A MAN who paid $50,000 for alleged naked prayer sessions on the advice of "angels" to rid his wife of a curse has told a Sydney court he could not afford the outlay but had no choice.

Tony Golossian, 62, and Arthur Psichogios, 40, have pleaded not guilty to a string of charges mainly relating to sex offences against two women in Sydney between 2001 and 2008.

Frances Psichogios, 38, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to a second woman.

The trio is standing trial at Sydney's Downing Centre District Court, where the husband of one of the alleged victims gave evidence today.

The husband and wife, who cannot be named for legal reasons, trusted Mr Golossian as a respected "holy man" who said that a curse on the woman could only be broken if he (Mr Golossian) prayed over her naked body, the trial has been told.

Giving evidence today, the husband said he paid two cash instalments of $25,000 to Frances Psichogios for the prayer sessions.

"It is not something we could really afford ... but I had to give it to her, I had no choice," the husband said of the payment to Frances Psichogios.

"I had to give it to her, otherwise I would have had to go away and become a monk."

After paying the money he had contacted Golossian, the man said.

"Could you please speak to the angels and ask if I gave the money to the right person?" he had asked Mr Golossian.

He had been told "everything was fine".

The man said the prayer sessions were held in a hotel room, and he was told that his wife should bring eye patches because "evil would burn her eyes" if she opened them during the session.

He had to convince his wife to return for the second session, for which she was collected by Ms Psichogios.

"He wasn't happy but I kept telling her, and after a while she agreed," he told the court.

He said his wife had seemed tired and dizzy as she returned from the second prayer session.

"She felt again that she was sexually assaulted or raped or penetrated and she felt someone on top of her and I think she said for the second prayer session she remembered holding a penis," the man said.

"I told her it was probably a dream ... That's probably what you thought was happening."

The couple contacted Mr Golossian for help in 2008 after finding a black wax object under their doormat and receiving text messages from an unknown person referring to a black magic curse on their family.

"Tony did say if we don't break the curse that I would die of cancer and that (my husband) would die from a fatal accident and slowly my children would die and my family," the wife said in her evidence to the court last week.

She told the jury of her Greek Orthodox background and of the "evil eye'' tradition relating to curses involving "bad, bad things".

The husband said today that he had gone along with the prayer sessions because he didn't want anything to happen to the family, or for "anything to grow inside" his wife.

The trial before Judge Penelope Hock is continuing.



Originally published as Naked prayers for wife cost $50k