The American priest who disappeared in mysterious circumstances a week ago in Athens has resurfaced in a third country and has contacted his relieved family in his native Indiana.
Fr Christiaan Kappes vanished without a trace with his friend and translator Ioanna Lekakou on October 1 after telling his father and sister that they were in grave danger. But at around 8:00 am Indiana time (4:00 pm Greek time) on Monday, the missing priest phoned his father to say that he and Lekakou had made it to another country, were in safe hands and were due to fly to the US on Wednesday.
The priest asked his family not to reveal where he was. His family are overjoyed. “It’s been a roller coaster. This is the toughest thing I’ve ever been through,” the priest’s sister, Nadia Charcap, told the Athens News from her home in Franklin, Indiana. She didn’t speak to her brother, but rushed to her father’s house, three minutes away from hers, when she heard that he was on the phone.
“He hung up just as I walked in. I had a million questions for him,” she said.
Charcap said that the priest felt “awful” at what his disappearance had put his family through but believed he had no choice but to flee Greece in the way he did. His sister said that she remains convinced that they had been targeted by criminals in a dispute over a Greek family inheritance. On behalf of her family, Charcap praised everyone who helped them in raising the alarm about her brother’s strange disappearance, including the American and Greek authorities. Source: Athens News
