Non-Redeemable

Much to the comfort of its flock, the Greek Orthodox Church has taken a defiantly Christian stance over the austerity measures which the government has imposed. The Orthodox Church is as poor as a bank mouse: there is, according to a spokesbeing for the archbishop of Athens, "no comparison between the riches of the Greek church and those of its Italian or Spanish counterpart", the Greek church being merely the second-largest landowner in the country and under no particular constraint to publish its accounts if it doesn't feel like it. The church also holds a one and a half per cent share in the National Bank of Greece, with a seat on the board for the bishop of Ioannina. "We refuse to foot the bill for other people's mistakes," said the bishop of Ioannina; evidently the Orthodox church has no more interest than the Catholic or Anglican churches in imitating its putative founder. Doubtless entirely unrelated to this matter is the fact that three years ago the bishop of Ioannina received a beggarly twenty-four thousand euros in fees, which have presumably sufficed ever since to keep him at the level of asceticism to which the priests of national churches generally aspire.