Archbishop Chrysostomos’ health said to be ‘stable’ (updated)

Archbishop Chrysostomos II’s health is stable, his personal doctor, Joseph Kashios, told the Cyprus News Agency (Cna) immediately after his evening visit to the Archbishopric on Tuesday.

“The archbishop is fully communicating, fully aware, performing his duties just fine,” Kashios said.

According to Kashios, the archbishop’s condition is grave because of the health problem he is facing, but stable, and that he has not shown any change “compared to yesterday and the day before yesterday. There has been no change in anything,” he explained.

He also noted that there is no question of the archbishop’s removal from the Archdiocese, Cna reported.

Archbishop Chrysostomos II’s health had deteriorated over the last few days, his doctor said earlier on Tuesday, after the prelate had not been seen in public for weeks as he is dealing with intestinal cancer.

According to his doctor, the archbishop is in a tough situation and that over the last few days it has got worse, then a bit better, making the situation difficult.

He told Sigma: “He is communicating with surroundings, and he is aware of what is going on.”

“We have 24-hour nurses, and he receives what he would receive at any medical centre. We have organised the whole situation so that his holiness lacks nothing. He himself is fully aware of what is happening,” Kashios said.

The doctor added that no matter what happens to his health, the archbishop has requested to remain in the Archbishopric.

The archbishop is taking visits from a limited number of people, the doctor said.

In an announcement on Monday, Cyprus’ religious leaders from the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process (RTCYPP) called on their faithful to pray for the health of the archbishop.

“The religious leadership and wider fellowship of the RTCYPP call on all faithful and people of goodwill to fervently pray for the health of His Beatitude Archbishop Chyrostomos II, head of the autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus,” they said.

The 81-year-old leader of the church suffers from cancer, which is said to have metastasised to various organs.

The archbishop, who last travelled to Israel for treatment in July, has a frail look about him during his infrequent public appearances and has said in a recent interview that only God decides when a person’s time is up.

Asked whom he’d like as his successor, Chrysostomos in the interview demurred, saying only that he’d want the priests to “sit down and work it out together.”

But he added that he would like the next archbishop to “have an opinion on the national issue [i.e. the Cyprus problem], because otherwise I fear we will lose Cyprus.”