Athens, Greece - A year after volunteering its priests for army service to gain support in the midst of a damaging corruption scandal, Greece's powerful Orthodox Church wants its men to have guaranteed desk assignments, a Greek daily reported.
The Holy Synod, the governing body of the Church of Greece, in June sent the defence ministry a letter requesting that conscript priests be assigned posts at army religion bureaus, Eleftherotypia daily said.
The Synod also asked that priests retain their cassocks, and be excused from bearing arms -- thereby avoiding onerous guard duty, the paper said.
All Greek men are obliged to complete 12 months of national service, but members of religious orders had been considered exempt from this duty.
In April 2005, however, the Church suggested the move itself after a number of senior priests were implicated in a series of sex and embezzlement scandals, including a case of tampering with judicial processes to influence rulings.
The highest-ranking casualty of the scandals was the former bishop of Athens, who received in June an eight-year suspended jail sentence for embezzling tens of thousands of euros.