Greek conservatives scrap plans to take clergy off state payroll

Greece's newly-elected conservative government on Tuesday scrapped plans to remove priests from the state payroll, reversing a decision by its leftist predecessor that aimed to carve a clearer distinction between church and state.

Priests in the powerful Greek Orthodox Church have been treated as civil servants in Greece and their salaries - estimated at about 200 million euros annually - have therefore been paid directly from the state budget.

However last October, the then leftist-led government reached a tentative agreement with the Church to remove 10,000 clerics from the state payroll and instead offer an annual subsidy to a special church fund.

Members of the clergy complained that they did not want to lose their civil servant status.

The deal also foresaw a settlement of a decades-old dispute over property rights between the Greek state and the...