A priest in the Greek capital Athens has been suspended after including two girls as altar servers in a church service, angering hardliners in the country's all-male Orthodox church, according to parish and media reports.
The parish of Saint Nicholas Ragavas said that Father Alexandros Kariotoglou had been "verbally" suspended by the head of the Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos.
The church, which safeguards the country's dominant Orthodox faith according to the Greek constitution, is all-male and staunchly conservative.
It opposes same-sex relations, premarital sex and abortion, and also resisted efforts to limit liturgies and Holy Communion during the coronavirus pandemic.
No official reason was given for the suspension, but the row began after a picture of the two girls, dressed as altar servers and holding candle holders, was posted on Twitter after Sunday's service.
"Since when is it allowed to dress girls as little priests? This is a distortion of church tradition," said an irate user.
The move immediately sparked a row on social media, with critics accusing the Orthodox Church of Greece of bowing to "fundamentalist" hardliners.
Ta Nea daily reported that the Holy Synod, the governing body of the Church of Greece, would meet next week to discuss the issue.
The Holy Synod and the archbishop's office could not be reached for comment.
A theologian, author and teacher for nearly four decades, Fr Kariotoglou was a faculty member at St Andrew's Greek Orthodox Theological College in Sydney, Australia and later taught migrant children in an underprivileged Athens neighbourhood.
Dimitrios Moschos, a professor of church history at the University of Athens, told state TV ERT there are "no specific rules" excluding female altar servers in Orthodox liturgy, but that it was more a "tradition" in Greece.
Last year, a senior Greek cleric sparked uproar after declaring on national television that rape entails a woman's consent and does not lead to pregnancy.
