Supporting the existing Church social services, he launched new services to face social issues such as the welfare of drug addicts and immigrants, the support for single mothers and abused women, the care for the victims of trafficking, the establishing of a chain of nurseries and infant schools, the provided assistance to poor families and families with many children.

"Solidarity" caused several controversies, such as the case where it received 5.6 million Euros from the Greek State in order to send humanitarian relief to Iraq.

Instead, "Solidarity" only spent 740 thousand Euros to buy food, which it kept in storage houses without ever sending it to Iraq,[4] and kept the rest in a bank account.

After the death of Archbishop Christodoulos, the Greek Church started an investigation of the financial activities of "Solidarity" and found gross irregularities.

[7] On May 20, 2001, Konstantinos Poulios (Κωνσταντίνος Πούλιος in Greek), an Old Calendarist, attacked Christodoulos and slapped him in the face, while the Archbishop was giving an interview to a TV crew outside the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens.

[8] The attack was broadcast on live television; Poulios was arrested by Christodoulos' police bodyguards, but in the end he faced no charges.

[9] Shortly after his swearing in, Christodoulos stated that it was "a disgrace for the modern Greeks to decide on the basis of what directives from Brussels might ask, at one time or another.

Christodoulos opposed the decision, complaining that socialist prime minister Costas Simitis did not consult with the Greek Church on the matter and saying that it was part of a wider plan to marginalise the Church from Greek public life; he also stated that the decision was "put forward by neo-intellectuals who want to attack us like rabid dogs and tear at our flesh".

[11] The archbishop organised two demonstrations in Athens and Thessaloniki, alongside a majority of bishops of the Church of Greece, supporting the inclusion of religious data on a voluntary basis, and asked for a referendum on the matter.

[12] The Central Board of the Jewish Community in Greece subsequently sent him a letter on 20 March 2001, asking him to clarify the matter and expressing their opposition to the mandatory writing of religious status in identity cards.

[citation needed] It emerged the same year that despite Christodoulos' saying that he had no knowledge of nor involvement with human rights violations by the Greek military junta of 1967-1974, because those seven years he was busy studying to become a priest, he had been present in the swearing-in ceremony of the new regime[15] while he held the office of Arch-Secretary of the "Holy Synod", the collective council of Metropolitan bishops of the Church of Greece.

[citation needed] Christodoulos' decision led to major controversy in Greece, where many Orthodox Christians regard the Pope (and the Catholic Church as a whole) as a schismatic heretic.

They issued a common proclamation together that included the statement that: "We look forward to a fruitful collaboration to enable our contemporaries to rediscover the Christian roots of the European Continent which forged the different nations and contributed to developing increasingly harmonious links between them.

This will help them live and promote the fundamental human and spiritual values for all people, as well as the development of their own societies" [20] In 2006, Greek newspapers reported the Archbishop's displeasure at a decision by the centre-right government of New Democracy under Kostas Karamanlis to discontinue the practice of allowing Greek Orthodox priests to use public schools for confessionary purposes, that is to hear student's confessions on a voluntary basis.

The vast majority of students in Greek public schools were pracisitng Orthodox and the Archbishop was concerned for their access to the Sacraments and their spiritual welfare.

The decision, however, was applauded by representatives of the Greek Teachers' Association, who supported it as a measure that safeguarded freedom of belief and fostered respect for cultural and religious differences in schools.

In reference to the same issue, he has castigated the "yannisaries"[23] (i.e. traitors to the Greek nation) "who dare raise an audacious head and question unimpeachable things".

[24] The Archbishop was intensely critical of globalisation, to which he referred, on repeated occasions, in disparaging terms as a global, or alternatively, "foreigner" plot to deprive people of their national identities.

[28] In 2006, he decried the establishment of the monotonic orthography, as a "globalization plot" to impose "cultural uniformity" and "support the sale of multi-national Olivetti's typewriters".

His proposed reason for these conflicts is that "the Church cannot accept what the Lord of This World is promoting through the human rights movement : the abolishment of sin".

[31] Christodoulos created a major controversy in 2003 when he denounced proposals to let Turkey enter the European Union, calling the Turks "barbarians".

[32] Despite the fact a number of Greeks are also opposed to Turkey's entrance (as, indeed, are many other Europeans), Christodoulos' statements were seen as an unwarranted intervention in foreign affairs, based on a discriminatory and racialist logic.

The Archbishop was accused of fusing ethnic stereotypes and homophobic ideas when, on another occasion, he proclaimed that "Because we are not German, neither French, far more not English, but manful Greeks, we are Orthodox Christians".

[37] In June 2007, Archbishop Christodoulos was hospitalised in Aretaeion Hospital in Athens and diagnosed with colonic adenocarcinoma, and hepatocellular carcinoma in the right lobe of his liver.

[42] After his death the Greek government announced a four-day national wake during which his body lay in state at the chapel of the Cathedral of the Annunciation.