An online campaign has been launched to collect signatures for the immediate removal of His Beatitude Archbishop Chrysostomos II from the post of Primate of the Cypriot Orthodox Church. A petition with a corresponding demand was posted on January 31, 2022 on the Avaaz international community website by a group of the Orthodox community of Cyprus at the initiative of one of its leaders, doctor Andri Polidorou, writes Pravlife.

The motivating part of the petition cites the decision of the Cypriot First Hierarch to ban twelve priests of the Archdiocese who refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus for three months, starting February 1, 2022.

The authors of the petition point to the words of Archbishop Chrysostomos, who threatened unvaccinated clerics to increase the three-month period to six months or even to deprive them of their rank for “unheard of” disobedience to their Primate.

“This is a harsh form of dictatorship, coercion,” the petition says. “We demand the immediate resignation of Archbishop Chrysostom II of Cyprus.”

As previously reported, the Primate of the Cypriot Orthodox Church banned 12 priests from serving who did not fulfill his requirement to be vaccinated against COVID-19 until January 15, 2022.