By Pratap Chatterjee
ATHENS, Oct 7 1995 (IPS)

Take a large helping of Greek politics, a healthy dose of religion, assorted stories about dying dolphins and seals, mix them up on an island in the Mediterranean, and there you have the plot for the voyage of the cruise ship “Preveli”.

The Greek Orthodox Church hired the Preveli to take 150 environmental and religious thinkers to the Greek island of Patmos to compare John’s book of ‘Revelation’ in the Christian New Testament with the crisis currently facing the planet’s oceans and seas.

But Greek and Turkish politics interfered with the proceedings.

The discussions came to an abrupt end Sep. 25 off Patmos when Dimitra Papandreou, the new wife of the 77-year old ailing Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou made a dramatic entry.

Papendreou, who had organised a rival conference aboard the cruise ship Marina, has been criticised in the Greek press for using an army helicopter and state marching bands to help win support for his wife’s campaign to become a member of parliament.

The 37-year old former air hostess and erstwhile mistress to the prime minister entered the meeting flanked by five Greek cabinet ministers, including her step-son, the Minister of Religion and Education.

“We bless these joyous fruits of this symposium, which by God’s grace has come to a close,” Bartholomew, the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, said, suddenly ending the talks.

Metropolitan John, the bishop of the Greek city of Pergamon, read a series of conclusions and explained that the church had decided to continue its environmental work in order to cease being “marginalised.”

The participants were visibly stunned.

“We have been hijacked. Nobody has shown us these conclusions,” said one environmentalist, who preferred not to be named.

“This is simply vulgar. It’s a scandal,” said another.

Seated next to the two religious leaders was George Myrko, the president of the Association of Greek Banks, which paid out 100 million drachma (393,000 dollars) to sponsor the meeting. Myrko immediately announced that he would pay for the creation of an international environmental centre on Patmos.

The discussions were allowed to proceed after the ministers departed. Metropolitan John apologised for the incident the following day, claiming that there had been a terrible mix-up.

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