Phanar hierarch convicted in Finland for subsidy fraud

A court in North Karelia has handed down a verdict in a criminal case involving serious financial irregularities at the Karelian Language Society. The former chairman of the board of the society, ex-Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Finland (part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople — ed.) Leo (Leo Makkonen), as well as the former secretary of the organization, were sentenced to suspended imprisonment. They were found guilty of fraud with state subsidies and aggravated violation of accounting rules. The convicts are also obliged to compensate the state for significant losses.

According to YLE.fi, the prosecutor demanded that the former archbishop be sentenced to a year and a half suspended sentence and community service, and the secretary to one year and 10 months suspended sentence with community service. As a result, both received suspended sentences of the same duration.

According to the court’s decision, the ex-archbishop and the former secretary of the society are obliged to jointly compensate the Ministry of Education for more than 160,000 euros in damages caused by fraudulent subsidies. In addition, the former archbishop must personally pay the ministry more than EUR 9,000 in compensation. The ministry’s legal costs in excess of EUR 30,000 will also be borne by the convicts.

The Karelian Language Society, founded in Joensuu in 1995 to revive the Karelian language and culture, went bankrupt in 2020. This happened after the state stopped funding it due to suspicions of misuse of funds. The Ministry of Education and Culture conducted a special audit of the company’s financial activities, following which it attempted to recover state subsidies paid in the period from 2017 to 2019. Initially, the amount to be refunded was EUR 325,000, but it subsequently increased due to interest accrued for late payments.

It is worth noting that the verdict has not yet entered into force and may be appealed to the Court of Appeal.

Earlier, we reported that the head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko , met with the Primate of the Autonomous Finnish Orthodox Church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Archbishop Elijah of Helsinki and All Finland. During the meeting, which took place on October 1, 2025, the parties discussed key issues of interchurch relations, the situation in world Orthodoxy, and expressed mutual support in the context of the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine.