The Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim told a television interviewer that Hitler was financed by the Rothschild family to encourage Jews build a "new empire" in Israel.

A prominent Christian priest in Greece who described Adolf Hitler as “an instrument of world Zionism” has been heavily criticized by the country’s government. The Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim told a television interviewer that Hitler was financed by the Rothschild family to encourage Jews build a “new empire” in Israel. He also claimed that Jews were behind globalization and the world banking system. The Greek government condemned the tirade as an “unacceptable” insult to Greek culture. Moshe Kantor of the European Jewish Congress said the openness of the priest’s verbal attack on Jews shows that some people “feel no shame expressing these views in front of a wide audience.”