ATHENS — An effort by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece to start severing cozy ties between the state and the Greek Orthodox Church, including taking priests off civil service payrolls, has opened up divisions within the church, which has played a dominant role in the country’s life for centuries.

In a surprise news conference last week, Mr. Tsipras and the head of the Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, announced a tentative deal to remove clerics from the state payroll and to resolve a longstanding dispute over church property.

The Holy Synod, the church’s governing body, whose approval would be required for the proposal to advance, held an emergency session on Friday to discuss the matter, rejecting out of hand any changes to priests’ pay status and calling for more “dialogue” on the other issues.

Although the proposed deal would not essentially affect the wages of the roughly 9,000 Greek priests — the state would pay an annual lump sum of around 200 million euros, or about $225 million, into a fund to be managed by the church — they would no longer be civil servants. That prospect has stoked fears for job security in the debt-racked country, where most public sector positions remain all but permanent despite a series of cutbacks during the recent financial crisis.