With the election of the new Metropolitan of Kydonia and Apokoronas scheduled for Friday 2^nd May, the day had dawned wet and blustery as the members of the Synod, their black robes flapping in the wind, entered the precinct of the Cathedral of Agios Minas in Heraklion, the headquarters of the Archbishopric of Crete where the Synod was due to take place.

Presided over by Archbishop Evgenios, the members comprised the sitting Metropolitans of Crete, i.e.:
— Eirinaios of Lampi, Syrvitos and Sfakia
— Makarios of Gortyni and Arkadia
— Andreas of Arkalochori, Kastelli and Viannos
— Amphilochios of Kissamos and Selino
— Gerasimos of Petra and Hersonissos
— Kyrillos of Ieraptyni and Sitia
— Prodromos of Rethymnon and Aulopotamos

As the high priests arrived there were demonstrations of support from the parishioners of Archimandrite Melchisedek, the vicar of Sternes, whom Haniotika Nea had identified as a possible candidate for the new Metropolitan. They had arrived by bus from Chania bearing large banners and even printed T-shirts with messages of support for Melchisedek, turning the occasion into something akin to a political rally rather the solemn deliberation which the Church would have wanted.

The Synod started at 10.00 am, and as the day wore on it became apparent that the priests were having some difficulty in arriving at a decision. Finally, a little after 3.00 pm, the Chief Secretary of the Holy Provincial Synod of the Church of Crete, Nifon Vasilakis, emerged to read the following press release to the waiting reporters:

“The Holy Provincial Synod of the Church of Crete did not convene today, according to the scheduled session for filling the post of Holy Metropolitan of Kydonia and Apokoronas, but proceeded with a Synodic meeting, in view of the legal issues which have arisen, with the aim of conducting an exhaustive and in-depth examination of these.

“The Holy Synod urges God’s faithful to have unconditional trust in the Church, and condemns demonstrative behaviours which are incompatible with the ecclesiastical ethos.”

The latter comment was clearly a reference to the presence of the Melchisedek supporters, but also to the campaign they had launched in the days before election. The Haniotika Nea had published two letters of fulsome support for the Archimandrite in the preceding week, one from the President of the Sternes Cultural Association (Syllogos) Giorgos Verganelakis on 29^th April and a second, on 1^st May, from Viki Abelikaki Fiotaki, presumably a relative of the Archimandrite, and there had reportedly been other expressions of support from public figures. Another letter supporting the Archimandrite Chrysanthos Tsachakis was also published on 1^st May, signed by various local organisations in Palaia Roumata.

None of these encomia took into consideration the candidates’ eligibility, and in fact, despite the assertion in Haniotika Nea that Mr Melchisedek was on the list of Electable High Priests, this appears not to to have been the case. On the evening news programme of CretaTV on Friday night, journalist Kostas Bogdanidis explained the context around the decision not to proceed with the vote, which centred mainly on the question of non-transferability, as described in our previous post.

The principle of non-transferability states that a serving Metropolitan cannot quit his post to serve in another Metropolis. “A Metropolitan marries his Metropolis for life,” theological historian Haris Andreopoulos told Haniotika Nea. However, according to Mr Bogdanidis this principle is not stated in the Charter of the Church of Crete, and there have been two occasions, in the 1980s, when there was a transfer from one Metropolis to another. The question has become a live one, he said, since the favourite to become Metropolitan of Kydonia and Apokoronas is in fact Amphilochios, Metropolitan of Kissamos and Selino, whose diocese includes Kolymbari and who is President of the Orthodox Academy of Crete. As an aside, Mr Bogdanidis stated that Archimandrite Melchisedek, despite the public support for his candidature, is not in fact included on the list of persons eligible for the election.

It was against this background that the ministry of the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports had addressed a letter to the Synod on Tuesday, raising the question of whether the principle of non-transferability was being taken into account. This was followed on Thursday by a letter from the “Fanari” (shorthand for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which is situated in the quarter of Fener or Phanar, meaning lantern, in Istanbul), stating that the principle of non-transferability should be strictly applied.

In view of the need to consider these issues, and of the populist pressures which had been created around election, the Synod’s members decided that they could not elect a new Metropolitan that day and agreed on a cooling-off period, of indeterminate length, but predicted to be one to two weeks. The gathering was thus proclaimed to be not a Synod but a “Synodic meeting” since, as Mr Bogdanidis pointed out, the Synod had been created for the purpose of electing the new Metropolitan, and once it was accepted to be such, it was duty bound to carry through with the election.