Greece’s government announced that an agreement has been reached between the State and the Greek Orthodox Church, allowing priests to remain on the civil service payroll.

The meeting between the Greek Church and Minister Kostas Gavroglou was concluded on Monday, at the Ministry of Education, with the draft agreement being the main focus.

At the end of the meeting, the Minister described the conversation with the representatives of the Church as “extremely constructive” and noted that this “strengthens the rationalization of state-church relations.”

“There have been many things that have been made clear and so we have gone a step further,” he added.

Greek priests were outraged following a provisional plan agreed to in principle last year between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Archbishop Ieronymos, which would have taken priests off the Greek state payroll.

Next Tuesday, there will be a new meeting between Church and State representatives to discuss the new proposals that will be made by the Church on the final reform of the plan.

Also, today, Tuesday morning at 11:30 am, the Minister will meet with a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate regarding the same issue.