The Greek Orthodox Church owns property worth up to 700 billion
euros. That is more than double the country's national debt, yet it
is the Greek state that pays the salaries and pensions of all
Orthodox clerics in the country.
Much has been written about the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church
over the centuries, with the Pope often labelled the richest man on
earth. One of the motives Henry VIII had for breaking with the
Church in the 1530s was to gain control of the Church's wealth in
England. Much of the Vatican's wealth is tied up in art and
property.
The Catholic Church considers the "excessive accumulation of wealth
by a few" to be a mortal sin, according to statements publicised by
head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, when
the Church published a modernised list of the seven deadly sins in
the Vatican newspaper in 2008.
