Paphos, Cyprus, May 27, 2025
Photo: cosmosnews.com.cy
On May 22, OrthoChristian reported that the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus voted to dethrone His Eminence Metropolitan Tychikos as the ruling hierarch of the important Paphos Metropolis, though he remains a bishop and a member of the Synod.
The decision has caused great unrest, especially in Paphos, where hundreds of parishioners gathered at the city hall on Sunday in a show of support for the deposed hierarch. The people held banners saying “We want our Metropolitan back,” “God does not bless injustice,” “Tychikos is worthy,” and “God will have the last word.” Online petitions have also gathered thousands of signatures in his defense.
Later on May 22, the Synod later published its communique on the matter, offering brief details about the charges that were brought against the young hierarch.
The main accusations were:
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the alleged ordination of a member of a group in Thessaloniki that has walled itself off, not commemorating the local hierarch but without going into schism, and the concealment of this action
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the “systematic refusal” to celebrate mixed marriages and the refusal to recognize the Sacrament of Chrismation and certificates of Orthodox faith celebrated and issued by canonical Churches
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the consecration of a chapel in honor of a cleric who has not been canonized
“The above matters which were discussed extensively also concern the unity of the Orthodox Church and the relations of the Church of Cyprus with them. At stake are the unity of the Church and our relations with the other Churches,” the communique states.
It is also noted that the Cypriot primate, Archbishop Georgios, received accusations and complaints about Met. Tychikos from the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Church of Greece, Metropolitan Barnabas of Neaopolis in Greece, and the Greek government.
According to the Synodal statement, Met. Tychikos’ responses to the accusations were insufficient, and thus the aforementioned punitive action was taken against him.
According to Cypriot outlet Philenews, he was dethroned by a vote of 10-6 (the highly respected Metropolitans Athanasios of Limassol and Neophytos of Morphou voted against his dethronement). The governing statutes of the Church of Cyprus stipulate that a hierarch can be removed from his cathedra by a three-quarters majority, or 13 votes, though the Synod says that it met not as the Synod as such, but as an ecclesiastical court, which it argues allowed it to removed Met. Tychikos with a simple majority vote.
The chapel consecration
According to one of OrthoChristian’s clerical contacts in Cyprus, the chapel in question was consecrated in honor of Elder Nektarios (Vitalis), who was miraculously healed of cancer by St. Nektarios of Aegina in 1980. He became a beloved spiritual father in his own right and reposed in February 2018.
As our contact noted, it was well known that for many years even before his formal canonization, Elder Joseph the Hesychast was known and celebrated as St. Joseph the Hesychast throughout the Metropolis of Limassol, led by Met. Athanasios, who is in the spiritual lineage of St. Joseph.
The reception and marriage of converts
Regarding the other two more controversial charges, Philenews reports that a dissatisfied letter from Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople played a major role in the decision to dethrone Met. Tychikos. The Patriarch referred to the Cypriot hierarch’s views as “conservative and completely outdated” and characteristically took offense at a perceived slight against “our most venerable Ecumenical Throne.”
The same article details the controversial case of a Cypriot professor in Chicago and his American wife whom he married in a civil ceremony five years and now wanted to have a Church wedding in his homeland of Paphos.
In preparation for the Sacrament, his wife decided to become Orthodox. She was from a United Church of Christ background, where, according to the UCC site, “the mode of baptism is a matter of choice. Some traditions use sprinkling, some pouring, and some immersion.” Having received a UCC baptism in the name of the Trinity, the woman was received into the Greek Archdiocese of America by Chrismation after nine months of catechism.
The couple then began making preparations for the wedding in Paphos, selecting a church, reserving a venue for the reception, inviting guests, and so on. “The next step was to submit the necessary documents to the Metropolis of Paphos to secure the relevant license,” the husband writes. However, they were told that the certificate of Chrismation was insufficient and that the woman would have to be rebaptized. Upon speaking with the Metropolis on the phone, the man was told that Met. Tychikos wanted to meet his wife before granting the marriage license, though he objected that there was not enough time to do so before the scheduled wedding.
However, other information calls the objectivity of the Cypriot professor’s report and the Synod’s accusations into question. While Met. Tychikos is accused of not recognizing reception by Chrismation, according to Protopresbyter Anastasios Gotsopoulos, he was informed by the Metropolis of Paphos that, in fact, two weddings were already served there just in 2025 in which one spouse was received by Chrismation.
At the same time, Abp. Georgios, who has taken over administration of the Paphos Diocese, has, since the Synod meeting, also expelled a priest and a deacon from Paphos for allegedly refusing to celebrate weddings.
The alleged ordination of a non-commemorator
The priest in question is Fr. Dimos Serkelidis, who, in a video published yesterday, strongly denies the accusation against Met. Tychikos, saying that far from having sent him to Thessaloniki, the Metropolitan in fact pleaded with him to return to Paphos, where priests are needed.
My case “is only the pretext. The cause is his mindset, his anti-heretical and Patristic discourse that disturbed the ecumenist and pro-papal regime that governs our Church. If it wasn’t my case, it would have been something else,” Fr. Dimos said, calling the Holy Synod “Pontius Pilate” for its hasty judgment against Met. Tychikos, a man of “spiritual nobility and gallantry.”
While the Archbishop and Synod charged that the Metropolitan sent Fr. Dimos to Thessaloniki, he says that it was a family matter that took him there, while Met. Tychikos worked tirelessly to find a way to bring him back. He also clarifies that he never commemorated the Paphos hierarch while in Thessaloniki.
Noting that he was never brought in for questioning by the Synod, Fr. Dimos characterizes the deposition of Met. Tychikos as an “ecclesiastical coup,” which violated the proper ecclesiastical procedure. The priest believes that the real reason for the hierarch’s deposition was his opposition to the plans to bring the skull of the Holy Apostle to Paphos by a Catholic cardinal. The Metropolitan argued that such visits lead to common prayer with heretics.
Examination of the Synodal procedure for deposing Met. Tychikos
In a lengthy examination of the statutes governing the Church of Cyprus, Protopresbyter Anastasios Gotsopoulos of the Church of Greece makes the same argument as Fr. Dimos—that the Synod, under pressure from outside ecclesiastical and political authorities, violated the statutes in a hasty bid to depose the Metropolitan.
“The deposition of His Eminence Metropolitan Tychikos from the throne of the Apostolic Metropolis of Paphos has filled with sorrow, anger and indignation the souls not only of his flock but also of many faithful in almost all local Orthodox Churches,” Fr. Anastasios writes.
Going over the articles of the Church statutes, Fr. Anastasios points out that the governing document requires 13 votes to even temporarily suspend a hierarch, whereas the Synod permanently removed him with just 10. Further, even if using the workaround of acting as an ecclesiastical court, it is required that an investigative committee of bishops and priests thoroughly examine all accusations, which did not happen in the case of Met. Tychikos. Several other steps in the procedures for holding an ecclesiastical court were also skipped over.
Fr. Anastasios also presents the aforementioned information about marriages served in the Metropolis of Paphos.
He also notes that the Cypriot primate Abp. Georgios had already been talking for months about his personal offense at the positions of Met. Tychikos, particularly as regards the matter of bringing the relics of St. Paul.
He concludes: “It is absolutely clear that the synodical decision of 05.22.25 by which Metropolitan Tychikos of Paphos was dethroned will be recorded in the ecclesiastical history of Cyprus as a monument of synodical arbitrariness and contempt of the canonical order of the Apostolic Church of Cyprus.”
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