Payments of more than €101,000 for concrete, transactions for which invoices were not initially issued, and an €8,000 receipt that a witness said he found in a forgotten receipt book featured in testimony before the Nicosia Assize Court in the case involving the Holy Monastery of Saint Avvakoum.
Four witnesses testified during the proceedings. Their evidence concerned the monastery’s financial dealings with suppliers, cash payments and the issuing of receipts and invoices. Two businessmen who had been investigated for offences including fraudulent evasion of VAT and failure to issue legal receipts were among those whose testimony came under scrutiny. During cross-examination, the defence challenged their records and explanations.
€101,230.92 in cash for concrete
The director of a concrete company, identified by the initials S.K., testified that the company’s dealings with the monastery began on 20 June 2022. He said a person coordinating work at the monastery contacted him and told him that the then abbot, Nektarios, had also asked that invoices not be issued for subsequent concrete orders, so that VAT would be avoided, according to what was conveyed to him.
The witness said he agreed because of his relationship with the Church and his wish to help the monastery. According to his testimony, the company made 12 deliveries in 2022, 18 in 2023 and two in 2024. Apart from the final delivery, invoices were not initially issued. Payments were made in instalments, exclusively in cash, by the person coordinating the work.
Consolidated invoices for 2022 and 2023 were issued later. They were delivered to the accounts department and then to the auditing firm for the relevant entries and the settlement of VAT. The witness said that €101,230.92 had been collected in cash in instalments for the first invoice and €9,512.94, also in cash, for the second.
Questions over invoices and delivery notes
Kostis Efstrathiou, lawyer for the first defendant, focused on invoices and the absence of records confirming specific deliveries of materials to the monastery. During cross-examination, he argued that the invoices did not correspond to specific deliveries, but had been issued retrospectively to cover quantities of materials for which no prior supporting documents existed.
Mr Efstrathiou raised the absence of delivery notes (waybills), which could document the transportation and delivery of the materials, and questioned whether the quantities and sums on the invoices reflected actual transactions. He also asked whether the invoices had been issued before or after the start of the police investigation and the filing of charges against the witness.
The lawyer also challenged the claim that the person coordinating the work had asked for invoices not to be issued in order to avoid a tax burden. He argued that the person had given no such instruction and that the witness himself had chosen not to issue invoices.
The cross-examination also addressed an exhibit concerning the quantities of concrete for 2022 and 2023. Mr Efstrathiou referred to a quantity of 1,231 cubic metres, priced at €63 per cubic metre, with a total of about €98,000. He asked how such a specific total could have been determined when the witness had said he could not know the exact quantities delivered without first checking the company’s accounting records. At the conclusion, he put it to the witness that quantities of materials from different jobs had been combined on one invoice and charged to the monastery without evidence that they related to specific deliveries.
€8,000 receipt in a forgotten book
A second businessman, the director of a company that supplied stone to the monastery, testified about transactions from 2021 to 2023, as well as an €8,000 receipt which he said he later found in an old receipt book at his office.
According to his testimony, he sold the monastery a wood-burning stove worth €2,000 on 5 August 2021, paid for by cheque. A second stove, worth €3,600, was sold on 24 August. The witness said Nektarios paid him and that the stove was intended for the Metropolis of Morphou. This was followed by stone sales worth €2,177.67 in August 2021, €5,000 in July 2023 and €4,000 in August of that year.
The witness said that, after an initial review of his records, these were the transactions he remembered. In a supplementary statement to police on 27 June 2024, he said that after his first statement on 19 June he returned to his office and checked his records in greater detail. He then found a receipt book he had forgotten in a drawer.
In the book he found a receipt dated 16 November 2022, worth €8,000, for the supply of stone to the Holy Monastery of Saint Avvakoum. He said the book had no pre-printed details of his business, that he had bought it in 2019 and used it occasionally. He maintained that he remembered issuing the receipt and had handed it to the person coordinating the work at the monastery. He added that the receipt had already been given to his accountant to be entered in the company’s books.
The €3,600 wood-burning stove
During the cross-examination of the second witness, Mr Efstrathiou returned to the sale of the €3,600 stove, which the witness had said Nektarios paid for and which was intended for the Metropolis of Morphou. The discussion covered the circumstances of the transaction and the witness’s references to the Metropolitan of Morphou and people in his circle.
The witness said that at a social gathering with the Metropolitan of Morphou, the latter denied having made the contribution in question. Asked whether people from the monastery had requested that he not issue invoices or receipts for their transactions, he answered no, saying that no such request had ever been made.
A.M., a tenant of a mini-market owned by Nektarios, testified that the monthly rent was €1,750. He said that recently he had been paying in cash after being informed that the owner’s bank account had been frozen. He also said he had receipts for the rent payments.
€1,000 for an icon painting that was not completed
The final testimony concerned a €1,000 contribution towards the painting of an icon of the Apostle Barnabas. A.K. testified that she visited the monastery on 22 January 2024 to contribute to the icon painting. She said she agreed on the amount with the monastery’s accountant, Georgia, paid €100 initially and was to pay the remaining €900 by bank transfer.
The witness said the accountant told her that she did not have a receipt book at that moment and later sent her the bank details for the payment. During cross-examination, Mr Efstrathiou said the icon had been ordered on 23 January 2024 but could not be installed at the monastery because of the events that followed. The witness expressed dissatisfaction that the painting had not been completed and asked for her money back.
The proceedings before the Assize Court will continue on 11 November 2026 at 09:30. All defendants are presumed innocent until their guilt is proven by the Court beyond reasonable doubt.
Source: CNA
