The priest and the Mayor.

I was standing outside the New Psyhiko town hall (Dimarxeio) this morning, with Isabelle. We were waiting for someone.

At some point we see a young, nice-guy-type priest approaching the entrance of the town hall with a determined pace and look. Just before he entered, 5 meters from the door, he froze! He lowered his head, and looked at the ground, slowly caressing his beard. He stayed like that for about 5 minutes, not moving an inch. For a moment we thought he had a stroke or something...

Then all of a sudden he put up the determined, severe look he had before, and charged through the door of the Town Hall.

We discussed this event, and came to the conclusion that the following must have happened: The Mayor decided to do something terrible to his church (e.g. plant a cell phone antenna on top of the church, or some sexy underwear commercial right in front of the altar, or maybe demolish the entire church to build a 400 place open parking lot). So the priest came to complain! But before he entered, he decided to recit 10 "Pater Hmwn (our Father)" just to be on the safe side, and have the Lord on his side! Hence the pause before he entered!

We couldn't think of a better explanation!
PS. Now that I mentioned it, a friend of mine proposed the following busines venture which I must admit is a killer: Demolish 4 out of 5 churches in Athens, and build parking lots! There are so many churches that the good Christians won't mind, and if you undertake the initial expense and then split the revenues from the parking lots 50-50 with the Church, I'm sure they'll have no serious objections. And you increase the standard of living of the average good Christian much more than a visit to the Church does...