The leader of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus has said he will mortgage its assets and invest in government bonds to help pave the way for an international bailout of the financially-troubled nation.
The offer by Archbishop Chrysostomos II came after the country’s Parliament rejected a bill that would have allowed the government to seize up to 10 per cent of people’s bank deposits to secure the bailout.
At the same time, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades called on Archbishop Chrysostomos to appeal to the Patriarch of Moscow and All the Russias, Kirill I of Moscow, to intercede with the Russian government for help.
The Cypriot government hopes that Russia will extend a line of credit that Moscow gave in 2011 and is due in 2016.
“The wealth of the church is at the disposal of the country,” Archbishop Chrysostomos said after he met Anastasiades.
The Orthodox Church is the largest landowner on the island and has stakes in businesses including the country’s Hellenic Bank, with total assets estimated to run into tens of millions of euros. It also has shares in a brewery.
Cyprus needs $NZ24.7 billion to bail out its banks and shore up government finances to avoid default and a potential exit from the European joint currency.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the total value of the Orthodox Church’s assets would be, or how much of that value the church was actually willing to lend the government.
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Image: LGR