The archdiocese has angered Papalekas

Businessman Ioannis Papalekas yesterday announced that he would sue for damages and he would file a criminal complaint against archbishop Ioan Robu, who, on Friday, accused him of creating a criminal faction together with Dragoş Bîlteanu and Bucharest mayor Sorin Oprescu, due to his opposition to the demolition of Cathedral Plaza, as ruled by the Court, in 2012.

The accusations made by the Archdiocese of the Romanian Roman-Catholic Church (ARCB) have made Papalekas abandon his customary behavior - maximum discretion and press releases that only discuss the activity of his companies.

He sent us a 7-page long reaction, which hints at the the feelings of anger that the Archdiocese has caused.

Ioannis Papalekas, the owner of Cathedral Plaza, said: "The current actions of archbishop Ioan Robu with the approval of the ARCB (which come as the latest slanderous criminal complaint filed by the ARCB against MBD for an alleged construction without building permit of constructions placed in protected areas - art. 24 letter a) of the Law no. 50/1991) are the expression of a new and obvious abuse, which are causing me huge harm both professionally and personally, in opposition to my concern that is deliberate and which even the ARCB has acknowledged, to be an honest and pacifist businessman, fully integrated into the Romanian society.

In opposition to my nature, by which I am a pacifist and structurally inclined to reach amicable solutions, I hereby publicly declare that I will act with the utmost resolution and conviction to protect my legitimate interests, as well as those of Millennium Building Development (MBD), and I will resort to suing for damages and to filing criminal complaints both against the ARCB, as an institution that has publicly endorsed these statements through a spokesperson, as well as against archbishop Ioan Robu, who is in reality the author of this abusive campaign".

Mr. Papalekas thinks that the charges of the Archdiocese are completely unrealistic inventions: "The completely unjustified and slanderous accusations made against me personally, concerning the involvement in an organized criminal faction organized together with general mayor of Bucharest Sorin Oprescu (whom I have only met twice in my activity, during 2014, and that is in the presence of my lawyers during an official meeting at the headquarters of the Mayoralty) and absurdly, with Mr. Dragoş Bîlteanu as well, a man who has absolutely no connection to this personal project of mine, are completely unrealistic inventions, which are devised in the most diabolical manner in order to harm me.

Currently, the aggressive steps of the archbishop seek to manipulate the public opinion, by using a court ruling that was obtained fraudulently, issued by the Court of Dâmboviţa and which remained final in the court of first instance, because the attorneys of the legal department of the Mayoralty of Bucharest were too late in filing a second appeal".

The owner of Cathedral Plaza stresses that Dragoş Bîlteanu is not and never was the owner of this building.

"The accusations concerning a potential sale at a price of 70 million Euros of the building have basically no connection to my current intentions, nor with the legality of the transaction through which I have acquired the control of the Cathedral Plaza project", Papalekas further said, who reminds that over time, he has publicly expressed his desire for all the parties involved to have a dialogue: "I have constantly expressed my sincere wish to develop a relationship of good neighborliness with the believers in the Catholic community, with the ARCB as an institution of public interest, as well as with archbishop Ioan Robu, including by financing possible large scale works to restore the St. Joseph cathedral and make it safe, with the clearly expressed desire to remove precisely the known and unavoidable effects which the five major earthquakes of the last 100 years may have had on a building built in the 1880s.

In order to identify the amicable solution, with the most sincere intentions, I have sent several times Open Letters to archbishop Ioan Robu asking for a meeting as good neighbors, and good Christians, so we could have a rational discussion to wisely manage and close an unwanted conflict, which is destroying both Cathedral Plaza through its disuse and lack of maintenance, as well as the credibility and the budget of the ARCB, which is forced to huge amounts into an unjustified war and conflict. The unscrupulous, violent and aggressive conflict carried out by archbishop Ioan Robu puts the Roman Catholic Church and the ARCB as a religious institution in a negative light which it certainly doesn't deserve".

The businessman says that archbishop Ioan Robu has refused the dialogue.

Papalekas stresses that, prior to taking over the project, he has carefully evaluated its legal situation: "In the spring of 2013, understanding that the authorization issues concerned only matters of a procedural nature, (the incompetence of the mayoralty of district 1 as an issuer being one of these problems and the lack of an environmental permit with an exclusively formal role) I have accepted the transfer of the right of ownership with the conviction that the procedure of becoming legally compliant, law which the developer initiated as early back as December 2011 would have a positive outcome, and the building would be brought back into the civil circuit.

I am trying to show that the Romanian courts have been ambivalent in their review of the validity of the building permit, meaning that after a negative solution issued by the Court of Dâmboviţa, the court of appeal, the Bucharest Court of Appeal, has irrevocably ruled in 2009 that the building permit was valid, as it was issued in compliance with all the rigors of the law, which has as a matter of fact allowed the completion of the construction works and the final acceptance of the Building, including with the signature of the representatives of the local public administration. It is only afterwards, through a procedural solution obtained via an exception - a motion for revision - a new court panel, of the Suceava court of Appeal (a court of the same rank as the one that had irrevocably confirmed the validity of the building permit and which received the case following the exclusive request of the ARCB, through the very same archbishop Ioan Robu (!)) ruled that the aforementioned legal issues should lead to the invalidation of the authorization, even though in terms of architecture and safety the building is beyond reproach.

Over the last few years, I have selected the path of dialogue and reason, but the repeated aggressions and abuses of archbishop Ioan Robu force me to bring to the attention of the public his real private interests, emphasizing the manner in which so far the successful -so far - obstructing of the legal avenues to acknowledge the existence of a building for reasons which concern exclusively personal feelings of hate and financial interests of unjustly obtaining spaces in our building.

It has to be said that without the backing of archbishop Ioan Robu in 1999, this building and this project would not have existed. The developer was backed in its project by the representative of the ARCB, up until the time of its inexplicable request to be granted the ownership of an additional floor in the building, for the exclusive use of archbishop Ioan Robu.

The situation forced us to resort to the only legal recourse left, namely to ask the Court of Bucharest to force the competent authority to review our requests and, if the safety of our building as well as that of our neighboring building were found, to issue the administrative act which would allow us to comply with the law".

Papalekas accuses the archdiocese of blackmail, threat, forgery and proceedings abuse.

"The complaint filed with the DNA by the ARCB will be reviewed by professionals who will decide to have it denied/close the case immediately, as the lack of any merit or evidence of the accusations made therein is obvious", the businessman further says.

Ioannis Papalekas has also issued another press release on the occasion of the investigation of the DIICOT prosecutors in the embezzlement case at SIF1, when he distanced himself from the former CEO of SIF Banat-Crişana, Dragoş Bîlteanu, who was placed in preventive custody.

Ioannis Papalekas bought the Cathedral Plaza office building from Israeli Eyal Ofer, in 2013.

Cathedral Plaza, placed in the immediate neighborhood of the St. Joseph Cathedral, a historic monument, is still up, despite the victories of the Archdiocese in the Court of Dâmboviţa, which irrevocably require the Mayoralty of Bucharest to pull down Cathedral Plaza and rebuild the park at the current location of the building.