The tentative agreement between Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos and the Tsipras coalition government announced earlier this month to revise financial ties has been thrown into the air.

On Friday, the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece’s Holy Synod voted to exclude the issue of clergymen’s payroll from church-state negotiations.

According to reports, the decision was unanimous, and has been taken as a rejection of the historic agreement.

However that isn’t to say that there wasn’t tension, with a number of walkouts reported, including Bishops of Messinia and Kesariani who in protest left the meeting midway through.

The idea had been to create a joint fund, which would manage the church’s assets, holdings and investments, in addition to covering the salary of the 10,000 clergymen currently serving the Church, who are listed as part of the civil servant payroll.

Following Friday’s news, an announcement was made by the Holy Synod, in which they said that they will continue talks with the state over “issues of mutual interest”.

Meanwhile the statement also revealed that a committee will be established to present a report to the Church’s hierarchy over pending issues.