The former priest who threw acid onto the Metropolitans, members of the Synodal Second Instance Court, who decided to defrock him for a disciplinary case, was sentenced to temporary detention after his apology last Wednesday, June 23.
The investigating officer accepted the request of the 37-year-old former archimandrite for a psychiatric examination, requested by the accused, citing serious mental health problems “in order to establish that he is mentally ill and to remove the imputation of the act.”
The defrocked priest is accused of serious physical injury with intent against nine people, seven Metropolitans, an Archimandrite and a police officer. In the indictment, it is mentioned that the 37-year-old intently put the victims’ life in danger of life.
It is also mentioned that immediately after the announcement of the decision of the Synodal Second Instance Court in Petraki Monastery around 19:15, which was about to ratify the decision of defrocking, the accused was carrying two bottles of acid in his bag and you threw intently the acid onto the face, the neck and the upper extremities of the members of the court and the policeman in the above area.
In the same indictment, it is referred that the accused wanted to cause harm and put their life at risk since the caustic liquid has a strong corrosive effect on the tissues of the human body, while the inhalation of the vapors and the contact of the liquid on the human body or other objects cause serious damage to the respiratory system.
In his defense statement, the former clergyman said he was absolutely shocked and devastated by the incident while expressing his full sympathy to the victims and their relatives and friends.
According to the 37-year-old former archimandrite, the case was tried concerning allegations of financial scandals, amounting to 10,000 euros, in the parish he served “and not for drugs as falsely reported in the media.”
He also stated, according to information, that the case for a small amount of drugs, of which he had been accused in 2018 by certain priests, was a “conspiracy that they had set up for me… because I knew things.”
According to the accused, the accusation against him was aimed at not complaining about misdemeanors related to pedophilia and homosexuality by former priests “with the blessings of the Metropolitan.”
The accused said he obtained the caustic liquid from a “chemical group” he found on the internet a month and a half ago at the price of 45 euros, which assured him that its use is for fields and grass.
He emphasized that his goal was to use onto himself “if the decision of the Synodal court was negative; I always wanted to hurt myself.”
Thus, according to what he claimed, when the decision of defrocking was announced, he took out the liquid “as a sign of indignation and pain of soul and threw it first onto me… then I was infuriated and scattered the liquid in the air.”
According to the 37-year-old defendant, he felt great injustice “because the Church was and is my life and my escape from the mental problems that I have since I was a child.”
Source: ANA-MPA
