Greek leader ‘saw cross’ during baptism as baby

GREECE’S Left-wing opposition leader has been mocked for claiming a divine cross appeared during his baptism as an infant.

Stefanos Kasselakis, the 36-year-old head of the Syriza party, said this week that the oil in his baptismal font had coalesced to form the shape during his christening service decades earlier.

The mystical sign meant he was destined to “either become a priest, or very important”, he said his parents were told. He achieved the latter – first making a fortune as a banker with Goldman Sachs, then becoming a shipowner and finally emerging from relative obscurity last September to win the leadership of Syriza, the main opposition force.

Mr Kasselakis made the claim during a visit to New York, where he met Archbishop Elpidophoros, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the US.

Comebacks from political rivals were swift. Nikos Androulakis, leader of the socialist Pasok party, joked that when he himself was christened, a green sun – the symbol of his party – was seen to form.

Euclid Tsakalotos of the New Left party also weighed in, saying that a hammer and sickle had been sighted at the baptism of his own party leader.

Mr Kasselakis’s comments also raised eyebrows within his own party, parts of which are uncomfortable with his banking past and close ties to the US, where he lived for more than 20 years. They feel he is sharply at odds with the party’s gritty, Leftist traditions.

The alienation felt by some Syriza members led to a split in November, when 11 MPs abandoned the party to form a rival group. The Left-wing faction accused Mr Kasselakis of abandoning its core ideology and embracing “Trumpian practices”.

Mr Kasselakis, who is gay, was elected the leader of Syriza after the party suffered a humiliating loss in a general election last summer. The election was won by the governing New Democracy party, led by Greek prime minster Kyriakos Mitsotakis.