The suspended Metropolitan of Paphos, Tychikos, has informally been given another chance, with no move for now to defrock him over his continued refusal to withdraw legal proceedings before Cyprus’s courts. Tychikos had previously been warned not to take his case to the courts, or, if he had already done so, to withdraw any claims.
The development follows the Supreme Court’s decision on his request for a prerogative writ of Certiorari against the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s decision of 17.10.2025, which upheld the 22.5.2025 decision of the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus to remove him from the Metropolitan Throne of Paphos. A hierarch told Phileleftheros that, for now, this latest breach by the suspended Metropolitan will also be overlooked.
The same source said that despite recurring claims by some self-declared supporters of Tychikos that the Church of Cyprus is persecuting him, the Holy Synod avoided raising the issue of a new penalty, as it had warned it would.
Instead, it gave him chances to reconsider, to the point where the Archbishop himself, despite the attacks and criticism directed at him and the Holy Synod, recently called Tychikos to come to the Archbishopric so he could be assigned episcopal duties. According to the hierarch, Tychikos refused, and that chapter is now closed.
The issue is expected to return if it is judged that Tychikos’s persistence risks damaging the reputation of the Church of Cyprus, or if he carries out his threat to turn to the European Court of Human Rights.
The Church of Cyprus hierarchy, shielded by the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus itself, believes Tychikos has no hope of overturning the Holy Synod’s decisions, which first condemned him to removal from office and subsequently declared him suspended.
The Supreme Court’s latest decision states: “The finding that the decisions of Ecclesiastical Courts fall outside the prerogative jurisdiction of the Supreme Court clearly also covers the challenged decision of 17.10.2025 of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which acted as a second-instance Ecclesiastical Court in relation to the first-instance decision of the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus dated 22.5.2025.”
The Supreme Court also notes: “It appears that the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to exercise prerogative review over the procedures or decisions of Ecclesiastical Courts. This conclusion leads, without more, to the dismissal of the Application (Tychikos), without it being necessary to examine the remaining grounds on which the Application is based.
“The Application is dismissed.”
