Cyprus Mail: Press Review in English, 98-12-18

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From: The Cyprus Mail at <http://www.cynews.com/>

Friday, December 18, 1998

'Mothers and fathers will weep'

ALL THE papers led with extensive reports about the latest gangland murder in Limassol, the arrests that followed and the police assurances that they were on the track of the two killers who fled the scene on foot, leaving important evidence in their car.

The Church row was relegated to an issue of secondary importance, with most reports centring on Paphos Bishop Chrysostomos' pledge to refrain from public statements.

Haravghi, which had criticised Machairas monastery abbot and candidate for Limassol Bishop, Father Athanasios of being an 'Orthodox fundamentalist and fanatic', yesterday carried a report featuring the warnings of people opposed to him.

It gave prominence to the warning from a priest, Father Kyriacos, whose daughter had become a nun at the behest of Athanasios, that if the Athanasios group prevailed, "many mothers and fathers will weep because they will lose their children".

Father Kyriacos claimed that Athanasios had forced his daughter to become a nun against her will. Many other youngsters had suffered a similar fate, and the priest warned that things would get worse if Athanasios became a bishop.

Phileleftheros carried a front-page editorial lambasting the 'vile and ruthless' allegations of the Bishop of Paphos which had dragged the Church new depths of despair. It also castigated the Church leadership for not acting promptly to silence the Bishop.

It concluded that the Church should abandon its worldly pursuits and its business enterprises and rediscover its spiritual role. Only then would it be accepted again by its despairing flock.

Simerini said that a truce had been declared between the Bishop and the Mount Athos monks he had been criticising. One monk who had planned to visit Cyprus pursue legal action against the Bishop had called off the trip and no libel suit had been filed.

Meanwhile, the chemist from whom the nuns, allegedly infected with venereal disease, had bought their medication could not remember anything. The chemist, named by the bishop as the supplier of the medicine, was 94 years old and had sold his shop.

Alithia reported that a ministerial committee, set up to examine the investment by Digimed, a Cyta subsidiary, of 150 million pounds in a large- scale project in which foreign firms would also participate, had vetoed the idea.

The government would have had to guarantee the convertible debentures worth 150 million pounds that would have been used to finance the first part of the project. It would also have had to pay up the value of the debentures, if the holders did not want to convert them to company shares in three years' time.

Machi reported that Spyros Kyprianou's Diko was also planning on transforming itself into a social democratic party and was inviting other parties to join forces with it.

The problem was that Edek had already made such a move and was currently involved in discussions with the smaller parties about joining forces in a social democratic grouping.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1998

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