The accounts were produced using new reporting procedures that are more in line with international accounting standards.

Last year, it was explained that the previously unreported assets did not represent "illegal, illicit or badly managed funds".

Rather, the assets were held in administrative offices that were not considered part of the main institutions of the curia.

The 2014 accounts showed profits from the Vatican Museums, "cultural activities" and investments offset the deficit in the consolidated budgets of the Roman Curia and Vatican communications outlets to help the Vatican end the year NZ$63million in the black.

New Vatican rules went into effect on March 1, governing the guidance, oversight and control of Vatican financial and administrative activities.

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The offer by Archbishop Chrysostomos II came after the country's Parliament rejected a bill that would have allowed the government to seize up to 10 per cent of people's bank deposits to secure the bailout.

At the same time, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades called on Archbishop Chrysostomos to appeal to the Patriarch of Moscow and All the Russias, Kirill I of Moscow, to intercede with the Russian government for help.

The Cypriot government hopes that Russia will extend a line of credit that Moscow gave in 2011 and is due in 2016.

"The wealth of the church is at the disposal of the country," Archbishop Chrysostomos said after he met Anastasiades.

The Orthodox Church is the largest landowner on the island and has stakes in businesses including the country's Hellenic Bank, with total assets estimated to run into tens of millions of euros. It also has shares in a brewery.

Cyprus needs $NZ24.7 billion to bail out its banks and shore up government finances to avoid default and a potential exit from the European joint currency.

It wasn't immediately clear what the total value of the Orthodox Church's assets would be, or how much of that value the church was actually willing to lend the government.

Sources:

CBC News

AsiaNews

Image: LGR