Problems with Paphos Bishop Tychikos’ social conduct, as well as in his dealings with the municipality, had been brewing for years, the town’s Mayor Phedonas Phedonos said on Friday, following a decision taken by the Holy Synod to depose him. 

The bishop had been ruffling feathers in the district on various levels, including among the faithful, for veiled as well as overt racist statements, including telling a congregation to “avoid food prepared by contaminated people” and refusing to conduct marriages between members of the church who were not of Greek origin. 

The municipality had had to suffer through “trying and unbecoming behaviours” on the bishop’s part for years, Phedonos told the CyBC, including over property matters in Paphos. 

Not only had he taken the municipality to court without doing them the courtesy of informing them, Phedonos said, he had obstructed all communication by means of locking offices and refusing to answer telephone calls.

The reason given for the stonewalling was a “spiritual retreat”, Phedonos added. 

Most recently, the mayor found himself at loggerheads with Tychikos over the planning of an event to mark May 19, the day observed by Pontic Greeks as the “day of commemoration of the Pontic Greek genocide”, with the latter again making his own arrangements without checking in with the municipality. 

“I called him five or six times and he did not answer me. The last time, he sent me a text saying, ‘bless you’,” Phedonas said. 

“There was a problem in the administrative sense” as well as the fact that the bishop “saw enemies everywhere”, Phedonas said – in non-Orthodox people, in the Vatican, in protestants and others, and he was always on the guard against “heretics.” 

“These are not statements appropriate in 2025 and could inflict enormous social damage spoken to the ears of young children,” Phedonos said. 

The Holy Synod on Thursday had voted by a ten to six margin to ratify Tychikos’ removal from his official status after he was charged with various breaches of church protocol, including the showcasing an icon of a saint not canonised by the Church. 

Church secretary Georgios Christodoulou in a statement confirming the synod’s decision, said “The Holy Synod decided that the aforementioned hierarchy shall remain a bishop of the Church of Cyprus and a member of the Holy Synod,” understood to mean he may retain the title, but that he has been relieved of his administrative duties. 

Archbishop Georgios is to take up the role of administrating the Paphos diocese with immediate effect, while procedures for electing a new Paphos bishop are to be started. 

Georgios had previously clashed with Tychikos, notably over the latter’s refusal to allow the relic of Apostle Paul’s skull to be brought from the Vatican City to Cyprus on the principle that the Pope is a heretic. The archbishop had issued repeated warnings to his subordinate in the past. 

Six bishops supported Tychikos, including Morphou Bishop Neophytos and Arsinoe Bishop Pangratios, along with the Limassol bishops’ group, which is made up of four clerics.