A monk and two other people were arrested after digging up the body of a nun they believe to be a saint and trying to smuggle the remains into Cyprus.
The 42-year-old Cypriot monk, a 54-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman were arrested at Athens International Airport as they attempted to board a flight to Cyprus with the body stuffed in a suitcase, the Cyprus Mail said.
The Mail reported police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos as saying the trio “Claim they took the remains of the woman, whom they consider a saint, to bury them in Cyprus”.
Katsounotos said Eleni Vathiadou’s remains were taken from her grave in Greece following a memorial service to mark the fourth anniversary of her death.
“It appears to be the work of charlatans with a financial interest that is what I suspect,” Cyprus’s Archbishop Chrysostomos told Reuters today when asked about the monk’s tale.
The three were charged with theft and desecrating a deceased person and will face court later this month, the report said. The monk was also suspended from his monastic duties at the Kykkos Monastery for three months for going away without leave, Cypriot police told Reuters.
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