Prisoner of Love

Prisoner of Love A bishop is "kidnaped"

Emotionally exhausted, the thin, bearded prisoner gazes at the noisy crowd outside his room and says in a mild voice, "I am captive of my people's love, their violence and their beliefs." Captive he is, for the Orthodox folk around the town of Kisamos, on the western tip of his native island of Crete, have kidnaped Bishop Eirinaios. For more than two weeks they have held him hostage in an empty room, refusing to free him until the church restores him as their leader.

The reason for such adulation is clear. Soon after Eirinaios arrived in Kisamos in 1957 to take charge of the diocese, the undeveloped, poor region began to hum with church projects: an internationally regarded religious and scientific convention center, a school for deaf-mutes, a school to preserve traditional handicrafts, technical schools with new dormitories so students from remote villages could attend, an experimental farm to raise improved crops and livestock. In 1966, when a ferryboat to Athens sank in a bad storm, drowning more than 200 people, Eirinaios denounced the neglect of safety on the aging boats. He also rallied small shareholders to establish their own well-run ferry line. People's ferries have since been started on four other islands.

All these good works required lots of money. Eirinaios seemed to raise it as if by magic and did not spend it on himself. But Eirinaios was one of the few bishops who refused to collaborate with the military junta that took power in Greece in 1967. That stand apparently led to the bishop's downfall. The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, which has some church jurisdiction over Crete, asked the politically troublesome Eirinaios to step aside in 1971. He was sent to West Germany to minister to 350,000 Greeks who migrated north in search of jobs. Soon Eirinaios was riling German authorities by demanding Greek-language schooling for the workers' children.

Back home many of his projects were dying of neglect. His parishioners kept praying for his return. Then in 1979 his former see at Kisamos fell vacant. The bishops of Crete, who, with approval of the Patriarchate, elect their fellow bishops, promised that they would reinstate Eirinaios. But last June they chose another man. Two hours later the people seized the episcopal residence in Kisamos and threatened to demolish the building if anyone but Eirinaios tried to take office.

As dissent spread, Eirinaios returned home for a vacation. In an incredible episode on Aug. 29, a weeping band of former parishioners interrupted him at prayer in a little chapel near Chania, kissed him, then literally hauled the protesting prelate into a car for the trip to Kisamos. Alerted by church bells, thousands swarmed to welcome him back. The Ecumenical Patriarchate supposed at first that Eirinaios himself had staged the kidnaping. Not so, insisted the captive bishop. He told TIME last week: "Only after I recovered from the initial shock and saw the sufferings of these people did my soul yield to them."

Antonis Schetakis, mayor of Kisamos, explains this exercise in church democracy by force: "At a time when, instead of trying to solve our social problems, the church is only worried about the blind support of old and uneducated women and how to exploit its vast property, Eirinaios is a hope and a symbol for the future." At week's end the Patriarchate and bishops of Crete worked out a plan to shuffle episcopal assignments so the see of Kisamos eventually can be opened for Eirinaios' return. But street mobs were demanding that he be restored immediately.

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