Cash stash turns up at Orthodox church

NEW YORK, Nov. 16 (UPI) — The head of a Greek Orthodox church and monastery in New York City left a quarter-million dollars in cash and 100 gold coins in the care of nuns, police said.

One of the nuns, Sister Christonymphi Fitzpatrick, turned the stash in to police Nov. 6 after she decided to open the bag holding it, sources told the New York Post. Police at the 11th precinct in Queens now have it.

Parishioners at St. Irene’s Church and Monastery in the Astoria neighborhood said Metropolitan Paisios Loulourgas, who has been the abbot there for three decades, was called to Greece this month by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

The National Herald, a Greek-American newspaper, said the Orthodox church had sent three representatives to Queens to investigate the church. The Herald said Loulourgas had left the church for health reasons.

Police sources told the Post there was no reason to believe any criminal activity had taken place at St. Irene’s.