Church pulls the plug on its own charity
The Church of Greece decided yesterday to dissolve its charity organization Agapi (Love), formerly known as Allilegi (Solidarity), as a result of the huge debts that it had racked up, although the nongovernmental organization has been at the center of allegations about financial mismanagement as well. It was decided at a meeting of the Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod yesterday that the NGO should cease all activities after about 10 years of doing charitable work. Allilegi was set up under the late Archbishop Christodoulos, who used the NGO as a way of promoting the Church’s good work. However, in recent years, the charity has been embroiled in alleged financial scandals. In 2008, an internal investigation revealed that funds totaling some 10 million euros appeared to be missing from the organization’s accounts. At the time, the Foreign Ministry was also demanding the return of 5 million euros that it gave to Allilegi for the distribution of food abroad, which was never carried out. The decision to shut down the NGO was taken after Theoklitos, the bishop of Ioannina and the head of the Church’s financial committee, sent a letter to Archbishop Ieronymos in which he suggested that an investigation should be launched into how Agapi had managed funds of almost 4 million euros over the last two years. Theoklitos indicated that the charity’s monies were being mismanaged and no effort was being made to cut costs. Although Theoklitos had not recommended the closure of the NGO, the Holy Synod decided that the Church, which is trying to rein in its spending, could no longer continue to direct funds to Agapi, which employees some 130 people.
