Patras, Greece, January 15, 2025
Photo: Facebook
In October 2022, a court in Patras, Greece, convicted a well-known priest for having celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the feast of Annunciation in 2020 during the COVID pandemic.
Protopresbyter Anastasios Gotsopoulos, who served in the Church of St. Nicholas in Patras on the day in question, received a suspended sentence of 8 months in prison.
However, on Monday, January 13, the Criminal Court unanimously overturned his conviction on appeal, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
The prosecutor’s office agreed with the arguments of the lawyers who claimed that the Ministry of Health’s decree prohibiting religious services for 20 days due to the pandemic was unconstitutional.
The judges fully supported the prosecutor’s position, also basing their decision on the conflict with priestly duties. The announcement of the acquittal was met with thunderous applause by the many clergy, monastics, and laymen who came to support Fr. Anastasios.
In his defense, the priest stated:
It’s impossible under any circumstances and for any reason to accept a ban on celebrating the Divine Liturgy, even for one day. The cancelation of the Liturgy, even temporary, means the abolition of the Church itself. Such laws were in effect in Europe until 311, during the time of Emperor Diocletian, and in Albania under Enver Hoxha (1967-1990). Even Mehmed the Conqueror, Lenin, and Stalin didn’t dare to implement such a sacrilegious cancelation of the Liturgy, which the Greek Republic allowed.
“If this was a crime, I’m ready to bear responsibility,” he concluded. “If your conscience and sense of justice find me guilty, condemn me. I accept this honor—the honor of being condemned for fulfilling my duty as an Orthodox priest.”
Sharing his thoughts with the Union of Orthodox Journalists, Fr. Anastasios said: “Today, the Greek judicial system deprived me of the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a priest: to be condemned for fulfilling my priestly and pastoral duty while remaining faithful to my conscience, my flock, and God.”
The court spared Greece from a great shame he said:
The Greek judicial system, through its acquittal, refused to apply the excessive, illogical, ineffective, unconstitutional, and, above all, blasphemous government decree that prohibited not only gatherings of believers in churches but also the Divine Liturgy itself, even in monasteries and on Mt. Athos, during Great Lent 2020.
Fr. Anastasios expressed his heartfelt gratitude to all those who have supported him.
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