A mother has told a court that Limassol Bishop Athanasios and Macheras Abbot Epifanios began drawing her son towards monastic life when he was 15 years old, with new testimony detailing a years-long estrangement that she alleges was driven by the bishop’s influence.
The case, first reported by Phileleftheros last Saturday, centres on allegations that the two clergymen exerted undue influence over a minor.
Both Athanasios and Epifanios are named as defendants.
In her court statement, the mother — identified only by her initials — described a family confrontation in early September 2003 in which her son, then aged around 21, called his father “possessed by a demon” and seized a chair, turning it aggressively towards him.
The trigger, she alleged, was the father suggesting his son complete his studies before deciding on his future.The mother told the court the deterioration had begun years earlier.
Around 1999, when her son was in his final year of secondary school and aged 17 to 18, football posters in his bedroom were replaced by icons of saints and a photograph of Bishop Athanasios.
His schoolbooks were set aside in favour of patristic texts, and he stopped attending tutorial classes.
A psychiatrist who saw the son later told the mother, according to her testimony, that he had “deified” Bishop Athanasios.
The mother alleged that when she approached Athanasios directly to express concern about her son’s behaviour, the bishop responded: “Are you calling your son mad?”
She told him she was not, but that a person suffering from depression could make wrong decisions about their life.
She further alleged that Athanasios subsequently told her son that during that meeting she had in fact called him mad — a claim she contests.
In a later meeting at the Limassol Bishopric, attended by the mother, her husband and her brother, she confronted Athanasios with handwritten notes she had found — which she said documented his meetings with her son — and asked why he had claimed to have met him only twice.
According to her testimony, when Athanasios realised she had copies of the notes, he told her that to remove her son from the monastery she would need “to make him look crazy.”
After that meeting, the mother testified, her son called her in a highly agitated state, saying the bishop was furious about the notes because they documented their conversations and jeopardised his electoral campaign.
The mother also described how, after her son left home, he would telephone her saying she was “a vampire” and that he would “enter the monastery and die there.”
She told the court that a girlfriend he had at the time noted their relationship was harmonious except for brief periods following his confessions with Bishop Athanasios.
His situation worsened, the mother testified, after he failed to gain entry to a sports academy and failed to become a commissioned officer in the military.
He relapsed further when two close friends died in separate road accidents within the same week. He subsequently showed signs of depression, expressed existential concerns and began collecting newspaper death notices.
After completing his army service, the mother alleged, her son travelled to Mount Athos on the guidance of Athanasios, where he had contact with the Vatopedi monks. He later went to the United States, where a relative informed the family he had been met by an associate of the bishop.
He returned nine months later and abandoned his university studies.