new bishops: Archimandrite Theophilos Manolatos was elected bishop of Lefkada, the See of Thebes was granted to the head monk of the local Osios Loukas Monastery and Archimandrite Kallinikos Demenopoulos was elected bishop of Paronaxia (Paros, Naxos and Antiparos).
