Sydney, Australia, April 19, 2021
Screenshot from abc.net.au
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia issued a statement today, strongly denying a recent report from ABC entitled, “Greek Orthodox Church took tens of millions in rent from aged care home at centre of deadliest COVID outbreak.”
Contesting the veracity of its information, the Archdiocese calls upon ABC to lay out all its evidence to prove its case.
The Church opens its statement:
It is with considerable sadness that the Holy Archdiocese of Australia has been made aware of an ‘investigation’ by the ABC, the supposed ‘conclusions’ of which were broadcast recently in a biased and unfair manner regarding both the Archdiocese and His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia.
The broadcast in question (‘Background Briefing’), which carries the sensationalist and provocative title ’The Archbishop, the luxury residence and the nursing home which was ravaged by the coronavirus’, seeks to connect the tragic circumstances that prevailed at St Basil’s Aged Care in Melbourne during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with the financial affairs of the Archdiocese.
According to ABC, a group of taxpayer-funded aged care homes, including St. Basil’s in Melbourne, under the auspices of the Archdiocese have funneled $31 million back into the Archdiocese. This would mean, as Jason Ward, an aged care expert from the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research, says, that taxpayer money intended to take care of the elderly is actually winding up in the hands of the Church. Over the past 8 years, the homes have paid rent to the Archdiocese that is more than twice the market norm, according to Ward.
ABC believes it has uncovered evidence that this money is being used to support Archbishop Makarios’ lavish lifestyle, including a swanky harbor-view apartment in Sydney, a black Holden Caprice with a personalized licenses plate, and expensive vestments “of luxurious silks and wool in vivid hues, embroidered with gold thread,” supposedly costing up to $23,335 (30,000 AUD), that are a “stark departure from the conservative black cotton garments worn by his predecessor, the late Archbishop Stylianos.”
The purchase of the apartment was at the heart of a controversy within the Greek community last year. At that time, the Archdiocese clarified that the Archbishop was not living there, but it has since confirmed that he moved in earlier this year.
ABC also accuses the Archdiocese’s old folks’ homes of neglecting patients and sanitary norms and seriously mishandling the pandemic, resulting in the death of an alarming number of residents.
At least one man, Spiros Vasilakis, holds the Church directly responsible for the death of his mother at St. Basil’s. “I think it comes back to that it's a money-spinner, that's all it was for. Forty-five people are dead because of pure negligence. All of that points to they just didn't care. I might still have faith in my religion, but not in its Church or its representatives,” Vasilakis said.
However, the Archdiocese counters that, “ABC defames the Archbishop by suggesting that the Archdiocese has been the recipient of substantial sums from St Basil’s in Melbourne (over a period of 8 years, a period before Archbishop Makarios’ arrival to Australia), and by inferring that these same monies have funded the allegedly luxurious lifestyle of the Archbishop.”
“Such allegations are utterly false,” the Archdiocese categorically states.
Journalists at ABC rely on tenuous evidence that doesn’t justify its conclusions, and in fact, they ignored “reliable information provided to them,” the Church statement emphasizes.
In particular, the Archdiocese notes that the Archbishop’s car is more than 7 years old and was inherited from his predecessor, and the vestments he wears are those worn by Orthodox bishops all over the world, none of which cost him 30,000 AUD. And the apartment he lives in is not his personal property, but belongs to the Archdiocese.
The Archdiocese also writes that it gave ABC evidence that it did not purchase the apartment with funds from St. Basil’s and that it renovated the apartment with funds from a private donor.
Thus, the Archdiocese “calls upon the ABC to present all the evidence it relies upon that suggests that the Archbishop has profited personally from St. Basil’s Aged Care in Melbourne, as the broadcast claims, or that even one dollar of public funding has been misapplied.”
The Archdiocese also stresses that much of ABC’s information came from “a few aggrieved but unnamed individuals” who have been trying to publish critical material in the Greek and Australian media for a while now. “It is unfortunate that the ABC did not check the veracity of the information these ‘sources’ provided,” the Archdiocese writes.
In conclusion, the Greek Archdiocese calls for an apology from ABC:
Archbishop Makarios, the Clergy and the people of the Archdiocese will not be distracted by such false and damaging allegations but will continue to work for the good of the Church, the faithful and the broader Australian nation. Truly, an apology to the Archbishop, and the faithful of the Holy Archdiocese is called for from the ABC.
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