ISTANBUL - Orthodox church leaders have decided to dismiss Jerusalem`s beleaguered Greek Orthodox Patriarch Irineos I from office over his alleged involvement in a damaging land-sale scandal, an official taking part at a meeting here of the church`s governing council said.
"The (Jerusalem) patriarch has been dismissed," Kesarios Asilios, the Metropolitan of Jerusalem, told reporters after the meeting of the pan-Orthodox Synod here.
The synod, the church`s governing council, met under the head of the Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, to rule on Irineos`s fate.
He was turfed out of office by his own flock earlier this month for an alleged multi-million-dollar sale of Church land in a mainly Palestinian area to Jewish businessmen.
05/24/2005 15:39 GMT