Archbishop Ieronymos lashed out at the government decision that would simplify Greek students of getting exemptions from religious studies, following a statement by Alternate Education Minister Sia Anagnostopoulou. Clearly irrate by the comments, the archbishop said: “This does not come from the ministry but some lady with certain ideas in her head!” He stressed that school religious studies were a matter “linked to the Constitution.”

“The Greek people must finally get serious and stop listening to the nonsense of one person or another,” he said. “The Constitution decides what the course of this state will be and our Constitution states that our education must be national, Christian, Greek Orthodox education. We cannot have everyone saying whatever they like. If we want to change these things, then the Constitution must change. But the Constitution does not change one word, it will first go through our hearts and the hearts of Greeks. If they don’t want priests, high priests, if they don’t want religious studies, if they don’t want all this civilization we have, our history etc. The Greeks must therefore decide and if they decide on changing the constitution, then we can talk about it again.”

The matter will further be clarified on Tuesday when Archbishop Ieronymos meets with the new Education Minister Nikos Filis.

On her part, Anagnostopoulou states that her comments had been distorted. “My statements were in response to a listener of the radio show Kokkino while we were discussing another education matter,” she said, adding that she did not wish to give any further explanations or comment on her initial statement regarding Religious Studies being taught at state schools. She states that the Ministry of Education has a number of problems it needs to take care of. “I don’t understand all this uproar. It all began with a listener’s complaint concerning getting an exemption from Religious Studies.”