A priest of the Cyprus Orthodox Church has been de-frocked and another suspended after being filmed by a television programme leaving a brothel.

The de-frocked priest, Ioannis Ioannou, who had been visiting a Romanian striptease dancer, was dismissed after a lengthy meeting of the Orthodox church's synod in Cyprus.

It said he had admitted the charges against him, but a spokesman said -- without elaborating -- these did not just involve the visits to the dancer.

Local media reports say the former priest had left his wife and four children for the dancer, and he and the other priest had used a flat belonging to Bishop Chrysanthos of Limassol who is at the centre of fraud allegations.