Within the state price range of the Ministry of Finance for the 12 months 2025 which is pending within the Parliament for a vote, there are included bills meant, amongst others, to cowl the wage of rural monks
Pnets of €8,850,000 are included within the price range of the Ministry of Finance for the 12 months 2025, that are meant to cowl the expenditure for the wage of the agricultural clergy (€8.5 million) in addition to the clergy of the non secular teams (€350,000 ). That’s, the monks of the Maronite Archdiocese, the Armenian Church, the Church of the Latins and the Monastery of Agios Chrysostom, which is beneath the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The state covers a part of the wage of rural monks on the idea of an settlement reached in the course of the reign of Makarios III when he was each President of the Republic and Archbishop. The disputed settlement was revised in March 2019 and ratified by a regulation handed by the Parliament and titled because the “State Assist to the Clergy of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus Legislation of 2019”.
The state assist is paid as compensation for the switch of 15,564 acres of church land to the state. 73% of this ecclesiastical land is in possessions. Its market worth is estimated at immediately's costs between €250 million and €300 million.
Cost phrases
Within the present laws, the variety of monks entitled to state assist is set as follows:
To 760 monks from the date of entry into pressure of this regulation (March 2019) till December 31, 2020.
To 800 monks from January 1, 2021 till December 31, 2023.
To 850 monks from January 1, 2024 till December 31, 2025.
The variety of 850 beneficiaries of state assist for monks from January 1, 2026 onwards will probably be elevated percentageally by 0.5% for every year: Supplied that, as soon as the Republic obtains full management over areas not beneath its management, the same preparations relating to the variety of beneficiaries of state assist.
They apportion to every priest an quantity of state assist decided at €681.86 per 30 days, elevated in proportion to the present common will increase and indexation allowances granted to state staff, from the date of entry into pressure of this regulation and thereafter.
The quantity equivalent to the state assist in accordance with the provisions of this regulation is paid as a complete quantity to the Wage Physique of the Clergy of the Central Ecclesiastical Fund of the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus by the Accountant Basic of the Republic and the Church of Cyprus undertakes your complete cost of the wage of the clerical workers, based on its inside procedures.
By choice of Makarios
The proposal for the state to cowl a part of the agricultural clergy's wage was submitted to the Council of Ministers by the then President of the Republic Makarios III, who was additionally the Archbishop of Cyprus. The disputed choice was taken on 11/2/1971 and it additionally offered that the switch of the 15,564 acres of church land to the identify of the state can be performed by signing an settlement, which might be submitted within the type of a invoice to Parliament for voting. The invoice was launched in 1973 however later withdrawn. Though the settlement went into impact instantly, with the state protecting the payroll of the agricultural clergy, the tracts of land that may have been granted by the Archdiocese as compensation for this state sponsorship have been solely transferred a number of years in the past. Makarios determined to have a part of the agricultural clergy's wage coated by the state in change for the concession of various estates by the Archdiocese, as in the course of the disputed interval, in 1971, the Church was dealing with severe monetary issues and was unable to fulfill its obligations.
The VAT refund
Along with protecting the wage of the agricultural clergy, primarily based on one other settlement, the state and significantly the Ministry of Finance returns the Worth Added Tax (VAT) within the type of grants, yearly, to the Archdiocese, the Metropolises, the Monasteries and the Church buildings for initiatives they did.
In keeping with the information revealed yearly by the Basic Accounting Workplace of the Republic within the identify of transparency and public accountability, VAT refunds to the Church quantity to a mean of €2.5 million per 12 months.
VAT refunds to the Church concern, based on the choice of the Council of Ministers taken in March 2012, development and different works. The works additionally embrace constructions-projects that happen within the forecourts of the church buildings and concern, amongst different issues, banquet halls for weddings. Particularly, article 13 of the aforementioned settlement offers that “the Church of Cyprus is exempt from paying VAT for the development and upkeep of church buildings and properties situated within the church's environment and used for the efficiency of its non secular work”.
The Division of Taxation issued a round clarifying that the time period upkeep consists of “renovation and restore companies carried out by a taxable particular person and consisting of plumbing, electrical, carpentry, portray and development work.”
Within the settlement, it was clarified that the precise exemption will probably be made by the concession of state sponsorship in return for the VAT paid. It’s emphasised that the primary funds from the state to the Church started in 2016 and have been paid retroactively.
