The deposed Paphos bishop Tychikos has still not received an official invite to appeal against his dismissal at the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, his lawyer Evangelia Poulla said on Monday.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA), she said her team is awaiting an invite to “streamline further procedures and our next steps”.

“After we receive the letter, we will start the procedures to be followed. We will need to know with whom the right reverend Tychikos will travel to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and whether lawyers to represent him or a canonist will be able to travel with him,” she said.

A canonist is an expert in canon law, the law of the church.

Asked what Tychikos has been doing since being relieved of his duties, Poulla said he has been “praying and fasting”.

Earlier, church spokesman Christakis Efstathiou told CNA that the material contained in Tychikos’ appeal files has begun to be examined, and that as such, it has been deemed appropriate to invite him to the next session of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which has been scheduled for mid-October.

There, he said, it is expected that he will “provide some explanations on issues” about which they wish to ask him.

He added that at this stage, it “does not appear” that anyone else will be invited beside Tychikos.

“In my opinion, the main person will be Tychikos,” he said.

He then added that after Tychikos’ appearance at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a decision on his appeal will be made regarding his appeal. If the appeal is accepted, he said, “it means Tychikos’ request is satisfied”, but if it is rejected, “it means that the decisions of the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus on this issue are ratified”.

The Holy Synod had on May 22 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 that “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 took over the temporary running of the Paphos diocese, with a new bishop set to be elected in September

The archbishop 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 late Pope Francis was “a heretic”.

Tychikos had also faced accusations of racism in the past, having once told a congregation to “avoid food prepared by contaminated people” and having refused to conduct marriages between members of the church who were not of Greek origin. 

The day after his dismissal, Paphos mayor Phedonas Phedonos had said his municipality had had to suffer “trying and unbecoming behaviours” on Tychikos’ part for years.

Phedonos said Tychikos had taken the municipality to court “without the courtesy of informing” them, and that he had obstructed all communication between the municipality and the bishopric by 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.