The government has condemned televised remarks by a Greek orthodox bishop last week who blamed the country’s financial woes on a worldwide Jewish conspiracy while claiming that the Holocaust was orchestrated by Zionist organizations.

Interviewed last week on Mega TV, Seraphim of Piraeus also claimed there is a plan to enslave Greece and Orthodox Christians, while describing Adolf Hitler as “an instrument of world Zionism.”

Government spokesman Giorgos Petalotis on Thursday condemned “the language of hatred by whoever expresses it,” calling it “an insult to Greece, our culture and society.”

The controversial language has drawn strong criticism from the European Jewish Congress, which has asked the Church of Greece to remove the bishop from his position.

During the interview, Seraphim said that Hitler was financed by the renowned Rothschild family “with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire.”

Some 10,000 Greek Jews survived the Holocaust; the community now numbers roughly 5,000.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_2_27/12/2010_121972