Clergymen of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic have filed a complaint and reported a crime – for nearly six months they have not received salaries, nor do they have social and health insurance. The church does not pay its clergy, it also owes money to the state, and the Ministry of Culture is threatening to take away its special rights as a registered religion in the country. The clergymen do not know where the funds from state church compensations are disappearing.
“We have not received a salary since August. This affects almost all church employees – about 130-150 clergymen. In addition, health and social insurance payments are not being paid,” describes the harsh reality in recent months, an Orthodox priest from a provincial town. He did not want his name and place of service to be made public. Two other Orthodox clergymen, with whom the local publication “Seznam Zprávy” spoke, also share the same opinion. “In practice, the faithful support us. Some current expenses, for example, for electricity, I have transferred to them. In smaller parishes, priests have second jobs, and in larger parishes, parishioners help financially,” the priest says. His family budget currently rests on savings and his wife’s salary.
Another cleric from the other side of the country also received his last salary in July. No one warned him, no one from the Prague Metropolis picks up the phone and does not answer his questions.
“It was clear that the money would run out, so I saved up to survive with my family. We assume that the finances of our church are on the verge of collapse. We have created a minimum reserve and the faithful are supporting us more seriously,” he says. In reality, this means that families from the church bring him cash.
“They say: Father, this is a gift for you so that you can continue to serve. They give, for example, four thousand crowns a month so that my family does not remain completely without funds,” he adds. “We are afraid that each parish will have to separate and support itself. That we will have to create a fund for priests and the money that we put into repairing the temples will unfortunately go to salaries,” he explains.
Another priest complains that for years they have had no idea how the church’s finances are managed: “The entire church apparatus was liquidated. There is no one in the headquarters. Only the accountant, the 78-year-old Archbishop Mihail Dandar and the occasional spokesman Tomas Jarolim. In the spring, members of the diocesan council and representatives of the trade union organization got together and came to the conclusion that everything is leading to bankruptcy.”
The Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic receives about 80 million crowns (3,200,000 euros) from the state every year for clergy salaries and running costs. After 2029, the state will stop providing subsidies for its activities, and financial compensation will be paid until 2042.
Since 2013, the church has received over 1 billion crowns. However, in April 2022, Archbishop Michael Dandar threatened that due to lack of funds, it would have to lay off up to 40% of its priests. Shortly after, the account of the Prague diocese was blocked due to unpaid health insurance payments of almost a quarter of a million crowns.
Now the situation is repeating itself: the leadership again owes money to both church employees and the state. According to information from Seznam Zprávy, these are debts to the social security service, several health insurance funds, and the Prague Financial Service.
The Ministry of Culture, which supervises churches, is losing patience. In October, it sent Archbishop Michael Dandar a summons to pay the debts and threatened sanctions. The letter states: “The Ministry of Culture has received information that the Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands, respectively the Prague Diocese, is not fulfilling its financial obligations to the state and its employees, and this is serious and repeated.” If the debts are not repaid by mid-November, “the Ministry will initiate administrative proceedings to revoke the right to special church privileges.” This means losing the right to appoint military and prison chaplains, to conclude marriages recognized by the state; to keep the secret of confession.
The priests are horrified by this prospect: “It would be a tragedy. If it happens, the clergy will stop serving in the army, hospitals, schools. We will practically become a second-class church and will be recognized as a risk to the security of the state,” says one of them. Another adds: “But if there is no control over the funds and if no one except the bishop knows for years where the money is going, we probably deserve it.”
According to the land registry, the church properties have been encumbered with pledges for years. In addition to debts to UniCredit Bank (2.5 million) and Oberbank AG (36 million), in June a pledge was registered in favor of the Prague Financial Service for debts of almost 1.3 million crowns. Enforcement proceedings have even been initiated. Bankruptcy expert Jakob Backa believes that the debts are serious and long-term. The new tax office pledge is particularly problematic: “Such a large tax debt hardly arises from an administrative error.” According to him, it is likely to lead to the seizure of bank accounts, and in extreme cases – to the sale of property or even the opening of bankruptcy proceedings.
The threatening letter from the Ministry of Culture also provoked believers. Businessman Vladimir Selisky filed a criminal complaint against the leadership of the Prague Diocese for abuse of management of other people’s property and distortion of financial data: “I consider it my civic duty. The state gave us over a billion crowns, but no one knows where the money is,” he says.
Seznam Zprávy wrote about opaque financial transfers back in 2020. Then Archbishop Michael bought the crumbling Brnky Castle for 10 million crowns without the approval of the diocesan council. The property then had a mortgage for 109 million. The priests then complained that the church’s control body was not functioning, and decisions were made exclusively by the archbishop. Last year, they filed a complaint with the church court demanding that the archbishop be removed.
Archbishop Mikhail Dandar bears the title of “Archbishop of Prague and the Czech Lands.” He has led the church since 2014. He graduated from the Orthodox Theological Faculty in Prešov, now in Slovakia, and the Leningrad Theological Academy. According to the archives of the security services, he was a DS collaborator under the pseudonym “Misha,” registered in 1966. In the 1970s, he served in the Russian parish in Dresden, GDR. In 2022–2023, his secretary was former DS officer Igor Strelets, close to the sanctioned Russian politician Khizri Abakarov.
Meanwhile, St. The Synod of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands and Slovakia met on November 11 and gave Archbishop Michael, head of the Prague Diocese, a deadline of January 2026 to resolve the difficult financial situation in the diocese. The main topic of the meeting was a letter from the Prague Diocesan Council, in which clergy warned of the risk of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic being stripped of its “special rights” due to non-fulfillment of financial obligations to the state and employees. The letter demanded that Archbishop Michael be dismissed from his post. An official report of the synod meeting has not been published.
Note: The Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia receives a subsidy from the state as compensation for church properties taken away and used by the state of Czechoslovakia during communism
We acknowledge The European Times for the information.
