Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece the Role of Religion in Culture, Ethnicity and Politics 9780754666967, 2009020261, 9780754697374

Table of contents :
Figures and Tables vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Foreword xiii
Grace davie
Preface xv
introduction: tradition, transition and Change in Greek Orthodoxy at
the dawn of the twenty-first Century 1
Vasilios N. Makrides and Victor Roudometof
PART I ORThODOx ChRIsTIANITy, GREEk EThNICITy
AND POLITICs
1 the evolution of Greek Orthodoxy in the Context of World
historical Globalization 21
Victor Roudometof
2 an intriguing true–false Paradox: the entanglement of
modernization and intolerance in the Orthodox Church of Greece 39
Anastassios Anastassiadis
3 scandals, secret agents and Corruption: the Orthodox Church of
Greece during the 2005 Crisis – its relation to the state and
modernization 61
Vasilios N. Makrides
4 domesticating islam and muslim immigrants: Political and Church
responses to Constructing a Central mosque in athens 89
Dia Anagnostou and Ruby Gropas
5 non-Orthodox minorities in Contemporary Greece: legal status
and Concomitant debates between Church, state and the
international Community 111
Prodromos Yannas
PART II ORThODOx ChRIsTIANITy AND GREEk CuLTuRE
6 ‘the traditional modern’: rethinking the Position of Contemporary
Greek Women in Orthodoxy 131
Eleni Sotiriu
7 the mosque that was not there: ethnographic elaborations on
Orthodox Conceptions of Sacrifice 155
Dimitris Antoniou
8 religion and Welfare in Greece: a new, or renewed, role for the
Church? 175
Effie Fokas
9 faith and trust: tracking Patterns of religious and Civic
Commitment in Greece and europe. an empirical approach 193
Theoni Stathopoulou
10 sacred Words in a secular beat: the free monks Phenomenon at the
intersection of religion, youth and Popular Culture 217
Lina Molokotos-Liederman
Index 235

Citation preview

OrthOdOx Christianity in 21st Century GreeCe

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Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece the role of religion in Culture, ethnicity and Politics

edited by ViCtOr rOudOmetOf and VasiliOs n. makrides University of Cyprus, Cyprus and University of Erfurt, Germany

© Victor roudometof and Vasilios n. makrides 2010 all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Victor roudometof and Vasilios n. makrides have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by ashgate Publishing limited Wey Court east union road farnham surrey, Gu9 7Pt england

ashgate Publishing Company suite 420 101 Cherry street burlington Vt 05401-4405 usa

www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Orthodox Christianity in 21st century Greece : the role of religion in culture, ethnicity and politics. 1. Orthodoxos ekklesia tes hellados–history–21st century. 2. Christianity and culture–Greece. 3. Christianity and politics–Orthodox eastern Church–Greece. i. roudometof, Victor, 1964- ii. makrides, Vasilios, 1961– 281.9’495–dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Orthodox Christianity in 21st century Greece : the role of religion in culture, ethnicity, and politics / [edited by] Victor roudometof and Vasilios n. makrides. p. cm. isbn 978-0-7546-6696-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Orthodoxos ekklesia tes hellados—history—21st century. 2. Orthodox eastern Church—Greece— history—21st century. i. roudometof, Victor, 1964– ii. makrides, Vasilios, 1961– bx613.O78 2009 281.9’495090511—dc22 2009020261 isbn 9780754666967 (hbk) isbn 9780754697374 (ebk)

V

Contents

Figures and Tables Notes on Contributors Foreword Grace davie Preface introduction: tradition, transition and Change in Greek Orthodoxy at the dawn of the twenty-first Century Vasilios N. Makrides and Victor Roudometof PART I

1

2

3

4

5

vii ix xiii xv

1

ORThODOx ChRIsTIANITy, GREEk EThNICITy AND POLITICs

the evolution of Greek Orthodoxy in the Context of World historical Globalization Victor Roudometof

21

an intriguing true–false Paradox: the entanglement of modernization and intolerance in the Orthodox Church of Greece Anastassios Anastassiadis

39

scandals, secret agents and Corruption: the Orthodox Church of Greece during the 2005 Crisis – its relation to the state and modernization Vasilios N. Makrides domesticating islam and muslim immigrants: Political and Church responses to Constructing a Central mosque in athens Dia Anagnostou and Ruby Gropas non-Orthodox minorities in Contemporary Greece: legal status and Concomitant debates between Church, state and the international Community Prodromos Yannas

61

89

111

Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

vi

PART II

ORThODOx ChRIsTIANITy AND GREEk CuLTuRE

6

‘the traditional modern’: rethinking the Position of Contemporary Greek Women in Orthodoxy 131 Eleni Sotiriu

7

the mosque that was not there: ethnographic elaborations on Orthodox Conceptions of Sacrifice Dimitris Antoniou

155

8

religion and Welfare in Greece: a new, or renewed, role for the Church? Effie Fokas

175

faith and trust: tracking Patterns of religious and Civic Commitment in Greece and europe. an empirical approach Theoni Stathopoulou

193

9

10

Index

sacred Words in a secular beat: the free monks Phenomenon at the intersection of religion, youth and Popular Culture 217 Lina Molokotos-Liederman 235

figures and tables

Figures 7.1 7.2 9.1

9.2

‘the way to the athens mosque passes through the church’ the holy [fathers] of mount athos who became martyrs at the time of the Patriarch Vekkos, the latin-minded Countries sharing common response patterns in relation to religiosity and trust in institutions (data from the european social survey 2002/2003) Countries sharing common response patterns in relation to religiosity and trust in institutions (data from the european social survey 2004/2005)

156 166

206–7

207–8

Tables 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4

frequency of church attendance frequency of church attendance by denomination frequency of praying degree of religiosity

201 202 203 203

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notes on Contributors

Dia Anagnostou (Ph.d. Cornell university, dept. of Government, 1999) is lecturer of Politics in the department of balkan, slavic and Oriental studies in macedonia university of thessaloniki (from October 2005 until present), and senior research fellow at the hellenic foundation of european and foreign Policy (eliameP) in athens (from september 2004 until present). she has held research positions at Princeton university (1999–2000), the robert schuman Centre at the european university institute in florence (2000–2001), and in the european university institute (law dept. in January–february 2009 as fernand braudel fellow). dr. anagnostou has been awarded a marie Curie fellowship to work on a book project entitled “Civil society and the mobilization of european human rights: minorities and immigrants in the strasbourg Court” (for 2010– 2012). Her research interests lie in the fields of comparative politics of Southeast europe and european integration, and they have more recently shifted to the study of human rights, minorities and the role of courts from a socio-legal studies perspective. her articles have appeared on West european Politics, southeast european Politics, and international Journal of human rights, among others. she has recently co-edited the book The European Court of Human Rights and the Rights of Marginalised Individuals and Minorities in National Context (martinus nijhoff Publishers, 2009). Anastassios (Tassos) Anastassiadis is currently Scientific Researcher at the french academy’s school in athens, pursuing a project on the Catholic urban communities of south east europe and their passage from the Ottoman empire to national states during the interwar period. he obtained his b.a. and m.a. from middlebury College, Vermont and was awarded his Ph.d. from sciencesPo in Paris in 2006. his doctoral thesis on ‘the Orthodox Church of Greece, secularization and the formation of the national-state, 1852–1936: from inertia to Conservative modernization’ is due to be published in french and in a Greek translation. he has published articles and book chapters in english and french on topics regarding Greek Orthodoxy, the politics of religion, the role of activists and inter-confessional relations in the eastern mediterranean region. Dimitris Antoniou studied social theology at the university of athens and Oriental studies and anthropology at the universities of Oxford and Princeton. he has published articles on Western thracian muslims and muslim organizations in athens. his research focuses on sites of collective fantasy, popular conceptions of political cost, contemporary muslim presence in Greece. Currently he is a Chs fellow in educational management at harvard university.

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Effie Fokas is a Visiting research fellow at the european institute, london school of economics and director of the lse forum on religion. her research interests include the relationship between religion and nationalism and the sociology of religion in a european perspective, with special attention to islam and Orthodoxy. she is co-editor (with aziz al-azmeh) of Islam in Europe: Diversity, Identity and Influence (Cambridge university Press, 2007) and co-author (with Peter berger and Grace davie) of Religious America, Secular Europe? A theme and variations (ashgate 2008). Ruby Gropas is lecturer in international relations at the law faculty of the university of thrace. she is a research fellow with the hellenic foundation for european and foreign Policy (eliameP) in athens, Greece and managing editor of the Journal of southeast european and black sea studies (2005–2009). she studied political science (universite libre de bruxelles) and european studies (katholieke universiteit leuven) and holds a Ph.d. from the history faculty of the university of Cambridge. she was southeast europe Policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson international Center for scholars in Washington d.C., in 2007 and in 2009. Vasilios N. Makrides has been Professor of religious studies (specializing in Orthodox Christianity) at the faculty of Philosophy of the university of erfurt, Germany since 1999. his main research interests are the comparative religious and cultural history as well as the sociology of Orthodox Christianity. his most recent books include Religion – Kultur – Bildung. Religiöse Kulturen im Spannungsfeld von Ideen und Prozessen der Bildung (münster: aschendorff, 2008) (edited with b. kranemann and a. schulte) and Hellenic Temples and Christian Churches: A Concise History of the Religious Cultures of Greece from Antiquity to the Present (new york and london: new york university Press, 2009). Lina Molokotos-Liederman is an academic researcher, specializing in international issues of religion and education, migration, integration, social policy and humanitarian aid. educated in Greece, france and the united states, she received her ms in mass Communication from boston university and her Phd in the sociology of religion from the ecole Pratique des hautes etudes (ePhe) in Paris. her Phd dissertation compared cases of religious expression by muslim students in state schools in france and britain. as a post-doctoral researcher at the university of exeter, Center for european studies, she was the principal researcher for the project: “the religious factor in the Construction of europe: Greece, Orthodoxy and the eu”, funded by the leverhulme trust. as a member of the research teams of the WreP and WaVe projects (coordinated by the university of uppsala, sweden), she worked on research examining the role of religion in social welfare. she has also worked as a research and editorial consultant for the international Organization for migration (iOm), the international Orthodox Christian Charities (iOCC) and the Open society institute (soros foundations

Notes on Contributors

xi

Network). She is also affiliated with the GSRL/IRESCO research laboratory in Paris, france. she lives in london where she works as an independent social research consultant for numerous projects in the university and non-profit sectors, including authoring project reports, academic articles and book chapters. email: [email protected]. Victor Roudometof (Ph.d. sociology & Cultural studies, university of Pittsburgh, 1996) is associate Professor with the department of social & Political sciences at the university of Cyprus. he has previously held positions at Princeton university, Washington and lee university and miami university (Oh). his main research interests include globalization, historical sociology, the sociology of religion (eastern Orthodoxy) and the sociology of culture. he is the author of Nationalism, Globalization and Orthodoxy (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2001) and Collective Memory, National Identity and Ethnic Conflict (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2002), editor of The Macedonian Question: Culture, Historiography, Politics (boulder, Col.: east european monographs, 2000) and co-editor of American Culture in Europe (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1998), The New Balkans (boulder, Col.: east european monographs, 2002), Communities Across Borders (london and new york: routledge, 2002) and Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age (Walnut Creek, Calif.: alta mira Press, 2005). he has also written or co-authored over 30 journal articles and chapters on globalization, cultural theory, transnationalism, east european nationalism and religion. his latest publications include the article ‘Greek Orthodoxy, territoriality and Globality: religious responses and institutional disputes, Sociology of Religion (2008) and a special issue of Social Compass on ‘negotiating Church–state relations in Cyprus’ (2009), of which he is the editor and contributor. Eleni sotiriu is a sociologist and social anthropologist. her research interests focus on the relations between women, socio-cultural change and religion, particularly within Greek Orthodoxy. she has published articles on implicit religion, marriage, gender and religion in Greece. Theoni stathopolou is senior researcher at the national Centre for social research (ekke) in athens, Greece. she was responsible for the collection of the Greek event data for the european social survey (ess) and she is currently participating as an expert in the 6th framework programme essi:european social survey infrastructure – improving social measurement in europe. her recent publications include ‘using text mining tools in event data analysis’, in s. sirmakessis (ed.) Knowledge Mining, Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing (springer Verlag, 2005), ‘event data in european social survey: Problems of recording and analysis’in Society, Citizens and Politics: ESS (national Centre for social research, 2007) and “immigrants and immigration in Greek newspapers 2003–2006” in “issues of immigration and immigration policy” 2009.( national Centre for social research, 2009).

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Prodromos yannas is Professor of international and european relations and Chair of the department of Public relations and Communication at the technological educational institution (tei) of Western macedonia. he holds a b.a. from the College of Wooster (1981), an m.a. from miami university (1982) and a Ph.d. from the school of international service, the american university (1989). he has taught at the american university and mount Vernon College in the united states and at the hellenic naval War College and the athens university of economics and business in Greece. he is a senior editor of the Journal of Political Marketing and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Electronic Government Research. his research and publications focus on foreign policy process, politics and culture in the eastern mediterranean region and political communication.

foreword Grace davie

Greece fascinates. is it part of europe or not? are its traditions compatible with democracy or not? and what role does the Orthodox Church play as we attempt to answer these questions? One index of public interest in these issues was the hugely popular and very beautiful exhibition on Byzantium at the royal academy in london in the winter of 2008–2009, in which the life and art of the byzantine Church figured prominently. Here is a subject that requires both exploration and explanation. this book does both of these things bearing in mind that its focus is on Greece itself rather than byzantium as a whole, and that it is concerned primarily with the modern period. that said, it places the current debates within the Greek Church both in their long-term historical perspective and in a carefully delineated comparative framework. the historical perspective is paramount: things which look ‘odd’ to Western europeans cease to be so once they are placed within the specificities of Greek history. The evidently controversial role of Archbishop Christodoulos, for example, is much easier to understand once this is taken into account: he was both a modernizer and a traditionalist, epitomizing a distinctively Greek way of coming to terms with the modern world. equally important is the role of history in grasping the furore that surrounded the id card controversy and the place of religion within this – an episode that revealed, among many other things, the continuing influence of the Greek Church in the lives of large numbers of Greek citizens, who in other respects are entirely ‘modern’. in short, apparent incompatibilities become easier to understand as the authors in this volume draw out the various strands within these debates, using subtle and innovative methodologies to do so. Religion in twenty-first-century Greece is complex and many-layered. spokespersons for religion in Greece, for example, are perfectly capable of saying one thing and meaning another in ways that bewilder the casual observer, but which become clear once such statements are placed in context. Saying one thing and meaning another is not, of course, a specifically Greek attribute – we all do it, but in our different ways. the contribution of this book is to enable the outsider (among others, the non-Greek speaker) to penetrate the Greek case a little further in order to understand the subtleties and contradictions of Greek religion and its continuing significance for national life. Comparatively, it is important to see Greece in both a global and a european framework. regarding the former, the authors ask what is meant by ‘modernity’: is it one thing or many, and how far does Greece measure up if modernity is understood in Western terms? there are echoes here of huntington’s ‘clash of

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civilizations’ – a helpful initiative in that it prioritizes culture (including religion) over the state, but less so in that it implies that a ‘clash’ is inevitable. this is not necessarily the case. more helpful is the notion of ‘multiple’ or parallel modernities, provided the temptation to include everything is avoided. describing and explaining a distinctively Greek modernity, noting its religious features, is one of the aims of this book. Within this, the implications of immigration for the religious life of Greece become a central theme, noting that the number of immigrants grows year on year and from an ever wider range of destinations – a challenge for a society, which like its counterparts in italy, spain and Portugal, was a net exporter of labour until the final decades of the twentieth century. How then does Greece manage this situation? as the contributors to this book make clear, the question must be posed within a tradition in which the fusion of church and nation (never mind church and state) has constituted a primary goal. Given this past, religious pluralism is necessarily difficult but not impossible. At one and the same time, for example, the church is able to give practical aid to immigrants whilst sustaining a nationalist discourse. Greece’s somewhat ambivalent attitude to europe raises similar issues. is it possible to have the advantages of EU membership without sacrificing the autonomy of the nation? it ill behoves an english person to say too much on this question, but the chapters in this book are instructive in so far as they explore the specifically Greek dimensions of this issue in which an awareness of Orthodoxy is central. half attracted to europe, but half fearful of the consequences for Greece and Greek identity, the population is faced with searching questions. in responding to these, the contributors to this book offer a careful and well-informed analysis, in which many different voices can be heard. taking all of these voices into account, they are optimistic about the future. the Orthodox Church, the editors maintain, is stepping in the right direction to make a positive contribution to both Greek and european society. i commend this thoroughly researched, yet very readable volume to all those who want to know more about the subtle, persistent, if sometimes bewildering role of religion in Greek society. Professors roudometof and makrides deserve our warmest thanks for bringing these papers together.

Preface

the idea for this volume originated from two panels on the topic of Greek Orthodoxy organized by Vasilios n. makrides and Victor roudometof for the 28th Congress of the international society for the sociology of religion (Zagreb, Croatia, 18–22 July 2005). six of this volume’s chapters are based on the papers presented in these panels. in due time, additional chapters were solicited in order to provide a comprehensive treatment of the topic, and the editors provided substantive and extensive feedback to all the contributors on revising their initial submissions. the editors wish to express their gratitude to the original panellists from the 2005 panels for their willingness to endure this long wait to revise their manuscripts in accordance with the editors’ commentaries and to find a pertinent publisher. While plans for this project were unfolding, the passing of Christodoulos, the late archbishop of athens and all Greece, made it even more evident that a volume was indeed required to map the extensive shifts made in religious matters during Christodoulos’ stewardship. in autumn 2007, Victor roudometof took the lead in revising the initial prospectus. eventually, the revised prospectus led to the signing of a contract with ashgate. subsequently, this volume represents the cumulative endeavour of more than three years work on behalf of the editors and the contributors. the editors wish to express their thanks to the ashgate staff for their assistance in the production process. Greek titles of books and articles have been transliterated and translated into english. transliteration rules basically remain the same throughout the volume, although contributors have insisted in some cases in following their own rules.

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introduction: tradition, transition and Change in Greek Orthodoxy at the dawn of the twenty-first Century Vasilios n. makrides and Victor roudometof

the interdisciplinary study of Orthodox Christianity in various local/national contexts is presently conducted more systematically than in the past and attracts wider attention worldwide. this is due not least to the radical changes in the former eastern bloc countries after 1989–1991, including the consequent wars in the former yugoslavia during the 1990s. in most of these countries Orthodox Christianity has traditionally had firm footholds and was the majority religion. thus, since the collapse of communism in eastern europe, Orthodox Christianity has become a major focus of social science research (borowik 1999; borowik and tomka 2001; roudometof, agadjanian and Pankhurst 2005; byrnes and katzenstein 2006, part iii; naumescu 2007; révay and tomka 2007), although this is not uniform across all social sciences (hann 2007: 403–4). yet, when combining the experience of communism in the former ussr, romania, albania, bulgaria and the former yugoslavia with the cultural heritage of Orthodox Christianity in eastern and south eastern europe, it is not always easy to discern the impact of Orthodox Christianity as such on the contemporary political and cultural developments in the region. While statistics show considerable religious revival in the predominantly Orthodox countries of the region, researchers have expressed doubt as to whether this rise in statistics reflects a new reality (borowik 2002; agadjanian and roudometof 2005). in this instance, as well as in other cases, the intertwining of communist legacy and religious tradition has often become detrimental to the researchers’ efforts. most importantly, serious reservations exist with regard to the extent that Orthodox Christianity deviates from Western standards of religiosity and therefore warrants the development of different interpretative tools for its study. the inevitable question is subsequently raised about whether Orthodox countries possess a religiosity congruent with West european values – an issue strongly coloured by political partisanship, for it is tied up with the question of how far Orthodox countries should be viewed as legitimate members in the family of nations belonging to the european union. With its historically predominant and strong Orthodox Church, Greece emerges as an important testing ground with regard to the aforementioned and related issues. in the everlasting and renewed debate on the relationship between eastern Orthodox Christianity and Western (Catholic and Protestant) Christianity,

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it is a country uniquely situated to allow for a disentanglement of the relationship between communist legacy and Orthodox tradition. this is because it is the only continental eastern european country that was never part of the communist bloc. in contrast, up until recently (2004/2007) it was the only Orthodox country that was a member-state of the european union, while its history manifests a strong engagement with West european culture and politics. by offering evidence of the manner in which Orthodoxy is shaping the domains of culture, society, ethnicity and politics, our goal is to allow scholars and researchers to use the Greek experience as a means for fleshing out some of the institutional characteristics and cultural attributes clearly identified with the eastern Orthodox tradition. in this respect, this volume does not intend to examine the Greek case in isolation from broader european and/or global trends. On the contrary, the goal is to place the Greek case in the context of contemporary social scientific and cultural-historical studies on the relations between religion, globalization and european modernity. Greece’s religious trajectory provides a template upon which to examine the extent to which Orthodox religious norms and institutions can successfully adopt european union conventions, demands, political directives and social norms. Given the european union’s relatively recent expansion into additional Orthodox countries (Cyprus, bulgaria, romania), the Greek experience might also provide some insight with regard to the institutional and societal challenges that european union membership will pose to the broader family of Orthodox nations. scholarly and interdisciplinary interest in Greece’s Orthodox Christianity has certainly existed in previous decades, yielding significant results (Hann 2007: 387–8, 392, regarding social anthropological studies). yet the event that ignited a renewed recent interest in the study of Greek Orthodoxy was the ascendancy to the archbishopric of athens and all Greece of Christodoulos Paraskevaidis, a charismatic person who played a critically important role in publicizing a variety of issues within the broader Greek society and abroad. Without doubt, his period in office (1998–2008) marked an important phase in the development of Greek Orthodoxy that was controversially evaluated, both in Greece and abroad. for some, Christodoulos was a radical transformer of Greek Orthodoxy with the purpose of meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. For others, Christodoulos represented a dangerous, but covert, traditionalism and nationalism, unable to understand the spirit of modern times and promoting an outdated vision of church and society. leaving aside the often-heated arguments of both sides, one thing is sure: Christodoulos’ era acted as a catalyst for a more systematic dealing with Greek Orthodoxy, particularly for scholars beyond the narrow theological domain who earlier had usually shown minimal interest in Orthodoxy and religious issues generally. this is evident, for example, in the number of scholars from diverse backgrounds who dealt from their own particular perspective with the serious controversy between church and state in 2000 over the inclusion of data regarding religious affiliation on personal identity cards of Greek citizens. Among others, Vasilios n. makrides and lina molokotos-liederman (2004) have organized

Introduction: Tradition, Transition and Change in Greek Orthodoxy

3

and edited a special issue of the journal Social Compass focusing on religious controversies in contemporary Greece. yet, despite the numerous and, in many cases, heated discussions surrounding several areas pertaining to the current relationship between Orthodox Christianity, culture, society, identity and politics at large in Greece, many of these discussions still suffer from either old-fashioned anti-religious biases or both covert and open apologetic tendencies in favour of the church. the result is a polarization of the discourse between anti-church polemics and pro-church dithyrambs (often uncritically praising the hierarchs or the church). this is due to many reasons. as far as Greece is concerned, religious matters had been considered until recently to be the exclusive domain of theologians and church people. this was the outcome of the strong polarization between the Orthodox church and a significant portion of the intellectuals in the country throughout the twentieth century. non-theological research on religious phenomena has thus been long neglected. The specific research field of religious history has been almost non-existent in Greece; it was mostly absorbed by the dominant and confessionally oriented church history (makrides 2004). it is also no wonder that there is still no separate, autonomous department of religious studies in a Greek university. Only in the last three decades has there been a greater interest in religious phenomena in Greece from a non-theological perspective. yet in many cases the related research still remains bound to older and mostly outdated perspectives, although there have certainly been quite distanced and balanced approaches as well (karagiannis 2008). In light of this enhanced awareness of the wide significance of Orthodox Christianity in contemporary Greece, there is a clearly defined necessity in the literature, but also in the broader public debate, for a more balanced treatment of the vortex of relationships between Orthodoxy, culture, state and society at large. this need becomes even more pressing, as Greece has undergone radical transformations in the last decades, from an underdeveloped country in the 1950s to a modern member-state of the european union (since 1981), entering the twenty-first century in the context of enhanced globalization. This entire, longterm process has affected, among other things, the Orthodox Church itself, which has also been subjected to inexorable laws of socio-historical change. the changes within Greece’s religious landscape, albeit slow and patent in many cases, need serious consideration and might offer clues with regard to broader regional trends concerning the evolution of Orthodox Christianity in the twenty-first century and its place in the post-1989 ‘new europe’. With this broader contention in mind, this volume assumes the task of examining various aspects of Orthodox Christianity’s evolution in Greece in the post-Cold War era, with a particular focus on the period of archbishop Christodoulos. the volume’s chapters combine a variety of research methods ranging from qualitative and quantitative analyses to comparative cultural-historical approaches. all studies employ a flexible frame of reference and therefore do not attribute fixed characteristics to Orthodox Christianity; more importantly, they offer a balanced treatment of the various issues selected without anti-religious or confessional

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undertones and thus do not engage in idle polemics. to anticipate conclusions, it is the editors’ and the authors’ conviction that the observed changes within Greece’s religious landscape, no matter how they appear at first glance, may be regarded as promising signs towards a new Orthodox Church that will emerge in the course of the twenty-first century. the most crucial and perhaps trickiest issue in dealing with Orthodox Christianity in Greece (and beyond that) is how to adequately assess, on the one hand, its boundedness to tradition, and on the other, the various changes in the course of history and particularly in eras of transition. such an era was certainly the one initiated by the late archbishop Christodoulos, yet the evaluations of this period are quite divergent and at times quite contradictory. Was Christodoulos a true modernizer of the Church and Greece’s Orthodoxy? Or was he a pure and militant traditionalist hiding under the guise of an allegedly modernizing discourse? this constitutes the crux of the whole matter. to elucidate this complex matter, let us mention some characteristic examples. how is one to evaluate, for example, the ‘id crisis’ of 2000? the images of Greek bishops and believers protesting against the Greek government’s effort to institute new ID cards that would exclude an entry for religious affiliation were widely circulated among the european public (for various analyses, see molokotosliederman 2003, 2007a, 2007b; stavrakakis 2003; makrides 2005; roudometof 2005). this episode marked not only a new era of church–state relations but also a turning point in the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the Greek public. Outside Greece, the id card crisis also contributed greatly to the proliferation of a negative image of the Orthodox Church. the church’s image was that of an antimodern institution set against the forces of modernization and europeanization. to sceptics, it offered additional evidence about the incompatibility of Orthodoxy and modernity and for excluding Orthodox countries from the european union. to more knowledgeable specialists, the entire affair indicated that Greece is not isolated from the nearly worldwide religious revival and the de-privatization of religion observed in most developed or still-developing countries (Casanova 1994; hanes 1998). related research has suggested that Western europe remains an ‘exceptional case’ compared to worldwide de-secularization trends (davie 2002), thereby increasing the visibility of the Greek Orthodox case vis-à-vis the more ‘sceptical’ West europeans. it is important to note, then, that the id card crisis was one of a broader range of topics that have marked the forceful appearance of the church in public life in a new form under the aegis of archbishop Christodoulos. the Orthodox Church has found itself in a new and evolving social and cultural landscape. The influx of close to a million legal and illegal immigrants into Greece since 1989 has seriously affected the traditional fabric of Greek society by producing serious challenges due to religious plurality and multicultural coexistence and conditions on the ground as part of the very reality of everyday life. simultaneously, the european union and various europeanization projects spearheaded by the state and other supranational institutions sought to provide a legal and institutional framework for

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registering this new situation into state legislature and administrative practice. to the above, it is necessary to add the cultural influx of new mass media that have further added to the impression of a siege upon traditional ‘local’ institutions like the church – a siege allegedly waged by broader ‘global’ forces. the Orthodox Church reacted to these multiple challenges by re-entering the public domain forcefully in order to reassert its traditional privileged legal, social and cultural status. its efforts have been variously referred to as ‘politicization’ of the church or ‘de-privatization’ of Orthodoxy (alivizatos 1999; stavrakakis 2003; roudometof 2005). the politicization of Orthodoxy has been expressed in a variety of issues raised in the context of church–state relations: cremation, catechism in Greek public schools, the status of civil versus church weddings, the church’s role in providing welfare for ethnic Greeks alone, the construction of a mosque in athens, the status of the oath in public ceremonies and the rights of non-Orthodox religious minorities – all are topics of great concern that involve the state and its relationship to the Orthodox Church. but the de-privatization of religion has also been expressed in a tapestry of topics pertaining to the relationship between Orthodox Christianity and the broader Greek society and culture; for example, the church’s newfound role in welfare, the use of popular music to convey religious messages and the efforts to come to terms with the role of women in the church are all examples of a refashioning of the relationship between Orthodoxy and modern Greek society and culture. Needless to say, the late Archbishop Christodoulos has been a key figure in this new chapter in the history of Orthodox Christianity in Greece, earning ardent supporters as well as vehement critics. his reform programme has met with mixed results, rendering the examination of this period a sine qua non for understanding the role of Orthodox Christianity in twenty-first-century Greece. His public reception within Greek society has been marked by strong and unusual polarization of views. Certainly, the left has seen in him an epigone of the mentality of the nationalists, the ultra-right wing faction of the right and other anti-communist forces. but even neo-liberal thinkers – such as former minister and free market promoter andreas andrianopoulos (2001) – have expressed reservations about the strong advocacy of the church–nation link asserted in Christodoulos’ discourse and the siege mentality often evoked in his speeches and other forms of public communication. still, the assertion of the church–nation link is less unusual than it might seem at first glance. In an analysis of the encyclicals of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece for the period between 1833 and 2000 Papageorgiou (2000) finds that this assertion has always informed the self-image of the church hierarchy. that is, the ecclesiology of the sender [that is, the holy synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece] is expressing a church that identifies with and walks among the Greek nation. the Church is always described as a national force. it holds the historical title of the national Church, and it is in this capacity that it faces contemporary

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Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece problems and signals its presence in modern Greek society. (Papageorgiou 2000: 279–80, translation by the authors)

in the eyes of the hierarchy, religion, family and homeland are thus the cornerstones of Greek society. Consequently, Papageorgiou (2000: 284) concludes that the church’s image is that of traditionalism and the past, ‘a closed system that is connected to the values of the past without attempting openings towards … the present and the future’. In fact, the encyclicals reveal the synod’s identification of itself with the church as an institution thereby excluding the laity from being active members in the workings of the institution. in conjunction with the legal ethics that prevail in the texts, the church’s self-image is that of a bureaucracy that exists in collaboration with the state and often acts as an extension of public authority in a hierarchical manner (‘top down’) vis-à-vis its members. subsequently, despite innovations, Christodoulos was far less exceptional in the substance of his approach and thinking than critics often assume. the archbishop’s unique charisma lay, among other things, in his unparalleled ability to express opinions and views openly and directly in a manner highly effective for his audience. but the church’s stance vis-à-vis various legislative efforts of the state has basically been to declare secularizing initiatives as inherently ‘anti-Christian’ and aimed at the religious de-colouring of Orthodox Greece, only to find itself recapitulating on these fronts as time went on (see nikolopoulos 2005 for a review of various cases). bearing these early considerations in mind, it is evident that issues such as the controversial era of archbishop Christodoulos should be treated preferably with caution, avoiding the usual polarizations between tradition and modernity and considering it from different yet complementary perspectives on the basis of various cases and examples. in this introductory chapter, we aim to accomplish this task initially, not only by pointing to the main characteristics that have shaped the history and the transition of Greek Orthodoxy into the twenty-first century, but also by highlighting the main themes treated in this volume by reference to the individual chapters. The structure of the volume reflects the dual nature of the engagement between Greek Orthodoxy, the state/politics and society/culture at large. Consequently, the volume is organized into two thematically closely related parts. Part i examines various issues in the relationship between Orthodoxy, Greek ethnicity and politics by referring specifically to recent debates and attempts to reconfigure church–state relations and renegotiate church–state boundaries (for example the impact of globalization on the Orthodox Church as a ‘public religion’, the legal status of non-Orthodox religious minorities, institutional innovations in the church due to non-Orthodox challenges, the internal problems in the church organization and its modernization through state support). Part ii examines the shifting boundaries between Orthodox tradition and change in light of Greece’s ongoing cultural and social modernization, which has also triggered significant debates. material drawn from contemporary cases will show here the hybridization of the Greek Orthodox tradition as it responds creatively to the challenges of late

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modernity or postmodernity (for example the church’s renewed active involvement with contemporary social problems at a local level, the different constituencies, including the official church, involved in the debate over the construction of the athens mosque, the oscillation between tradition and modernity regarding women’s issues, Greek religious life compared with the broader european standards and unusual phenomena such as a rock group of Orthodox monks conveying religious messages). in dealing with these issues in both parts of this volume, the following considerations should be borne in mind. first, it is vital to avoid seeing Greek Orthodoxy as a monolithic bloc represented solely by the official Church of Greece and its hierarchy. in fact, there exist many independent and even contradictory voices within Greek Orthodoxy, which is anything but a homogeneous and static entity. by taking a closer look at the various Orthodox organizations at the grass-roots level, the numerous independent Orthodox thinkers or theological circles, the different rigorist milieux or the broader monastic domain, the internal differentiation of Greek Orthodoxy becomes far more evident. this means that plurality and variations in orientation, attitudes and practices can be observed at various levels and with varying intensity throughout Greek Orthodoxy. eleni sotiriu’s chapter, for example, shows that many traditional views against the ordination of women have been called into question by several contemporary Orthodox circles, that the official church has proceeded to the revival of the old ecclesiastical office of the deaconesses and that Greek women, although still considering themselves Orthodox, do not follow the directives of the church in bioethical matters (contraception, abortion) but, rather, follow their own individual dictates and preferences. lina molokotos-liederman’s chapter about the free monks, a rock band of Orthodox monks, also deals with a highly innovative phenomenon within Greek Orthodoxy, aimed at reaching young people and disseminating as well as rejuvenating the Orthodox Christian message. no doubt, this initiative challenged the Orthodox establishment by actively reaching out towards young Greeks and putting a spin on the idea of being Orthodox. yet it remained a rather unique and unprecedented phenomenon that did not enjoy the endorsement of the official church or of the broader Orthodox body. in his chapter on the athens mosque from a social anthropological/ethnographic perspective, dimitris antoniou additionally illuminates the multiplicity of voices within Greece’s Orthodox communities of activists, including the militant Old Calendarists, the church and the broader society. While outsiders often view the church’s response as unified, this chapter shows that the principal voices against the mosque come from a community where right-wing politics and religious conservatism (in the form of adherence to the Old Calendar) are often intertwined to construct self-images of cultural warriors fighting to protect the Greek nation and the Orthodox faith from outside corruption. In contrast, the official church often engages in doubletalk and keeps a far more open and nuanced stance in an effort to continue ongoing processes of negotiation and debate with all constituencies, ranging from those in favour of the mosque to those dead set against it. all these

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examples make it clear that we are dealing with a highly diversified and complex Orthodox landscape in Greece that cannot be simply subsumed under one common, all-encompassing denominator. second, it is more than true that tradition remains a most vital and crucial issue in the Orthodox world as a whole, including that of Greek Orthodoxy. in such a context, traditionalism, in both orientation and practice, is thus not out of the ordinary, with far-reaching consequences (ramet 2006). Generally speaking, Orthodox Christianity appears to be a more traditional form of Christianity than roman Catholicism and, particularly, Protestantism. the respective socio-historical evolution of these churches attests to this. yet this hardly means that changes and reforms do not occur at all in Orthodox Christianity, a recurrent topic and demand in recent theological discussions (kalaïtzidis 2008a). aside from those that can be openly observed, some changes, while they have effected the church, [they] are still covered in official discourse under the veil of tradition. This makes them to appear ‘traditional’, thus avoiding potential reactions from Orthodox hardliners. Thus a flexible approach can enable one to discern developments within Greek Orthodoxy that do not show a strict and blind attachment to tradition. this is true in many respects for the period of archbishop Christodoulos as well. for example, in september 2004, with the approval of the holy synod, he started a pilot scheme in athenian churches regarding the Gospel readings during the divine liturgy. the Greek original (hellenistic koine) was to be followed by a translation in modern Greek in order for believers to understand fully the meaning of the text. this was decided mainly because of pastoral concern. although this change was later abandoned for several practical and other reasons, it did show a church ready to experiment in quite sensitive areas such as the liturgy. no doubt, traditionboundedness clearly predominates throughout most domains of the church. a proposal to introduce modern Greek into the whole divine liturgy was rejected in 2002, for example. sotiriu’s chapter in this volume clearly shows that the church’s views on most women’s issues are still informed by traditionalist, patriarchal and pre-modern mentalities that have little actual bearing on recent developments. tradition is also the main reason for the exclusion of women from mount athos. even the observed ‘feminization’ of the church in recent years has not been brought about by open challenge of the male hierarchy but, rather, through a complete submission to tradition. but, in general terms, many issues are no longer considered taboo and thus are open to reflection and discussion, while necessary adjustments are not out of the question in the future. the church is ready to undertake innovations, even if only in its own way, in addressing contemporary problems and modern challenges (for example the creation of a special church committee on bioethics). innovations came also from the broader Orthodox domain, as molokotosliederman’s chapter on the free monks clearly shows. this is a case hardly indicative of an Orthodox milieu fully immersed in the darkness of traditionalism. Further, Effie Fokas’s chapter, based on extensive fieldwork in the Diocese of thiva and livadeia, analyses recent innovations in the role of the Orthodox

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Church in providing welfare at a local level, where most of the welfare is actually played out – not at the national level, where the entanglements between church and state are much stronger. activity at the local level is thought to provide a muchneeded revival in the church, which is particularly significant in light of the crisis of the welfare state. the church thereby assumed a new role as an independent provider of diverse welfare services to the population, not just in complementing the welfare activities of the state and working under its tutelage. With regard to the offered services, for example regarding drug-addicted prisoners, this development can be evaluated as a modernizing step for the church. third, talking about religion and modernity in the overall Orthodox (see buss 2003) and, more specifically, in the Greek Orthodox context must necessarily take into consideration the specificities of this religious culture. In other words, one should not forget that Orthodox Christianity was never part of the Western european project of modernity, to which both roman Catholicism and Protestantism, each of course in a different way, have historically contributed. more importantly, Western Christianity and churches, despite earlier serious tensions and conflicts, have today come to terms with the basic tenets of modernity and accepted its legitimacy. they actually grew together with it and experienced its ups and downs, thus becoming an inseparable part of the today’s modern Western european establishment. needless to say, for several reasons (historical, cultural and so on) this has never been the case with Orthodox Christianity in general, including Greek Orthodoxy. this has quite a number of consequences. among other things, it is not unusual to find Orthodox clerics and thinkers who outspokenly reject or harshly criticize Western european modernity and its achievements such as the enlightenment, while proposing allegedly better alternatives from the Orthodox world (makrides 2008). in addition, the Orthodox Church in general still uses a lot of pre-modern arguments and modes of thought in addressing modern challenges, a strategy that Western churches typically abandoned long ago. yet, this should not turn into an accusation of the Orthodox Church being an antimodern one. it was simply an unavoidable historical development for a church that was found outside the geographical, political and cultural area that generated Western european modernity. the same holds true for other religions, such as islam, which have had an equally painful encounter with this form of modernity. Given this situation, it is not paradoxical that the Orthodox Church of Greece has reacted against certain modernizing – that is secularizing – attempts that, since the 1970s, have been initiated by the state (including the id card crisis). many politicians, intellectuals and social analysts falsely interpreted the fact that such reforms triggered considerable conflicts between church and state as an indication of Greek Orthodoxy’s fundamental incompatibility with modernity. yet by historically contextualizing these reactions, it becomes clear that they were absolutely expected and justified from the perspective of the Orthodox Church, one that has never experienced Western european modernity as an endogenous phenomenon. after all, Western churches, in particular roman Catholicism, have had quite serious problems and difficulties adapting themselves to modernity, and

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this took quite a long time to be achieved (for the Catholics, mainly after the second Vatican Council, 1962–1965). Victor roudometof’s opening chapter in this volume attempts to explain some of these Orthodox Christian particularities in the context of world historical globalization. it features an overview of the historical evolution of Greek Orthodoxy over the last five centuries, thereby placing the contemporary de-secularization trends into the context of the long-term socio-historical developments. in the course of the nineteenth century, a radical socio-cultural transformation took place, whereby Orthodox Christianity was cast into a new role suitable for the age of nations and nationalism. Orthodox Christianity thus experienced an unavoidable transformation from a universal church into a national religion. in this period one also witnessed the emergence of a new church–nation and church– state synthesis that finally turned Orthodoxy into an indispensable component of Greek national identity. in the post-1945 period, this synthesis has been greatly challenged by the currents of contemporary globalization, the growing imperative of conforming state policy to european union directives and the secularization brought by post-1945 urbanization and modernization. the church’s reaction to a whole host of issues is therefore often a response to the necessity to reassert this traditional synthesis in the face of contemporary challenges, a step that under these circumstances becomes quite understandable (see also roudometof 2008). Other chapters in this volume highlight a rather creative tension between Orthodox Christianity and modernity and oppose the strict bifurcation between tradition and modernity. focusing on a sociological organizational analysis of the church and not on its public discourse, anastassios anastassiadis’ chapter explores in an intriguing way what he calls the ‘conservative modernization’ of the church by looking at the institutional innovations propagated by the church’s necessity to respond to the challenges of religious pluralism, as this is manifested by the operation of non-Orthodox or non-Christian religions in Greek territory. inter-denominational controversies have been historically crucial for the church’s modernization, as evidenced by the Orthodox–roman Catholic antagonism in the areas of charity and education. Past experience – from the 1920s – suggests certain specific motifs that determine the church’s reactions and responses to social changes and shifts in its institutional context. this new attitude became possible thanks to a shift of the church’s focus from theological discussions, which had dominated during the Ottoman period and the nineteenth century, to social action (that is, charity/welfare) as a way of adapting to a new ‘competitive-liberal’ world. but for this shift to occur, it had to veil itself in a ‘traditional’ discourse. the 1920s experience, then, provides empirical material to support the thesis that an aggressive traditional discourse might not be a sign of ideological sclerosis, but a sign of conservative modernization instead. in this respect, the past might provide clues about understanding the current situation and explaining how the church is responding to social change and its apparently contradictory actions (for example, both anti-Western critique and alignment with Western churches for common purposes).

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furthermore, in characterizing Greek Orthodox women as ‘the traditional modern’ sotiriu’s chapter insinuates that tradition and modernity are variously and ambiguously intertwined in the Greek Orthodox context, a fact that defies simplistic categorizations or bifurcations. this is because Greek women appear to be special: they practise Orthodoxy and remain modern in their own way, simultaneously exhibiting a particular Greek stance and also challenging the maledominated domains of the church. molokotos-liederman’s chapter also brings to the surface again the hybridization of religious culture exemplified by the rock group of Orthodox monks, particularly the significance of their attempt to make their religious beliefs co-exist with the (post)modern world and globalization. however, one caveat should be mentioned in this context: modernity is understood today in quite flexible and open ways, a fact that theoretically allows for many different, locally determined modernization processes and forms. after all, the discourse on ‘multiple modernities’ or ‘global modernities’ is quite in vogue today, yet it is vital not to define ‘modernity’ according to the principle of ‘anything goes’. in other words, if every possible developmental trajectory in a certain country belongs to some kind of modernity, then the term will lose its analytical usefulness, particularly for comparative purposes. as regards the Greek Orthodox context, the church often claimed during the Christodoulos era that it possessed a modernizing potential of its own, which was not identical to the rather secular modernization programme of the state. yet it is not always clear what exactly is meant in church circles by this kind of modernization. for example, the church exhibits many deficiencies in the area of civil society (Fokas 2008: 29–35) that can lead to serious complications with other institutions yet it does not always appear ready to remedy them by proceeding to the necessary changes. several structural problems in the church organization became quite evident in the deep and multifarious crisis that erupted suddenly in 2005, when the church’s deficiencies became the target of strong and systematic criticism. Vasilios makrides’ chapter deals with the background to this crisis, its significance for church–state relations and its repercussions. in the end, despite its temporary negative effects on the church’s social profile, this crisis acted as a catalyst for some changes within the church organization and its modernization, albeit with the assistance of the state. Fourth, the Greek Orthodox specificities become evident when looking at the notorious issues of religious intolerance and anti-pluralism in contemporary Greece, which have made headlines in recent decades, both in Greece and abroad (anderson 2002; Groen 2003; danopoulos 2004). some scholars (Pollis 1993) have even argued that the Orthodox Christian system (due to its claim of exclusive religious truth and so on) is by nature nearly incompatible with modern pluralistic ideals and the idea of human rights. the fact that several Greek Orthodox thinkers (for example Christos yannaras) have exerted serious critique on human rights and liberalism has also been adduced to prove the existing gap between Orthodox culture and modern democratic ideals. there is no need to deny the discrepancies between Orthodox and Western churches in this area, which can be observed nowadays throughout eastern Orthodox europe (tomka and yurash

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2006). But as with the case of modernity, the Orthodox specificities in this domain can find plausible explanation. In other words, Western Christians and churches have become more pluralistic and have accepted religious dissidence after a long period of intolerance and concomitant conflicts. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism have learned from this situation and finally come to terms with a state-induced regulation of religious affairs, a situation of peaceful inter-religious coexistence, as well as free competition and circulation of religious ideas. this is exactly what was lacking in the Orthodox world historically, where the Orthodox Churches, always aided and variously supported by the state, used to enjoy unique privileges in society, a fact that put obstacles in the way of religious equality between different faiths and the religious neutrality of the state. this also explains why Orthodox Churches are reluctant to share the ‘religious market’ with other pretenders of religious truth, Christian and otherwise, and to compete with them on equal terms. this also applies to the historically predominant Orthodox Church in Greece, a country that has been particularly challenged by the issue of multiculturalism in the last decades due to the influx of numerous immigrants. As was to be expected, the situation was far from satisfactory regarding the religious minorities in the country and their rights, as Prodromos yannas’ chapter shows. This refers to a wide spectrum of issues, such as the aforementioned conflict over identity cards, religious education, proselytism, the erection of places of worship for non-Orthodox minorities, as well as alternative military service and cremation. members of such minorities, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, have won several court cases against Greece in the european Court of human rights in strasbourg. yet in recent years there have been various legal and regulatory changes that have modernized Greek legislation, further secularized the Greek state and made Greek society more tolerant and respectful of differences. the main challenge remains a viable coping with the exigencies of a multicultural society and world, an unavoidable development nowadays, which even the church shows signs of slowly acknowledging. the same holds true for the long-standing issue of constructing a mosque in athens, which many critics have seen as marking Orthodox intolerance vis-à-vis other faiths (muslims in particular). dia anagnostou and ruby Gropas, in Chapter 4, place the mosque issue within a broader canvas. their chapter focuses on the mobilization of and political controversy surrounding the establishment of this mosque, in which not just the Orthodox Church of Greece was actively engaged. the chapter relates the mosque issue to the presence of a new muslim immigration in the greater athens area. it explores how the ‘new’ islam is represented and recognized in relation to bequeathed structures and principles that govern the historically symbiotic interaction between church and state in Greece, which in the last two decades has been transformed de facto into a multicultural society. such structures and principles have framed, and frequently constrained, the ways in which muslim immigrants have been able to organize themselves in order to practise their faith, as well as the ways in which Greek state institutions have so far addressed these religious needs. by reviewing parliamentary proceedings and

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material from the press, the chapter’s empirical sections examine the changing stances of the church on this issue and the political debates that took place in the Greek parliament. It becomes obvious, in the end, that the first steps towards further domesticating islam in Greece have already been made, not only by the political and public spheres, but by the church as well. historically speaking, the state’s favouritism towards the Orthodox Church is clearly the corollary of an unavoidable historical development, namely the gradual nationalization of Orthodox Christianity. This is why church officials, including archbishop Christodoulos, many politicians and other intellectuals kept supporting the privileges of the Orthodox Church, claiming that a greater secularization and the religious neutrality of the state would be nationally catastrophic. let one not forget here that the intertwining of ethnic/national identity, on the one hand, and Orthodox identity, on the other hand, has become an established mark of Orthodox Christianity during the modern era of nations and nationalism (roudometof 2001). nationalization was, after all, the way to modernity that many predominantly Orthodox nation-states had chosen to adopt in the nineteenth century. it is from within this association that the relationship between the church, the state and non-Orthodox minorities becomes a highly complex and deeply problematic relationship for most of the nation-states of south eastern europe. roudometof’s chapter reminds us again that the Orthodox world experienced a twofold transformation from a universal church into a national religion: its structural transformation entailed the establishment of national churches, while its cultural transformation entailed the redeployment of religious affiliation as a facet of national identity. This pertains to the specific Greek case too. The ID card crisis of 2000 is thus not an isolated case but part of a longer and fierce conflict over the cultural identity of Greek Orthodoxy. The 2004 conflict between the Church of Greece and the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the latter’s jurisdiction over northern Greece is a further continuation of the same conflict between traditional Eastern Orthodox universalism and Greek-centred nationalist particularism (roudometof 2008). yet it is futile to deny the pervasive influence of this nationalization process upon the Orthodox Church in Greece today. it is certainly illusory to hope for a return to a pre-national, ecumenical period. therefore, it seems more pertinent to look for ways of combining the traditional Orthodox ecumenicity with the exigencies of a contemporary ‘national church’ and reconfigurating the church’s future agenda, which is without doubt a difficult, but not entirely unrealistic, task. fifth, it is important not to forget that in the Orthodox world, and more specifically in the Greek Orthodox context, most of the above-mentioned debates have been historically – and still are in many respects – conducted along the crucial divide between Orthodox east and latin West. the need either to differentiate itself from the West or to mirror Western developments has been a decisive challenge for the Greek Orthodox world throughout the modern period up to today and has generated innumerable debates and conflicts. One still cannot argue that the Greek Orthodox world, aside from a few exceptions, has managed to find a healthy and

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productive relationship with the West. the whole issue relates to the traditional Orthodox anti-Westernism, a virulent and quite influential current that still leaves its imprint on many contemporary debates (makrides and uffelmann 2003). Suffice it to remember the massive Greek Orthodox reactions to the one-day visit of Pope John Paul ii to athens back in 2001 (seraïdari 2002). in this context, the West with all its material and intellectual products is mostly demonized and finally rejected as useless and even dangerous for the Orthodox east. the course that the West has taken from the middle ages onwards and throughout the modern period is negatively evaluated as a deviation from the authentic Orthodox Christian heritage. yet the main question arising in this context is as follows: is there still a way for the Greek Orthodox world to profit from Western developments, ranging from those in theological research up to the numerous achievements of modernity (tolerance, pluralism, human rights)? many of the chapters in this volume point to ongoing changes taking place within the wider Greek Orthodox body under the positive influence – or challenge, if you want – of related developments in Western Christianity. molokotos-liederman’s chapter thus places the free monks within the international world of faith-based music, including Christian contemporary music, but also music inspired by other religious faiths. after all, this Orthodox rock group certainly constitutes an innovation far more associated with us-based Protestant movements than with a traditional religion like Greek Orthodoxy. further, sotiriu’s chapter makes clear that the women’s issues and in particular female participation in ordained ministry have been addressed in the Greek Orthodox context under the pressure of related developments in Western Christianity, including feminist theology. even if the ordination of women is officially rejected as a dangerous innovation stemming from the West and as an absolute impossibility, it is still obvious that individual Orthodox thinkers variously reflect upon the developments in Western Christianity today in a more constructive way. needless to say, such attempts are proliferating in contemporary Greece as a new generation of Orthodox thinkers takes a critical stance towards the strong and tenacious anti-Westernism that has dominated Greek Orthodoxy in the second half of the twentieth century (kalaitzidis 2008b; kalaitzidis, Papathanassiou and ambatzidis 2009). Finally, we should say something about the specific Greek Orthodox religious life and practice. should it be considered as exceptional in comparison to the rest of europe, in particular with regard to Western Christianity? fortunately, it has been possible recently to obtain comparative data on religious convictions and practices from most european countries on the basis of various cross-national statistical researches (for example the european Values survey and the european social survey). the particular issue of Orthodox Christianity in such surveys has gained attention recently because sociologist miklós tomka (2006) has argued for using a special social scientific methodology to study and understand its otherness. this suggestion has been criticized, however, by other scholars as misleading, because statistical data do not reveal such an Orthodox otherness and extreme variations in religious practices between eastern and Western europe (see flere

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2008 with regard to serbia). this notwithstanding, one should not overlook any existing differences between them that may call for a valid interpretation. One suggestion would be to avoid considering the Greek Orthodox case as an exceptional one, which it is not indeed. rather, it would be helpful to take into consideration the various socio-historical specificities and other particularities of the Greek Orthodox milieu, which are still evident in many domains and which can help in the interpretation of statistical data. theoni stathopoulou’s chapter in this volume tries to make such a comparison with this perspective in mind. analysing data from various successive rounds of the european social survey with regard to Greece and the rest of europe, it provides concrete quantitative evidence with respect to the extent to which religious behaviour in Greece ought to be considered a deviation from broader european standards. Greece stands out in this survey for two reasons: its levels of religious practice (including church attendance and more subjective indices of religiosity) as well as trust in supranational institutions were shown to be higher in comparison to the other surveyed countries. yet these trends are not exhaustive and do not mark out Greece as an exceptional case. rather, they highlight changing patterns in the european landscape, which is, after all, quite heterogeneous, diverse and pluralistic throughout. This chapter attempts to consider Greek specificities through the prism of the historical and socio-cultural conditions that have shaped the religious, national and cultural identity of Greece, with a special emphasis on the intertwined nature of church and state. to conclude, we hope that this volume offers a fresh glimpse of the various facets of contemporary Greek Orthodoxy and its ongoing efforts to cope with the challenges of the twenty-first century. The broadening of the research agenda followed here provides for a more even-handed treatment of the church and avoids reducing the broader social topics into simply legal issues (such as the id card crisis or state legislation about specific matters). Only in this fashion can the full, varied and ambivalent relationship between Orthodox Christianity and the broader Greek society be rendered visible and accountable in all its complexity. As the final outcome of this transition period cannot be ascertained in advance, the volume offers only tentative suggestions as to the future course of Greek Orthodoxy. yet one thing remains certain: since Greek Orthodoxy lives in a constantly changing world, it does change and adapt itself to new exigencies, even if this happens in its own particular way and even if such changes are not always evident at first glance. The same holds true for the low-profile successor of Christodoulos, Archbishop Ieronymos, whose first year in office has been positively evaluated from many sides as a step forward in the modernization of the church (fokas 2008: 24–9; konidaris 2009).

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Kalaïtzidis, Pantélis. 2008a. ‘L’Eglise orthodoxe face au défi du renouveau et de la réforme’, Contacts 60: 212–55. ——. 2008b. Ellinikotita kai Antidytikismos sti «theologia tou ’60» (Hellenicity and Anti-Westernism in the ‘Theology of the 1960s’). th.d. dissertation, university of thessalonica, Greece. kalaitzidis, Pantelis, thanassis n. Papathanassiou and theophilos ambatzidis, eds. 2009. Anataraxeis sti Metapolemiki Theologia: I «Theologia tou ’60» (Turbulences in Post-War Theology: The ‘Theology of the 1960s’). athens: indiktos. karagiannis, evangelos. 2008. ‘die kirche von Griechenland und die herausforderungen der offenen Zukunft’. in Grenzüberschreitungen. Traditionen und Identitäten in Südosteuropa. Festschrift für Gabriella Schubert, ed. W. dahmen, P. himstedt-Vaid and G. ressel. Wiesbaden: harrassowitz, pp. 262–84. konidaris, ioannis m. 2009. ‘apopeira enos Protou apologismou’ (an attempt to draw a first balance). To Vima tis Kyriakis, 8 february, p. a56. makrides, Vasilios n. 2004. ‘ekklisiastiki kai thriskeftiki istoria tis neoteris kai synchronis elladas: diafores, idiaiterotites kai Provlimata anaptyxis’ (ecclesiastical and religious history of modern and Contemporary Greece: differences, Particularities, and Problems of development). in Istoriographia tis Neoteris kai Synchronis Elladas 1833–2002 (Historiography of Modern and Contemporary Greece 1833–2002), Vol. 2, ed. P. m. kitromilides and t. sklavenitis. athens: kne-eie, pp. 587–620. ——. 2005. ‘between normality and tension: assessing Church–state relations in Greece in the light of the identity (Cards) Crisis’. in Religion, Staat und Konfliktkonstellationen im orthodoxen Ost- und Südosteuropa. Vergleichende Perspektiven, ed. V. n. makrides. frankfurt am main: Peter lang, pp. 137– 78. ——. 2008. ‘Orthodoxes Christentum und westeuropäische aufklärung: ein unvollendetes Projekt?’ Ökumenische Rundschau 57: 303–18. makrides, Vasilios n. and lina molokotos-liederman, eds. 2004. ‘religious Controversies in Contemporary Orthodox Greece’, Social Compass. makrides, Vasilios n. and dirk uffelmann. 2003. ‘studying eastern Orthodox anti-Westernism: the need for a Comparative research agenda’. in Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Europe, ed. J. sutton and W. van den bercken. leuven: Peeters, pp. 87–120. molokotos-liederman, lina. 2003. ‘identity Crisis: Greece, Orthodoxy, and the european union’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 18: 291–315. ——. 2007a. ‘looking at religion and Greek identity from the Outside: the Identity Cards Conflict through the Eyes of Greek Minorities’, Religion, State and Society 35: 139–61. ——. 2007b. ‘the Greek id Card Controversy: a Case study of religion and national identity in a Changing european union’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 22: 187–203.

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naumescu, Vlad. 2007. Modes of Religiosity in Eastern Christianity: Religious Processes and Social Change in Ukraine. berlin: lit. nikolopoulos, Panagiotis d. 2005. Idiotikopoiisi tis Thriskeias kai Ekkosmikeusi tis Ekklisias (Privatization of Religion and Secularization of the Church). athens: kastaniotis. Papageorgiou, niki. 2000. I Ekklisia stin Neoelliniki Koinonia (The Church in Modern Greek Society). thessaloniki: Pournaras. Pollis, adamantia. 1993. ‘eastern Orthodoxy and human rights’, Human Rights Quarterly 15: 339–56. ramet, sabrina. 2006. ‘the Way We Were – and should be again? european Orthodox Churches and the “idyllic Past”’. in Religion in an Expanding Europe, ed. t. a. byrnes and P. J. katzenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, pp. 148–75. révay, edit and miklós tomka, eds. 2007. Church and Religious Life in PostCommunist Societies. budapest-Piliscsaba loisir. roudometof, Victor. 2001. Nationalism, Globalization and Orthodoxy: The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. ——. 2005. ‘Orthodoxy as Public religion in Post-1989 Greece’. in Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twenty-First Century, ed. V. roudometof, a. agadjanian and J. Pankhurst. Walnut Creek, Calif.: alta mira Press, pp. 84–108. ——. 2008. ‘Greek-Orthodoxy, territoriality and Globality: religious responses and institutional disputes’, Sociology of Religion 68: 67–91. roudometof Victor, alexander agadjanian and Jerry Pankhurst, eds. 2005. Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twenty-First Century. Walnut Creek, Calif.: alta mira. Seraïdari, Katerina. 2002. ‘Le Pape à Athènes: limites floues entre politique et religion’. retrieved 27 february 2009 at http://www.afebalk.org/ rencontres2002/textes/k.seraidari.pdf stavrakakis, yannis. 2003. ‘Politics and religion: On the “Politicization” of Greek Church discourse’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 21(1): 153–82. tomka, miklós. 2006. ‘is Conventional sociology of religion able to deal with differences between eastern and Western european developments?’ Social Compass 53: 251–65. tomka, miklós and andrij yurash, eds. 2006. Challenges of Religious Plurality for Eastern and Central Europe. lviv, ukraine: taras soroka.

Part i Orthodox Christianity, Greek ethnicity and Politics

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Chapter 1

the evolution of Greek Orthodoxy in the Context of World historical Globalization Victor roudometof

in this chapter, i discuss the evolution of Greek Orthodoxy within the context of world historical globalization and concentrate on the contemporary dominant mentality within the Orthodox Church of Greece. this chapter aims to shed light on the historical transformation of Greek Orthodoxy and subsequently place the historical path of the Orthodox Church of Greece within a broader historical landscape. Central to my argument is the image of globalization as a world historical process – as a historical phenomenon – and not simply as a purely contemporary ideology. it is important to specify from the outset that from the viewpoint of the conceptual lenses employed in this analysis, multiple modernities and their modernizations emerge in the context of broader long-term waves of historical globalization (therborn 2000; eisenstadt 2002). although eastern Orthodoxy is deeply committed to the preservation of tradition, it is mistaken to confuse rhetoric with reality; underneath an apparent image of inertia, considerable cultural and structural changes have taken place. in the early modern era (1492–1840s) and later on during the modern era (1840s–1945) of historical globalization, the major cultural shifts that took place in the Ottoman balkans entailed the relativization1 of the religious worldviews traditional to the mediterranean world and their replacement by new ‘modern’ national identities (such as Greek, serb, bulgarian and, later on, turk). it is my contention that these changes reveal complex social processes and render simplistic explanations (such as ‘modernizers’ versus ‘reactionaries’) obsolete. for the purposes of presenting the encounter between globality and modernity, on the one hand, and Greek Orthodoxy, on the other hand, this chapter is structured around two main historical periods. first, there is the encounter between Orthodoxy and Western european modernity (as expressed by the enlightenment and other similar Western european cultural projects). the second period involves the post-1945 period, in which a new rapprochement with the powers of globality 1

relativization is not relativism but rather the consequence of contact with hitherto alien traditions. Such contact leads to individuals questioning the definitions, boundaries, categories and conclusions through which they have understood the world and established their identity (Campbell 2005: 54). the typology of the stages of globalization followed in this chapter is adopted from held et al. (1999).

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and globalization is required. With this theme in mind, the argument pursued is that the contemporary developments within the Orthodox Church of Greece have to be explained through reference to the contemporary political, cultural and economic currents that fall under the rubric of globalization.

The Transformation of Greek Orthodoxy: From universal Church to National Religion throughout the long centuries of Ottoman rule the Greek Orthodox Church remained a universalistic institution, fostering submission to the Ottoman regime and unity among the balkan peoples (stokes 1979). the Ottoman world empire was organized as a status society with religion serving as the major political cleavage demarcating access to positions of power. Of course, it does not follow that nonmuslims were reduced to the position of mere subjects. in accordance to both islamic custom and also raison d’état, Ottoman rulers organized non-muslims under their respective religious leaders. hence, Jews, Catholics and Orthodox Christians became incorporated into the empire within their own confessional associations (millets) (for details see stavrianos 1958; sugar 1977; inalcik 1978; braude and lewis 1982; Jelavich 1983; sarris 1990). the dominant millet in the Ottoman balkans was the Rum millet. Within it, the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople became the central political and religious authority. the formerly political identity of the Roman subject became, under Ottoman rule, confined to the religious identity of the Rum millet. its members called themselves ‘Christians’ or ‘romans’ (Rum), whereas the Western europeans referred to them as ‘Greeks’ (Greek Orthodox). in order to avoid the fallacies of conventional historical perspectives on the balkans, it is important to differentiate here between the sense of unity that was articulated within the ecclesiastical project of the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the sense of ethnic distinctiveness or awareness among the balkan peoples. by all accounts, the sense of difference, or the awareness of belonging to different cultural units, was not erased.2 in itself, this awareness points to the relevance of anthony d. smith’s concept of ‘ethnic community’ (1986), or ethnie, for understanding such cultural differences. but awareness of such differences did not entail attributing a national (or political) significance to them. On the contrary, in the fluid space created by the Ottoman employment

2 matalas (2003: 23–4) cites two sixteenth-century examples that testify to the awareness of ethnic differences in holy mountain monasteries. in both cases, two bulgarian monasteries were taken over by Greek monks, leading to a change in the liturgical language. The contemporaries duly noted this shift, a fact that testifies to the awareness of ethnic distinctions. Of course, the Greek Orthodox religious authorities at the time did not do so for nationalist reasons but, rather, for ecclesiastical reasons.

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of religion for the purposes of political classification and tax collection,3 the possibility of shifting labels was more than the result of personal preference; it was often a professional necessity (such as with the numerous ‘Greek’ merchants) or the result of upward social mobility, intermarriage and migration. the traditional mediterranean worldview assigned to various peoples the labels of ‘Greek’ (for example Greek-Orthodox of various ethnic stock), ‘latin’ (for example roman Catholics of various nations and ethnicities), and ‘turk’ (for example muslims of various backgrounds, including muslim albanians or muslim bosnians, two major examples where this label had nothing to do with race or ethnicity). in the Ottoman balkans, the ecclesiastical Greek Orthodox project sponsored by the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople cultivated a sense of religious–political unity that suited both the goals of the Ottoman political authority as well as the aim of universalizing the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate, reviving its former byzantine glory under muslim rule. but, it took several centuries for the Patriarchate-sponsored project to successfully gain undisputed supremacy in the balkans. it was only in the eighteenth century that this project was so successful that the label ‘Rum’ was applied almost indiscriminately to all Orthodox Christians in the region (konortas 1998: 299–303). the abolition of the autocephalous seats of Peć and Ohrid in 1766 and 1767, respectively, was the high point of this process. however, at the same time, new ideological currents challenged this ecclesiastical project and eventually led to its collapse. the variety of cultural, economic and social changes brought about in the Old World after the age of discoveries drove a ‘harsh wedge between cosmology and history’ (anderson 1991: 36). that is, these changes caused the gradual dissolution of script languages (like ecclesiastical Greek or latin) and of societies organized around divinely ordained monarchs (like the Ottoman or the french). these changes also caused a decisive shift in the people’s understanding of temporality, whereby the origins of the world and of humanity were sharply differentiated. it was only in the aftermath of these major shifts that it became possible for humans to conceive of modern nations as conceptual categories of social existence. these new social currents entailed the secularization of worldviews4 and arrived in the balkans with the eighteenth-century Grecophone balkan enlightenment. an 3

although religious authorities assumed the responsibility for performing civil functions (such as tax collection, disposing of legal matters and so on), it is mistaken to assume that the Orthodox clergy alone performed all such functions throughout the period of Ottoman rule. On the contrary, in due time, civil institutions did emerge (see Petrou 1992: 81–94). 4 it is important to distinguish among different connotations of the term ‘secularization’. following Casanova (2006: 7), i differentiate between (a) secularization as the decline of religious beliefs and practices, (b) secularization as religious privatization and (c) secularization as the differentiation, in the sense of the emancipation, from religious institutions and norms. it is the third connotation of secularization that is relevant in the

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Orthodox balkan merchant class provided the material support for the intellectuals who transferred the new ideas from Western europe into the balkans. it was a class relatively wealthy and open to communication with Western europe. these strata, generally referred to as ‘Greek’ (Greek Orthodox), were of various ethnic stocks. their designation as ‘Greek’ is an indication of the extent to which Greek cultural identity as such was subsumed under Orthodoxy (svoronos 1981: 58). it was among these groups – most often expatriates and diasporic communities – that modern nationalism found its first proponents. it is important to note the limits of the early (eighteenth-century) secularization trend. Within the Ottoman balkans, the enlightenment’s impact was related to the urban literate strata. With the exception of the romanian boyar class of landowners, these strata were mostly hellenized, Grecophone or ethnically Greek. in fact, the ideological domination of the Greek Orthodox millet by the Orthodox clergy was predicated upon the identification of ‘Greek’ (Rum) with Orthodoxy. during the second half of the eighteenth century, a new balkan intelligentsia emerged. this intelligentsia was predominately Grecophone and aimed at the diffusion of ‘enlightened reason’ in the empire. the growing secularization and the influence of the French revolution led to the articulation of a new secular identity of hellenism. for liberal intellectuals such as korais, moisiodax and rigas Velenstinlis, hellenism represented the secular facet of the Rum millet (roudometof 1998a; see also kitromilides 1994). for them, the confessional mode of social organization (the millet system), dominant within the Ottoman empire for at least four centuries, was becoming increasingly outdated. When, in the early nineteenth century, Greece and serbia (and later on bulgaria) were created as independent or autonomous states, the project of crafting national identities ranked high on the agenda of local intellectuals and statesmen. establishing a clearly demarcated national identity in regions marked by centuries of Ottoman rule involved, by necessity, the transformation of religious identities and ecclesiastical institutions. as these modern national identities took shape in the course of the nineteenth century, religious markers and institutions had to relate to these identities and to adapt themselves to the emerging realities of the era of the nation-state. to do so successfully required both a cultural and a structural transformation. to a degree, these transformations operated synchronically as the one helped to bring about the other. first, the cultural transformation involved the gradual shift of the meaning of religious affiliation and the redeployment of Greek Orthodoxy as a facet of the balkan peoples’ national identity. to accomplish this goal required the production of national narratives that were gradually diffused throughout the population by means of the educational system. between 1830 and 1880 a romantic balkan nationalist intelligentsia shaped the Greek, serb and bulgarian version of the ‘nation’ via such devices as historical narrative, religious symbolism, the reinterpretation historical treatment of the Ottoman balkans, whereas the other two come into play only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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of folklore or the writing of nationalist literature and poetry. Cultural romanticism, the dominant literary genre in nineteenth-century europe, shaped balkan national narratives (for discussions, see Castellan 1985; kiel 1985; roudometof 2001). Consequently, religious symbolism was redeployed as national symbolism, thus facilitating the redeployment of Orthodoxy as part of the balkan peoples’ national identity. days of initially religious commemoration, ranging from st Vitus’ day to annunciation day or to st Cyril’s and st methodius’ day, were transformed into occasions for national celebrations of the emerging Greek, serb and bulgarian nations (for details, see roudometof 2001: 101–56). this cultural transformation of the religious worldview is observed not only in serbia and Greece, where state authority was established in the early nineteenth century, but significantly, also in the bulgarian case, where no state was established until 1878. therefore, it cannot be accounted for as a predominantly state-sponsored process (see hobsbawm 1990). the Greek War of independence and the establishment of the kingdom of Greece provided the broader context for the articulation of the Greek ethnie as a nation and offered a powerful example for other balkan nationalists to emulate. Given the predominately religious ties that connected the balkan Orthodox population, it is not surprising that for Balkan nationalists the first step was to manipulate religious institutions so as to transform these ties into national ones (Castellan 1984). the reinterpretation of Orthodoxy was a central feature of balkan nation-state building. the reasons dictating this reinterpretation were simple enough. for the overwhelming majority of people, religion was still the major cultural marker, even after the establishment of the balkan nation-states. The impact of the earlier eighteenth-century secularization was confined to literary classes, influential but limited in numbers. Therefore, acculturating the ‘people’ into the national ‘imagined community’ entailed the transformation of the religious markers into secular ones. moreover, the balkan nation-states were all too eager to expand territorially into the rest of the european part of the Ottoman empire. To do so required sufficient support from the peasantry. But the local nation-states did not have the luxury of a prolonged nation-state formation process comparable to that of Western europe. Within a few decades, Greece, serbia and bulgaria had to build a state infrastructure and homogenize their societies (for a discussion, see roudometof 2000). these time constraints required imaginative solutions: the shortest route for nation-building was to shift the meaning of church affiliation and turn it into an equivalent of national affiliation. second, the structural transformation of the religious institutions provided the necessary institutional infrastructure to bring about the nationalist objective of successfully turning church affiliation into national affiliation. The effective means through which this transformation was accomplished was the institution of separate national churches. although the institution of territorial autocephaly is part of the eastern Orthodox tradition, the construction of national churches in the balkans did not serve ecclesiastical purposes alone but, rather, provided the material and ideological infrastructure for the nationalization of masses. the new

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churches (Greece in 1833, serbia in 1832 and the bulgarian exarchate in 1870) provided a medium through which the traditional cultural ties among the Orthodox balkan peoples could be severed and new national ties could be constructed. in the case of the kingdom of Greece, it was the regency of king Otto that instituted the Orthodox Church of Greece uncannonically (that is without the consent of the ecumenical Patriarchate). this turn of events provided the fuel for a deep religious rivalry between proponents of religious unity with the Patriarchate and advocates of the state-sponsored Orthodox Church of Greece. the dispute lasted from 1833 until 1850, when the Patriarchate issued a synodical tome that formalized the relations between itself and the newly created Orthodox Church of Greece (for details, see roudometof 1998b). Only a couple of decades later, the establishment of the bulgarian exarchate (1870) represented the fragmentation of eastern Orthodox universalism in its most visible and dramatic manner. In fact, patriarchal reaction entailed the official excommunication of the bulgarian Church and its followers, who were considered heretics who rejected religious unity in favour of ethno-national bonds – defined in the church’s official language as ethnofyletismos (a term that is literally rendered as ‘ethnic-racism’ but practically means what is usually referred to as ‘ethnic nationalism’ today). the subsequent Greek–bulgarian ecclesiastical schism (which lasted from 1872 until the 1940s) represented the recognition of a major shift in the nature of church affiliation with national secular identity gaining the upper hand against the earlier mixed religious-political identity of the Rum millet. let me explain the practical aspects of this structural transformation as they apply to the case of the Orthodox Church of Greece. first, as a matter of state law, the holy synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece became the supreme religious authority and subordinated all lower clergy and bishops under its command. second, the authority of the local bishops became an extension of the state authority itself; and the holy synod and local bishops were authorized to ask for the support of civil authorities in the implementation of their decisions in ecclesiastical affairs. third, religious worship became state sanctioned and, by extension, civic ceremonies or state celebrations became intertwined with religious ritual. fourth, the clergy were entrusted with record keeping of civic matters (baptisms, births, deaths, marriages, divorces). fifth, local priests were brought under the complete control of the bishops through the institution of a separate ecclesiastical justice system whereby the bishop alone was entrusted with the right to vote and render judgment on issues pertaining to clergymen (Petrou 1992: 148–50). the synchronous nature of this dual (cultural and structural) transformation allowed the various national churches (such as the Orthodox Church of Greece) to reassert their role and significance in the face of considerable, persistent and continuous secularization. although such a trend would have otherwise been the source of considerable difficulties – such as was the case in the eighteenth century with the enlightenment currents reaching the Orthodox balkans – the redeployment of Orthodoxy in the service of the nation allowed the ecclesiastical hierarchies to maintain their privileged position, not as part of a religiously based

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authority structure but, on the contrary, as part of the new and expanding national bureaucracies, civil service and the other state institutions. needless to say, this absorption of religion into modern nationalism and the blending of the two is not an exclusively eastern european phenomenon (see hastings 1997).

Greece’s Modern synthesis: Collective Memory, National Identity and Orthodoxy the modern synthesis between religion and national identity that emerged in nineteenth-century Greece viewed Orthodoxy as an integral, indispensable element of Greek identity, co-terminus with ‘Greekness’. the consequences of this fusion were twofold. On the one hand, Greek national identity absorbed into its fabric numerous religious markers, as in the case of annunciation day (25 march), which became the Greek national holiday commemorating the 1821 Greek revolution against the Ottomans (for a discussion, see roudometof 2005a). On the other hand, Orthodoxy was equally absorbed into modern Greek national identity, paving the way for the ‘nationalization of Orthodoxy’. by this term i mean the particularization of a formerly universalistic religion whereby God became in effect not a universal God, but the God of a particular nation. for example, in nineteenth-century religious texts the Greeks are referred to as ‘God’s chosen people’ and ‘holy nation’ (cited in Petrou 1992: 181). by far the best example of this particularization, however, is the birth and rapid proliferation of the new concept ‘Ellinochristianismos’ (hellenic or Greek Christianity), which emerged in the mid-nineteenth century precisely in order to capture this fusion of Greek national identity and Orthodoxy (roudometof 2001: 108–11). as a result of countless commemorative speeches, lectures, pronouncements and other forms of constructing the national collective memory, this association between religion and national identity has subsequently achieved canonical status in the Greek psyche. Perhaps the best illustration of the manner in which this fusion has been absorbed into modern Greece’s collective memory is the fairy tale of the so-called ‘secret school’ (Kryfo Scholio). according to this national legend, Greek educational institutions and schools were closed down during the period of Ottoman rule. Orthodox clergy schooled Greek students at night in secret. in the popular song that exemplifies this oral tradition, education and religious belief are linked, the function of education being to instil the Orthodox faith into the pupils’ souls. the four lines, known to practically all Greek pupils, read: ‘Oh bright moon/shine on me so i would walk/and go to school/to learn of things, God’s own things’ (translation mine). the mythological interpretation of the song is that this was the folk song sung by Greek pupils who were going to school at night, fearful of Ottoman persecution. Suffice to say, this national myth originated in nineteenthcentury public commemorations of the Greek War of independence. it was in the context of such occasions that poetic licence gradually gave rise to a national

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myth both powerful and devoid of any real substance (see angelou 1999). yet, as late as march 2007, the subject remained a controversial one: when new history textbooks were sent to elementary schools in 2006–2007 parents, intellectuals and journalists complained that the new textbook failed to make any reference to this sacred national myth. When history professors proceeded to publicly explain that the ‘secret school’ is but a myth, journalists, politicians and many intellectuals reacted with dismay and disbelief, creating a media frenzy that swept the Greek tV talk shows for the better part of march 2007. Press reports attributed the failure of mrs m. Giannakou – minister of education at the time – to get re-elected to Parliament in the 2007 national elections to this affair. her successor at the ministry of education moved swiftly to postpone the circulation of new textbooks, thereby bowing to public sentiment. While this incident shows the power of the association between religion and national identity in the nation’s collective memory, it is worth pointing out that, contrary to the Greek public’s perception, the officially sanctioned affiliation of the Orthodox Church of Greece with educational establishments does not predate the nineteenth century. after the establishment of the kingdom of Greece (1832), both official policy and intellectual mobilization were extensively used to nurture the careful intertwining of religion and education. From the outset, officials advocated that the Christian faith was to be ‘the basis of teaching’ in the Greek educational system (antoniou 1992: 98). in 1837, the royal decree establishing the guidelines for the operation of Greek schools ordered mandatory religious instruction, mandatory prayer prior to classes and mandatory weekly attendance of religious services for the students. the establishment and operation of missionary schools in Greece in the early nineteenth century provided further support for strengthening the association between religion and education (Perselis 1997: 77–9). successive administrative decrees (in 1853 and 1856) ordered teachers and county prefects to monitor and reinforce these regulations. the high point was probably reached in 1874 when the holy synod of the Church of Greece requested that Parliament entrust the operation of public schools to the clergy, a plan that evoked strong opposition from the schoolteachers’ union, which successfully rallied to prevent its implementation (for further discussion, see Perselis 1997: 107–31; Gazi 2004: 102–3). Of central significance for the ideological dimension of this project was the institution of a public holiday to honour Greek letters, the date of which was set to coincide with the 30 January religious holiday commemorating the three hierarchs (st basil of Caesarea, st Gregory of nazianzus and st John Chrysostom) of the eastern Orthodox tradition. this religious holiday was originally instituted in byzantine times as a solution to theological problems of that period. its newly found connection with Greek letters was cultivated originally with its official promulgation by the university of athens in 1841 (Gazi 2004: 86). in their successive commemorative lectures, theologians and historians promoted the link between Orthodoxy and Greek national identity. for example, in an 1875 commemorative speech a speaker declared that ‘Christianity and nationalism,

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church and state are not two opposite elements, but two elements [that co-exist] in harmony and affinity’ (cited in Gazi 2004: 66). The Day of Three Hierarchs soon reached the status of a mixed religious-educational holiday. to this day, it is promptly celebrated in Greek schools everywhere (including those operating outside Greece itself). it offers an occasion for exaltation of the role of religion in education and for publicly showcasing the close link between Orthodox religion and educational values. as this brief excursus into the genealogy of hellenic Christianity clearly shows, the modern synthesis was based on the production and reproduction of collective memory among the Greek population. this collective memory was managed and maintained by clergy, theologians and academics, propagated through official speeches, commemorative acts and other media and then duplicated through the school curriculum and holidays. the national homogenization of the population then also meant the gradual but steady diffusion of this form of collective memory, which gradually became concomitant with national memory. the modern synthesis that was crafted in the nineteenth century (and then further elaborated on during the first half of the twentieth century) involved the redeployment of Greek Orthodoxy as perhaps the main cultural marker for defining modern Greek national identity. this interpretation helps account not only for this contemporary reality, but also for an apparent contradiction in the historical literature and studies about Greek Orthodoxy. that is, on the one hand, Orthodoxy became the entity most passionately evoked in nineteenth- (and most of the twentieth-) century lectures and other public discussions. On the other hand, throughout the nineteenth century, the secularization of religious beliefs and practices greatly circumscribed the influence of religious authorities. Reacting to this trend, both the official church and privately sponsored religious associations attempted to rekindle religious feeling, with the religious associations being far more successful and influential than the official church hierarchy (for details, see Makrides 1997). the Greek state’s modern synthesis of Orthodoxy and national identity allowed this secularization of individual beliefs and practices to proceed without overtly producing an open conflict between religious institutions and statesponsored secular modernity and rationality. because of the highly ritualized nature of the Orthodox faith, the church could afford this solution. for example, the transformation of religious celebrations (such as easter) into semi-national holidays that take place under the aegis of the civil authorities has contributed to the maintenance of popular customs tied to eastern Orthodox tradition – such as the celebrations of the blessing of the Waters or the public possession of the epitaph through the streets of Greek cities on Good friday under the protection of the police and the army. Of course, many of these customs are not strictly religious in nature, for they are as much a part of folk tradition as they are part of religious ritual.

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The Orthodox Church of Greece and Contemporary Globalization during the second half of the twentieth century, modern societies entered the phase variously described as ‘second modernity’ (beck 1992) or ‘late modernity’ (Giddens 1990), a phase whose basic characteristic has been the growing and persistent individualization of areas previously untouched by modernity, such as interpersonal relations, the family, sexuality and so on (beck and beck-Gerhsheim 2000). religion has been further individualized, leading to greater privatization in some cases, but also leading to personalized bricolage, whereby the individual can approach religious practices in an eclectic manner (beyer 1994). simultaneously, religion has been transnationalized with the growth of transnational institutions, the migration of religious faiths in new areas of missionary work and a nearly global religious revival (Casanova 1994; hanes 1998). for the less advanced societies of south eastern europe, this era meant the transmission and institutionalization of the nineteenth-century modern synthesis to the majority of their respective population. by the second half of the twentieth century, most of these societies became, in effect, urban societies for the very first time in their modern history. Whereas in the nineteenth century, the overwhelming majority of their population consisted of mostly illiterate peasantry (for statistics, see roudometof 2000), the steadfast modernization and urbanization of the twentieth century has altered the social fabric and, by implication, the moral bases of their cohesion. although industrial development did not materialize, these societies did begin to experience an incipient religious privatization, most acutely felt, of course, in the communist states of south eastern europe. in the case of Greece, during the 1967–1974 military dictatorship, the regime’s official policy of pursuing the creation of a ‘Greece of Christian Greeks’ provided a spectacular example of applying the ideology of ‘helleno-Christian Civilization’ (Ellinochristianikos Politismos) onto cultural matters (Gazi 2004: 34– 50). Although this official policy collapsed overnight with the end of the military dictatorship in 1974, the post-second World War multifaceted modernization of Greek society contributed to the significant decline in religiosity rates (for statistics and further discussion, see makrides 1995). it also caused the dissolution of local folk culture, most of which was closely related to religious practices, including the popular practice of treating the saints, the Virgin and the holy icons as mediating symbols between God and believers. Of course, to the degree that Orthodoxy allows individuals to navigate the symbolic universe of religious metaphors on their own, it can be argued that the religion itself promotes such an individualization of religious experience (kokosalakis 1995: 259–60). as Vasilios makrides further describes in detail in Chapter 3 in this volume, during the post-1974 period, the Greek state initiated a series of reforms aimed at increasing church–state separation through the passing of legislation that weakened the church’s authority over civil affairs (such as the institution of no-fault divorce or civil marriage). these initial steps did not meet strong opposition, though, and for good reason: the no-fault divorce meant that private detectives did not have to

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invade people’s bedrooms in order to prove the crime of adultery in court, and the civil marriage ceremony was an alternative to (and not an obligatory substitution for) the religious ritual. still, these developments do not necessarily imply a shift in broader state policy or the cultural or semiotic value ascribed to religion as such. that is, while eastern Orthodox tradition accepts privatization in the form of individual preference, the official church explicitly opposes the public endorsement of the privatization of religiosity. When proclaimed openly in public, as part of official, state-sponsored policy – as was the case with the 2000 id card crisis, the ‘free’ or public operation of various Protestant groups in Greece or the issue of catechism in high school education5 – the privatization of religiosity is viewed as a negation of the modern synthesis itself. these contradictions were not immediately apparent as for most of the post-second World War period (1945–1974) Greek society was caught in the maelstrom of extensive and deep modernization processes. from the 1980s, however, the issue of re-asserting religiosity in the public sphere was gradually raised, initially by theologians and would-be religious reformers and then by politicians (such as the late minister of education and religious affairs a. tritsis, who proposed a sweeping reform of the Orthodox Church of Greece in the late 1980s). the pace of events accelerated as the 1989 collapse of communism in eastern europe produced a dramatic impact on european social, economic and political affairs. in fact, the social changes unleashed by the disappearance of the ‘iron Curtain’ led to a host of social ills (unemployment, black market, criminality and so on) in numerous formerly communist eastern Orthodox nations. during the post-1989 period, the most popular response among Orthodox national churches throughout eastern europe has been to cling to their version of the modern synthesis of church and nation in the face of contemporary globalization (see roudometof, agadjanian and Pankhurst 2005). Just like the other Orthodox national churches, the Orthodox Church of Greece has to face up to globality and develop its own response with regard to the necessary adjustment to the challenges of the twentyfirst century. The post-1989 period brought over a million immigrants to Greece, which for the very first time in its history became a country of immigration (instead of a country of emigration). at the same time, the economic, institutional and cultural modernization of the Greek state has lagged behind the majority of the european union member-states, thereby leading to decreasing economic performance and growing uncertainties about employment, job security, pensions, healthcare and so on. similar trends throughout europe and north america typically led to defensive worldviews that often interpret the world in terms of a

The institution of civil marriage aptly reflects this attitude. Introduced in Greece in 1982 by the first socialist cabinet, civil marriage serves as an alternative to religious marriage. although the overwhelming majority still marry in church, Orthodox clergymen sometimes refuse burial rites to those not married in church (mavrogordatos 2003: 122). 5

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clash between global menacing forces (usually under the label of ‘globalization’) and a local virtuous culture. although such cultural and political localist projects do not necessarily have to be cloaked in religious cloth, religion is frequently evoked as a factor that can easily provide group boundaries. With respect to the Greek case, advocates of such defensive worldviews can be found in two distinct groups that do not necessarily share the same political orientation. first, there is a group of ‘neo-Orthodox’ intellectuals aiming at a spiritual renewal of Greek Orthodoxy through a ‘return to the tradition’ (see makrides 1998). yannaras (1992), in particular, considers that the evolution of modern Greek nation-state building and the multifaceted modernization of the country over the last three centuries were detrimental to Greek cultural traditions. in his view, the importation of the enlightenment into Orthodox lands destabilized the Orthodox commonwealth of the earlier periods and led to a prolonged identity crisis. the resolution to the moral dilemmas of modern times is to be found in the sacred Orthodox theology of the past – without imports from the West. While advocating a return to tradition, though, these groups’ representatives are often affiliated with the Centre or the Left in Greek politics. second, there are ecclesiastical organizations and church hierarchs who are die-hard defenders of the modern synthesis. left-wing Greek newspapers often accuse this group of close association with right-wing ideological perspectives and sentiments. this group sponsored archbishop Christodoulos’ ascendancy to the archbishopric of the Orthodox Church of Greece in 1998. in their view, the Orthodox Church of Greece is an agent of moral regeneration for the Greek people. in this respect, it is not accidental that archbishop Christodoulos frequently referred to the Orthodox Church of Greece as one of the pillars of modern Greek national identity (for a discussion, see roudometof 2005b). for these defenders of the modern synthesis of church and nation, Orthodoxy is a chain of national memory (hervieu-léger 2000), an interpretation consistently advocated by archbishop Christodoulos (1999), who routinely reminded his audience of the critical role of religion for the preservation of Greek national identity in past centuries. in his own words, hellenism cannot live without visions and hope. Only if the castle of our memory remains unconquered and maintained by our legends and those who incarnate our national idea, only then can our race [genos] become glorious. and our race can survive only if it embraces again the life-giving Greek Orthodoxy. (archbishop Christodoulos 1999: 52; my translation from the original Greek)

for Christodoulos, Greek diasporic communities have failed to reproduce the church–nation link that forms an essential ingredient of modern Greek identity. in other words, this vision of defending the modern synthesis of church and nation has a strong territorial component: Orthodoxy can be properly experienced in the territory of the Greek nation-state alone, and not in ‘alien lands’. Contemporary

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globalization should be resisted, for it threatens to disrupt this link even within the Greek state (archbishop Christodoulos 2001). for Christodoulos (1999: 34–6), the coming twenty-first century inaugurates a new moral and political order in the world and in europe, in particular. this new order is expressed through the hegemony of everyday life by european union directives, the strengthening of islamic forces in europe and the revival of nationalism in the balkans. in all these areas, the church has to play a prominent role. More specifically, globalism means ‘a common hindsight and prospect based on the choices of the powerful. [it means] the decline and perhaps even disappearance of locality’ (archbishop Christodoulos 1999: 127). for archbishop Christodoulos, the church is the only institution that is capable of resisting global forces that would otherwise undermine Greek national identity. ‘the people see the dangers of globalization and realize the threat of national alienation’, archbishop Christodoulos told the holy synod of the Church of Greece (holy synod of the Church of Greece 2000). therefore, although on the surface archbishop Christodoulos’ rhetoric suggests a similarity with the left’s rejection of the new World Order, there is a great gulf separating the archbishop’s position from the position of leftist activists opposing free trade or the World trade Organization. in the archbishop’s view, the nation has to be preserved from the ‘globalization threat’ through a revival of the modern synthesis of church and nation, a synthesis that is anything but modern for him. Given that this intertwining of religion and nationalism has been used in the course of twentieth-century Greek history to justify the persecution of the left by right-wing governments, it is not surprising that the left viewed archbishop Christodoulos as nothing other than a right-wing nationalist cleric who was more interested in partisan politics than ecclesiastical affairs (see stavrakakis 2003; alivizatos 1999). however, as the preceding discussion shows, the endorsement of localism in the church’s rhetoric is part of a broader cultural reaction to globalization. for example, as lina molokotos-liederman shows in Chapter 10, this religiously based localism is also prominently featured in the free monks pop group’s lyrics and attitude. that, of course, aptly shows that the articulation of localism as a cultural message (for example, the rejection of the new World Order of the presumed new and alien cultural habits and innovations of the information age and so on) is coupled with the endorsement and employment of modern means for expression (such as the use of popular music in the case of the free monks). this seemingly contradictory stance is also observed in the church’s official discourse. as anastassios anastassiadis’ Chapter 2 shows, the church’s conservative discourse often provides a cover to disguise daring innovations in the workings of the institution – such as the expansion of charitable work by church organizations in the 1920s or the contemporary experiment in liturgy, where the Gospel was read into the vernacular (as opposed to the original text which is written in the Koine version of Greek, a language used during the late Greco-roman era). it is worth pointing out the extent to which this last case represents a complete reversal of the conventional attitude of the church; after all, back in the nineteenth century the

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original translation of the bible into the modern vernacular led to the translator’s excommunication. in light of the above then, it should be reasonable to suggest that the localism that is so prominently displayed in the church’s discourse during the post-1998 period should not be naively equated with religious fundamentalism – a charge frequently levelled against the church by the left in the course of the last decade. rather, the religious endorsement of and support for localist attitudes is a means to an end; it enables the church hierarchy (and archbishop Christodoulos in particular) to use the widespread localist feelings currently present throughout modern Greek society to reassert its public role (as it did, for example, in the id card crisis), gain public support for its activities (such as charitable work, missionary work, welfare and so on), expand the range of its projects (such as transforming its post-secondary ecclesiastical schools into college-level institutions) and ultimately increase its visibility on the international scene (as it did with the 2001 papal visit to Greece, which was reciprocated in november 2006 by archbishop Christodoulos’ visit to rome).

Concluding Remarks in this chapter, i have sketched out the historical evolution of Greek Orthodoxy and discussed the manner in which the Orthodox Church of Greece appears to be adjusting vis-à-vis contemporary globalization. the argument pursued entailed the recognition that Greek Orthodoxy, far from being isolated or immune to crosscultural currents, has been deeply influenced by and has responded to the broader historical transformations of modernization and globalization. Suffice to say, I have not addressed the issue of the engulfment of the Orthodox Church of Greece’s own bishops in Greek partisan politics as such a discussion would distract the reader from the main theme of the chapter. for organizational purposes, the analysis was framed in terms of two main historical periods. first, there is the encounter between Orthodoxy and Western european modernity. this encounter lasted roughly from the eighteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century. it produced considerable religious– secular rivalry during the period of the balkan enlightenment. in the nineteenth century, this conflict was eventually superseded by the construction of a modern synthesis whereby Greek Orthodoxy and secular nationalism were reconciled with each other. When looked upon from the perspective of the longue durée then, Greek Orthodoxy emerges as a ubiquitous institution, capable of considerable adaptation within its institutional apparatus. the Orthodox Church of Greece is in itself the product of the major shifts that took place in the balkans during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. it expresses the logic of a global–local fusion, whereby a universalistic religion has been reconciled with a particularistic national identity. in this regard, the shift from a Greek Orthodox to an Orthodox Greek identity manifests the broader nineteenth-century cultural and institutional

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turn toward the nationalization of Orthodoxy throughout south eastern europe (roudometof 1999). the second historical period discussed is the post-1945 ‘Global age’ (albrow 1997). in this era, as the effects of globality gradually reached almost all the corners of the earth, Greek Orthodoxy gradually entered the process of contemplating its future direction and the mode of its participation in the globalized cultural universe of the times. Ongoing conflicts and debates within Greek Orthodox institutions pertain to the different versions or responses to globality. although there is no uniform response among Orthodox clerics, activists and theologians with regard to the contemporary response to globality, the Orthodox Church of Greece – especially after the 1998 ascent of archbishop Christodoulos to the throne – prominently displays a defensive stance. this stance is evident in the archbishop’s own statements and in the church’s popular mobilization during the 2000 id card crisis. although debates in the popular press, but also among academics, tend to attribute the church’s attitude to its own inherent anti-modernism or conservatism, it is important to note that the Orthodox Church of Greece is in itself the product of the encounter between Greek Orthodoxy and modernity and not the relic of an immutable tradition. additionally, as the discussion in this chapter shows, and as anastassiadis also argues in the next chapter, the church discourse is often steadfast in its hard-core traditionalism when it is used to cover up the practical work of introducing innovative ideas into religious practices. in the post-1998 period, this defensive discourse has been accompanied by a revival of religious activism that represents an active engagement with the contemporary social problems of twenty-first-century Greek society.

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References albrow, martin. 1997. The Global Age. stanford, Calif.: stanford university Press. alivizatos, nicos C. 1999. ‘a new role for the Church of Greece?’ Journal of Modern Greek Studies 17(1): 23–39. anderson, benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities. 2nd edn. london: Verso. angelou, alkis. 1999. To Krifo Sholio: Hroniko Enos Mithou (The Secret School: Chronicle of a Myth). athens: estia. antoniou, dimitris. 1992. Oi Aparches tou Ekpaideutikou Schediasmou sto Neoelliniko Kratos (The Foundation of Educational Planning in the Modern Greek State). athens: Patakis. beck, ulrich. 1992. Risk Society. london: sage. beck, ulrich and elisabeth beck-Gerhsheim. 2000. Individualization. london: sage. beyer, Peter. 1994. Religion and Globalization. london: sage. braude, benjamin and bernard lewis, eds. 1982. Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Vol. i. new york: holmes and meier. Campbell, George Van Pelt. 2005. Everything You Know Is Wrong: How Globalization Undermines Moral Consensus. baltimore, md.: university Press of america. Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: university of Chicago Press. ——. 2006 ‘rethinking secularization: a Global Comparative Perspective’, Hedgehog Review 8(1/2): 7–22. Castellan, Georges. 1984. ‘facteur religieux et identité nationale dans les balkans aux xixe–xxe siècles’, Revue Historique 27(1): 135–51. ——. 1985. ‘le romantisme historique: une des sources de l’idéologie des etats balkaniques aux xixe et xxe siècles’, Etudes Historiques 3(1): 187–203. Christodoulos, archbishop of athens and all Greece. 1999. Apo Choma kai Ourano (Of Soil and Heaven). athens: kastaniotis. ——. 2001. ‘Church and People: an unbroken relationship’. lecture at the marine Club of Piraeus, 19 June. retrieved 17 december 2008 at http://www. ecclesia.gr/greek/archbishop/christodoulos.asp?id=32&what_main=1&what_ sub=3&lang=gr&archbishop_heading=%C5%ea%ea%eb%e7%f3%df%e1 eisenstadt, shmuel, ed. 2002. Multiple Modernities. edison, nJ: transaction Publishers. Gazi, Efi. 2004. O Deuteros Vios ton Trion Ierarchon. Mia Genealogia tou ‘Ellinochristianikou Politismou’ (The Second Life of the Three Hierarchs: A Genealogy of the ‘Helleno-Christian Civilization’). athens: nefeli. Giddens, anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. london: Polity. hanes, Jeff. 1998. Religion in Global Politics. harlow: Pearson. hastings, adrian. 1997. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.

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held, david, anthony mcGrew, david Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton. 1999. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture. stanford, Calif.: stanford university Press. hervieu-léger, danièle. 2000. Religion as a Chain of Memory. new brunswick, nJ: rutgers university Press. hobsbawm, eric. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1990. london: Canto. holy synod of the Church of Greece. 2000. Memorandum (11 October). retrieved 17 december 2008 at http://www.ecclesia.gr/greek/archbishop/christodoulos. asp?id=91&what_main=1&what_sub=6&lang=gr&archbishop_heading=%C a%ef%e9%ed%f9%ed%df%e1 inalcik, halil. 1978. The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization, and Economy. london: Valorium. Jelavich, barbara. 1983. History of the Balkans. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press. kiel, machiel. 1985. Art and Society of Bulgaria in the Turkish Period. maastricht: Van Gorcum. kitromilides, Paschalis m. 1994. Enlightenment, Nationalism, Orthodoxy. london: Valorium. kokosalakis, nikos. 1995. ‘Greek Orthodoxy and modern socio-economic Change’. in Religion and the Transformations of Capitalism: Comparative Approaches, ed. r. h. roberts. london: routledge, pp. 248–65. konortas, P. 1998. Othomanikes Theoreiseis tou Oikoumenikou Patriarcheiou (Ottoman Views of the Ecumenical Patriarchate). athens: alexandria. makrides, Vasilios n. 1995. ‘the Orthodox Church and the Post-War religious situation in Greece’. in The Post-War Generation and Establishment Religion: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. W. C. roof, J. W. Carroll and d. a. roozen. boulder, Col.: Westview, pp. 225–42. ——. 1997. ‘secularization and the Greek Orthodox Church in the reign of king George i’. in Greek Society in the Making 1863–1913: Realities, Symbols and Visions, ed. P. Carabott. aldershot: ashgate, pp. 179–96. ——. 1998. ‘byzantium in Contemporary Greece: the neo-Orthodox Current of ideas’. in Byzantium and Modern Greek Identity, ed. d. ricks and P. magdlaino. aldershot: ashgate, pp. 141–53. matalas, Paraskevas. 2003. Ethnos kai Orthodoxia. Oi peripeteies mias Scheseis. Apo to ‘Elladiko’ sto Voulgariko Schisma (Nation and Orthodoxy. The Adventures of a Relationship. From the ‘Helladic’ to the Bulgarian Schism). heraclion: university of Crete Press. mavrogordatos, George th. 2003. ‘Orthodoxy and nationalism in the Greek Case’. in Church and State in Contemporary Europe: The Chimera of Neutrality, ed. J. t. s. madeley and Z. enyedi. london: frank Cass, pp. 117–36. Perselis, emmanuel. 1997. Exousia kai Thriskeutiki Agogi stin Ellada tou 19ou aiona (Power and Religious Education in Nineteenth Century Greece). athens: Grigoris.

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Petrou, ioannis. 1992. Ekklisia kai Politiki stin Ellada, 1750–1909 (Church and Politics in Greece, 1750–1909). thessaloniki: kyriakidi. roudometof, Victor. 1998a. ‘from Rum Millet to the Greek nation: enlightenment, secularization, and national identity in Ottoman balkan society, 1453–1821’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 16(2): 11–48. ——. 1998b. ‘invented traditions, symbolic boundaries, and national identity in southeastern europe: Greece and serbia in Comparative-historical Perspective 1830–1880’, East European Quarterly 32(4): 429–68. ——. 1999. ‘nationalism, Globalisation, eastern Orthodoxy: “unthinking” the “Clash of Civilizations” in southeastern europe’, European Journal of Social Theory 2(2): 233–47. ——. 2000. ‘the social Origins of balkan Politics: nationalism, underdevelopment, and the nation-state in Greece, serbia, and bulgaria 1880–1920’, Mediterranean Quarterly 3(3): 146–63. ——. 2001. Nationalism, Globalisation and Orthodoxy: The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. ——. 2005a. ‘national Commemorations in the balkans’. in Contested Ground: National Symbols and National Narratives, ed. m. Geisler. hanover, nh: university Press of new england, pp. 35–59. ——. 2005b. ‘Orthodoxy as Public religion in Post-1989 Greece’. in Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twenty-First Century, ed. V. roudometof, a. agadjanian and J. Pankhurst. Walnut Creek, Calif.: alta mira, pp. 84–108. roudometof, Victor, alexander agadjanian and Jerry Pankhurst, eds. 2005 Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twenty-First Century. Walnut Creek, Calif.: alta mira. sarris, neoklis. 1990. Osmanliki Pragmatikotita (Ottoman Reality). 2 vols. athens: arsenidi. smith, anthony d. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: basil blackwell. stavrakakis, yannis. 2003. ‘Politics and religion: On the “Politicisation” of Greek Church discourse’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 21(2): 153–81. stavrianos, lefteris. 1958. The Balkans since 1453. new york: harper and row. stokes, Gale. 1979. ‘Church and Class in early balkan nationalism’, East European Quarterly 13(3): 259–70. sugar, Peter. 1977. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule. seattle: university of Washington Press. svoronos, nicolas G.. 1981. Histoire de la Grèce Moderne. athens: themelio (Greek edition). therborn, G. 2000. ‘Globalizations: dimensions, historical Waves, regional effects, normative Governance’, International Sociology 15(2): 151–79. yannaras, C. 1992. Orthodoxia kai Dysi stin Synchroni Ellada (Orthodoxy and the West in Modern Greece). athens: domos.

Chapter 2

an intriguing true–false Paradox: the entanglement of modernization and intolerance in the Orthodox Church of Greece1 anastassios anastassiadis

being accused of introducing ‘dangerous innovations’ has always been Orthodox Church reformers’ second worst nightmare, ceding the top spot only to the charge of heresy. as a matter of fact a church is the archetype of an organization attached to its tradition and genealogy. it does not welcome innovations. nevertheless, reformers do manage occasionally to modernize the church, that is render it more compatible to the challenges of its time and more capable of addressing the specific religious and often social needs of its environment society. how does this become possible? in the simplest of ways: by denying the fact that they are innovating and by proclaiming their attachment to tradition while simultaneously upholding a particularly vehement discourse in the direction of perceived menacing outsiders, reformers do manage to minimize criticisms from within. they also shape the debate in such a way as to oppose the church as a whole to the ‘outside’. it can be deduced that rather than just being a sign of ideological sclerosis, an aggressive discourse may actually hint to a cautious observer that a period of profound change within the church is in process. therefore, this research aims to provide an insight into how the Orthodox Church of Greece functions by examining similar phenomena in two different historical contexts: the 1920s (following the first World War) and the 1990s (following the end of the Cold War). however, instead of focusing on the church’s public discourse as authors usually do, this research deals primarily with a sociological analysis of the church as an institution composed of various actors with different interests and strategies but at the same time whose range of action is circumscribed by their belonging to an institution with a specific and limited repertory of actions (bourdieu 1971a, 1971b). it sets out to illustrate the dialectics of controversies, 1

With regard to the original archival research concerning the interwar period this work draws heavily on the third part of my Ph.d. dissertation presented in 2006 at the institut d’etudes Politiques in Paris where detailed references can be found (anastassiadis forthcoming).

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and the ensuing intolerance, and the church’s modernization by comparing the Orthodox minorities’ antagonism in the 1920s with the church–secularists debate, which emerged in the 1990s and is still ongoing. it should be underscored that from this socio-historical perspective there is no contradiction between praxis and logos. understanding the acts conveys a meaning to the words. unlike authors tirelessly ruminating over the thesis of Orthodox nationalism and traditionalism, one may have less trouble explaining the true–false paradox. the latter consists in the improvement of Orthodox–Catholic relations in the 1990s and subsequently, or in another direction, in the impressive development of the activity of ecclesiastical charity non-governmental organizations (nGOs) working abroad or dealing with immigrants in Greece, while at the same time the Orthodox Church of Greece was pronouncing its most passionate ‘nationalist’ discourses.

state of the Question Studies regarding Orthodoxy in Greece flourished in the post-Cold War era due to the geopolitical context in the balkans (kitromilides and Veremis 1998). samuel Huntington’s identification of Greece as an ‘anomaly’ because of its Orthodox background also contributed to the development of this interest, as has been argued elsewhere (makrides and molokotos-liederman 2004: 461). however, one does have to take into consideration the fact that the current interest concerning the church, measured in terms of editorials, articles and books, is inversely proportional to the number of works produced about the functioning of the church, its history since 1833, its agents and its internal and external balance of power.2 the consequences are twofold. On the one hand, although a considerable corpus of works has been produced regarding the ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople and Orthodoxy in the Ottoman empire, studies regarding the Orthodox Church of Greece remain either scarce or the result of a momentary and rarely systematic research interest (makrides 2004a: 605–6). for this reason, on the other hand, most recent works regarding contemporary issues relevant to the Orthodox Church of Greece are flawed by an absence of factual knowledge regarding the historical context. Most authors fill the gap thanks to the following methodological stratagem. They take the church’s official public discourses and proceed to analyse them, with no regard for their context of production. this is done according to a prefabricated theoretical scheme, which has become a Weltanschauung of Greekrelevant social theory: modernization and the inherent opposition of modernizers by traditionalists (diamandouros 1994 being exemplary on this issue). as will be shown later, this methodological stratagem, though, ignores the fact that public 2 Charles frazee’s book (1969) is very often the only work mentioned in bibliographies nearly 40 years after its first appearance. This contrasts amazingly with the development of historical and sociological works concerning churches and their agents in other countries.

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discourses very often try to hide more information than they explicitly reveal, especially in terms of internal power games and oppositions within an institution. the ‘modernization thesis’ appeared in Greece following the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) and especially during the dictatorship of the colonels (1967–1974). it became prevalent among a generation of historians, political scientists and sociologists studying abroad and acquainted with development theory. Challenging the dictatorship’s motto of ‘Greece of Christian Greeks’ became the leitmotiv of these genitors of the ‘incomplete modernization thesis’. according to them, the foundation of a modern Greek nation-state in 1830–1833 was the result of the Greek enlightenment. they understood the declaration of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece and its separation from the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1833 as another sign of political modernization aiming to bring about the subsequent separation of church and state. however, this modernization was not completed. Why? the group diverged in its interpretations. historians of ideas, such as k. dimaras ([1977] 1993) or Ph. iliou (1989), explained the failure of the modernization efforts by the victory of the romantics over enlightenment during the nineteenth century and the subsequent integration of a distorted and watered down version of the latter in a nationalist and conservative national narrative. religiosity became popular once again, whereas anticlericalism rolled back. moving from a conjectural to a fragile longue durée generalization, political scientist N. Diamandouros (1994) identified two types of political culture in Greece: a modernizing political culture handed down from the enlightenment and an underdog culture resisting ‘progress’ and modernity having its origins in byzantium, Orthodoxy and the Ottoman empire. Greek political history was interpreted as an eternal struggle between these two cultures. the church was obviously part of the latter. the debates in the late 1990s and into the twentyfirst century over the inclusion of the holder’s religion on Greek identity cards were presented as obvious symptoms of this ongoing conflict. Last but not least, sociologists like N. Mouzelis (1978) identified the persistence of archaic social structures and functions – such as client–patron relations – as the basis of the explanation for the emergence of a populist discourse in the Greek political arena. according to recent studies (for an example, see lipowatz 1993), the church’s reaction during the 1990s was typical of a populist reaction to european integration and the sacrifices inherent in the modernization of Greek society. However, the most fundamental characteristic of this vision is that it considered studies about religion subsidiary, if not useless, to political or socio-economic issues. the Orthodox Church of Greece was a relic from a traditional past that would wither away once full-fledged rational modernity was attained. Now, the younger generation of Greek scholars, influenced by the postmodern trend towards non-Western cultures, identities and subjectivity, does not perceive studies taking into account the religious factor as useless anymore. they do take into account the international scholarly criticisms of the classical modernization and secularization theses. However, the influence of the previous generation still pervades their work. although they acknowledge that the Orthodox Church

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of Greece will not wither away because of the illuminated action of state and intellectual elites, they do not manage to identify the church as an institution capable of constructing and reconstructing its identity or changing its strategies. their explanation of the debates in the 1990s boils down to presenting what they perceive as an intrinsically intolerant dominant Greek Orthodox political discourse. they usually portray the church as fundamentally and ‘traditionally’ ‘nationalist’, hostile to minorities and to other denominations. nevertheless, in the last few years this same church has also shown a tremendous tendency to participate with other churches within the european union in lobbying. Pope John Paul ii’s visit to athens and the strategy of alliance with the Catholic Church concerning the project of the european constitution are the most renowned examples (anastassiadis 2005). even when an author recognizes the limits of these analyses in terms of ‘identities’, ‘cultural dualisms’, ‘traditionalist attitudes’ and so on,3 it becomes difficult to provide a convincing answer regarding the apparent contradictions between the church’s discourse and its acts, short of reducing everything to complete subjectivity.4 The difficulty lies with the fact that, even though studies about the Orthodox Church of Greece are no longer perceived as useless, the field still lags behind compared to what has been done for other denominations. apart from a couple of works written by the actors themselves (most notably atessis 1948–1969; stragkas 1969–1980), no complete factual history of the institution exists nor are there comprehensive sociological analyses of its functions and internal power games (for rare exceptions, see makrides 2004b and anastassiadis forthcoming). Popular and even scientific works indirectly dealing with these issues are still riddled with factual inaccuracies, given that there is no reference book on these matters. Church history written by the actors is rarely read and often ignored. When it is read, this is done without taking into consideration the author’s role within the church and his or her eventual inclusion in a specific clientele during periods of conflict. Unfortunately, the recent monopolization of the field by the trend towards discourse analysis does not necessarily contribute to its balanced development. (re)interpretation of discourses, when nothing has been seriously established regarding the context or the author of the discourse, is akin to a sisyphean task. 3 Papataxiarchis’s essay (1992) provides a good example of how the church can have a strategic interest in fighting a tradition cherished by social actors. Thus, it contributes to the appearance of ‘modernity’, while upholding a discourse proclaiming the attachment to tradition and refusing innovation. 4 for example, stavrakakis’ critical account (2002, footnote 31) of the diamandouros and mouzelis thesis concerning cultural dualism stresses the importance of the apparent inability of this theoretical apparatus to explain what may appear as inconsistencies between the church’s actions and its discourse. However, he finally gives up trying to explain them and settles for affirming their existence. He cannot disentangle his analysis from the ‘populist discourse’ doxa, although he does on numerous occasions sense the veritable sociological importance and context of Christodoulos’ discourse.

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in a thorough and comprehensive overview of the state of the question, it has been convincingly argued that although social historians have made their point, and made it well, one may add, what is still lacking is an examination of some ‘dangerous’ subjects such as the social practices, the ‘economy of religion’ and the internal power games and conflicts of different interest groups and individuals within the church (makrides 2004a: 618). this study would like to suggest ways of dealing with such issues and pinpoint the interest of doing so.

some Theoretical Assumptions: God spews the Lukewarm (Rev. 3:16) the main perspective here is that the evolution of a church is often contingent on conflict, and the classics of historical and religious sociology offer valuable insight for work in this direction. Georg simmel ([1908] 1999: 265) illustrated his idea – which may sound ‘unorthodox’ as he suggested – about conflict being a form of socialization: Once a conflict has emerged … it is as a matter of fact a movement of protection against the dualism, which separates, as well as a way which will lead to some kind of unity even if this implies the destruction of one of the parts.

even though he rarely used this conceptualization in relation to religion his thesis had a certain success beyond borders and time. Peter berger and thomas luckmann ([1966] 1984) understood the development of ‘Christian orthodoxy’ of the seven first church councils as a result ‘not of tradition but of heretical defiance to tradition’. If these conflicts had not occurred, fourth-century Christology would have never existed (berger and luckmann [1966] 1984: 125). studies about late antiquity Christianity offer us valuable insight in this direction (elm, rebillard and Romano 2000). Maurice Halbwachs ([1925] 1994: 190–204) also identified conflicts as an element not necessarily rebuked by the clergy. Why? The reason seems to be that it entertained, or even better, it gave a new dynamism to the zeal of the faithful. despite his divergence of views with max Weber, halbwachs shared with the sociologist of heidelberg a belief in the asymmetrical relation between laity and clergy within the Christian Churches with regard to their relation to the world. the clergy’s actions are solely legitimized by possession of the ordination and the genealogy the latter carries with it. even though this may prove at times to be inefficient and necessitate that the clergy, and especially bishops, engage in other forms of social persuasion (charity, education), as Peter brown (2002) has masterfully shown for late antiquity and as will be observed with regard to the Orthodox Church of Greece, the attachment to genealogy is still sufficient. The laity’s actions to the contrary are always carefully scrutinized and have to prove compliant to the church’s dogmatic tradition or at least to some aspect of it. it seems obvious that any comprehensive work – capitalizing on Weber’s work on religion – should rather focus on what bourdieu (1971a: 1–3), paraphrasing

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Weber, considered ‘the religious work produced by the specialized agents and speakers, invested with power, when they respond through a determined type of practices and discourses to the specific needs of determined social groups’ than explore his intuition about ‘charisma’. analysing the function of the hieratic institution according to the parameters supplied by Weber is an essential element. nevertheless, it has to be completed by a careful study of religious agents in a situation of collaboration or competition, their fluctuating strategies and the relations they weave in what is called a religious field. Many surprises await. indeed, taking a closer look one may observe, as did Weber, halbwachs and bourdieu, that when the laity distances itself from the church and when the clergy, faithful guardian of the tradition, lets itself be carried away in the path of the ‘senile death of religion’, dear to alexis de tocqueville (1856, third book, second chapter) and intrinsic to the process of modernity, the reaction within the church does not spring among the ranks of those who would be superficially called the ‘progressivists’. it is quite the contrary. the individuals who succeed in becoming essential are those claiming a strict, conservative and sometimes violent turn towards the ‘origins’ or the ‘sources’. they triumph all the more easily as they consider themselves the chosen ones touched by the ‘grace’ within a world becoming more and more distanced from ‘salvation’. franciscan friars of the middle ages preaching poverty, Calvinists, Catholic reform Jesuits, new england Puritans, nineteenth-century intransigent Catholics, american Pentecostal sects and so on are all examples of marginal characters who felt bestowed with a mission: reform the church in order for it to work within a secular world that is drifting away from religion. and they succeeded in changing it. they succeeded, of course, because their action appeared in the eyes of the laity to be addressing the specific needs of society and because they managed to build enough momentum and to garner valuable support from political power-holders (others did not fare so well, one may say, when one thinks of medieval Cathars or savonarola). they succeeded in such an outstanding manner that one tends sometimes to forget that in the beginning church authorities opposed them. but this aspect has been silenced, or in any case downplayed, in the church’s memory. their opponents have been erased from the picture as if they were characters from Orwell’s Oceania. from all this four postulates are derived. first of all, one should consider the birth and ongoing process of modernity since the reformation and especially Puritanism. it is not understood in the sense of positivist continuity. as troeltsch ([1912–1921] 1991, [1912] 1994), a careful reader of Weber and simmel if ever one was, has pointed out, if a relation of elective affinities is to be found between the two, it is to be searched for in the involuntary results of the conflicts which emerged at the time.5 this pattern is worth a try in Greece as well.

5 a very interesting discussion of the relationship between religion and state formation with regard to the ideas of troeltsch can be found in a 1927 Otto hintze article, ‘troeltsch and the Problems of historicism: Critical studies’, which is reproduced in Gilbert (1975).

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The process of conflict naturally induces us to deal with the actors engaged in it. Our second postulate addresses the question of the militant conservatism of the chosen ones wishing to reform the church and religious practices as well as society. their action is the consequence of their interpretation of society’s evolution, of their subsequent implication in secular activities, but also of their understanding of the fragility of their own personal situation as reformers. they feel the need to be strict and to control society even more because they perceive the distancing from religious practice as the cause of all its troubles. therefore, they have to fight in order to save the church, the world, but also their souls. God spews the lukewarm! third, following Wolfgang reinhard’s work ([1972–1982] 1998) on the Catholic reformation (also known as the Counter-reformation), the result of the action of the militant and conservative reformers can be summarized under the concept of ‘conservative modernization’. as a matter of fact, the term ‘renovation’ is more precise, in as much as the church reformers refuse the idea of adapting the church to modernit, according to them, their action consists of making the church new once again, giving to it its initial and shining aura of before, which it lost because of their predecessors’ inattention. but, of concern here, the result is the same: the militant reformers transform the church in order to face the challenges of modern society. at the same time, the militant reformers face considerable opposition inside and outside the church. hence, they develop an aggressive discourse against specific outsiders, which tries to unite the church and make it support their efforts. if they succeed, and they don’t always, a new institution, better suited to modern times, but at the same time profoundly intolerant, emerges amid the subsequent conflicts. finally, it should be noted that throughout history, ecclesiastical institutions per se have never been so powerful as when they have decided to deal effectively with the question of society’s drifting away from religion in times of extreme competition. Counter-reformation Catholicism, french intransigent Catholicism and new light Puritanism are such examples. if one reads carefully Weber’s classic work on american Protestant sects and capitalism, one can observe how the secularization of a church – understood in its original meaning of implication in one’s siècle – can be analysed as a response to the social demand linked to the disenchantment of the world rather than as a linear and logical outcome of this last one. hence, sociologically speaking, competition strengthens the church. the Orthodox Church of Greece in the 1920s and once again in the 1990s provides us suitable examples with regard to the aforementioned theoretical perspective. in both cases, it was confronted with major social, geopolitical and religious evolutions. in 1923, the Greek state was in a process of political and social refoundation following a decade of warfare in the balkans. it had extended its borders and population, in that the defeat of the Greek army in the Greek– turkish war of 1919–1922 and the resulting Greek–turkish population exchange had altered its demographic composition. moreover, the 1917 October revolution in russia and subsequent decline of the russian Orthodox Church’s international

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influence and the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople’s loss of power following the wars considerably altered the religious landscape of the eastern mediterranean. the Orthodox Church of Greece had a new role to play and a new strategy to define. During the 1990s, the fall of the Iron Curtain called once again for a redefinition of the rules of the game. The subsequent empowerment of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, through its increase of prestige and influence in Eastern Europe within the context of European integration and the reemergence of the Orthodox Patriarchate of moscow as a major actor, meant that the Orthodox Church of Greece was caught in the middle (anastassiadis 2005). in both cases, militant church reformers, conscious of the new needs, became prominent and concentrated their efforts on social action (charity) in order to gain control of the church and of society. In both cases, they engaged in bitter conflict with opposing religious and/or political forces. as a result, in both cases, the Orthodox Church of Greece engaged in a process of a conservative modernization.

The Orthodox Church of Greece in the Aftermath of the First World War: The Discovery of Charity and the Victory of Intolerance the period anticipating and following the first World War is particularly crucial from this viewpoint. that is when the Orthodox Church of Greece’s new worldview, still valid today, was shaped. in the 1920s, phenomena of social disintegration related to the decade of war, which plagued the balkans and eastern mediterranean, became all too obvious. social inequality exploded as enormous, rapid and ‘easy-made’ wealth was juxtaposed with the increasing poverty of entire spans of the population. daily habits changed as modern ‘european’ lifestyles were popularized due to the war in major urban centres like thessalonica and athens. the growing visibility of cars, bathing suits and beach-going, as well as the popularity of basketball, other sports and cinemas, was related to people’s need to escape by means of leisure from a harsh everyday life. In the specific cases of lipstick, ‘suggestive’ bathing suits, beauty contests and dance halls, it was also, all at once, the product or by-product of women’s greater public role due to the war and of their more fragile status due to the demographic imbalance caused by the war.6 simultaneously, traditional modes of social order maintenance such as private charity, village solidarity and church attendance, but also strict family obedience, social deference and village or neighbourhood moral surveillance, suffered as traditional bonds were severed by the war and Greece experienced an influx of refugees and a complete socio-demographic transformation. famous authors of that period, like karagatsis (Jungerman), seferis (The Six Nights at the Acropolis) 6 Church periodicals, like Ecclesia or Grigorios o Palamas, were particularly harsh in their criticism of these ‘new fashions’ and of the publicity they enjoyed through broad coverage in the daily press.

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and theotokas (Argo), provided sharp descriptions and usually criticized the new athenian urban social and demographic mosaic, which did not correspond to their vision of an ‘organized’ and ‘modern’ society. new religious actors emerged, or re-emerged in some cases, in Greece on the edge of athenian or thessalonica shanty towns filled with Asia Minor refugees. Catholic missionaries and American evangelical sects put into practice their lifelong experience in this field: charity, schools and predication. the competition was free given that the Greek state had been traditionally quite open to missionaries and was now most welcoming of their efforts in education and charity in such dramatic circumstances.7 for a certain number of Greek church reformers, such as the archbishop of athens Chrysostomos Papadopoulos (1923–1938), familiar with similar evolutions of disenchantment and social unrest in Western europe during the nineteenth century, this situation required immediate action in the same fields of charity and education if the Orthodox Church of Greece was to make it through this major test. Chrysostomos Papadopoulos had experienced a similar context of competition in the domains of education and charity while he was director of the holy Cross academy of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem from 1899 to 1909. he had helped develop the Patriarchate’s network in order to keep its mostly Arabic-speaking flock from leaving in the direction of the Catholic and Protestant schools, hospitals and orphanages. he was quick to understand that, as had happened in Jerusalem earlier in his career, traditional recipes of church control over the population, such as fasting and church attendance, had reached their limits in 1920s Athens. The church had now to take care of its flock in a more active way. furthermore, international cooperation was not only inevitable but also a practical choice given that other Christian denominations, such as the Anglicans or even the Catholics, had tremendous experience in these fields. during the 1920s and 1930s contacts between the Orthodox Church of Greece and other Christian confessions within or outside the ecumenical movement were 7

the Echos d’Orient – a monthly review of the Catholic religious order of the assumptionists, one of the Catholic elite units in the Orthodox near east – contains numerous references until 1920 to the relative tolerance of the Greek government and church regarding their activities. for an example, see an article by Victor Grégoire (1922). the letters of the Catholic archbishop of athens to the sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome during the years 1918–1923 confirm this vision. See, for example, Propaganda Nueva Serie, vol. 693, rubriche 110, ff. 76–7, 22 march 1921. the (Catholic) assumptionists incredulously reported in 1923 that the Greek government was so eager to obtain help in dealing with its social tribulations following the arrival of refugees from Asia Minor that it had even confiscated property from Orthodox monasteries and given it to american evangelists so that they could create an orphanage. it also awarded a medal to the bishop of the Catholics of byzantine rite (uniats) Georges Calavassy for his charitable action. this medal generated a correspondence and dispute among different departments of the government, including three ministries and the General direction for the security of the state. see diplomatic and historical archives of the ministry for foreign affairs, series b/35, 1928.

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intense. during the 1920s the anglican Church attracted most of the attention of these reformers, especially within the practical Christianity movement of ‘life and Work’. however, the anglican Church’s adoption of a modernist point of view in regard to marriage, sexuality and birth control in the tenth lambeth conference of the anglican Church in 1930 disappointed many Orthodox and chilled their relations. from then on, the Catholic Church, which had been experiencing a serious revival since the first World War and whose intransigent and uncompromising attitude had proved to be efficient – bestowing upon it a certain prestige – became a more convenient, albeit embarrassing, model (anastassiadis 2003). nevertheless, while looking towards other denominations and their activity for inspiration, the church also seriously advocated intra-national protectionism. this new attitude became possible thanks to a shift of the church’s centre of gravity from theological discussion (which had dominated during the Ottoman period and the nineteenth century) to social action (that is, charity) in a new and competitive liberal world. the church and especially church reformers started perceiving religious minorities and their respective clergy as competitors in a liberalized market of ‘symbolic goods’, rather than as simple outsiders with a different doctrine. hence, from this new viewpoint, charity and education had to be organized on a national level and co-directed by the church and the state in order to avoid this ‘foreign’ interference. in order to persuade the state of the necessity of such measures the church assumed action in two directions. it created an Orthodox charity network, which could counter the activities of the religious competitors and ensure it of a more effective control of the population. by doing so, it demonstrated its importance in guaranteeing social cohesion within the Greek state. the results during the period 1918–1936 are astonishing. before 1918, the Orthodox Church of Greece had no charitable institutions. by 1936, it had two orphanages and two hostels for young girls and two medical centres for the poor in the athens region and many more in other provincial towns. Approximately 150 parish offices of relief for the poor had been opened in the rapidly expanding Athens region, and a central office overseeing the whole network was organized. this laid the foundations for a redistribution network unseen until then. although the Orthodox Church of Greece could not open schools like its counterparts, it boosted its offer of religious education through parish sunday schools. On numerous occasions until 1918, the institution of sunday schools had been proposed by church reformers in Greece only to be opposed by clergymen considering it ‘too Protestant’. this had been notably the case back in 1870 when the joint initiative of major opinion leaders, scholars and athenian priests had failed blatantly (Perselis 2000: 132–69). by the 1920s, the mechanism was perceived as the most effective response to the lukewarm and to the religious competitors. three sunday schools existed in 1920. by 1932–1936 more than 300 sunday schools, operated mainly by the spearhead of reform, the brotherhood Zoe, functioned in Greece. second, the Orthodox Church of Greece lobbied in favour of the interdiction of ‘foreign’ schools. during the 1920s it appealed on numerous occasions to the Greek

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state requesting measures against the ‘propaganda’ of foreign groups. roudometof (1999) has mentioned that using a secular identity, rather than a religious one, makes it possible for the church to reassert its prestige and power. the church did not attack foreign missionaries, especially Catholic ones, on the basis of being ‘heterodox’ but rather on the basis of practising propaganda on behalf of foreign powers and serving political interests in the mediterranean. italian and french missionaries opening schools and orphanages in Greece were accused of being the ‘spiritual’ arm of the secular states of france and italy – an accusation that was not completely untrue, after all, as certain archives indicate.8 the Catholic – and french – assumptionists were accused of being in favour of a bulgariancontrolled macedonia. the italian Jesuits or Capuchins were blamed of favouring an italian-controlled aegean, an occupation of the ionian islands and an albaniancontrolled epirus. the french ursulines and lazarists were accused of petitioning for an international ‘open city’ status for thessalonica, which corresponded to the request of their main ‘client’ in their schools, the Jewish sephardic community of the city.9 as per the america-born sects of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the adventists who had arrived in the 1920s, the church focused its attacks on their ‘anti-patriotic’ feelings, because of the refusal of their faithful to serve in the army and carry weapons! their proselytism was pictured as inherently dangerous, not only for the Orthodox Church but also for the Greek state. until the first World War, the Greek state had a tendency to be rather lenient with religious minorities and non-Orthodox religious institutions. Catholic missionary correspondents related until the early 1920s that Greece was one of the most tolerant states where they had worked.10 even they sometimes found it 8 see numerous letters of the Catholic, but also profoundly french archbishop of athens louis Petit to the Propaganda. see for example Propaganda Nueva Serie, 1920, vol. 657, rubriche 110, f. 50. the animosity of italy and of missionaries of italian origin towards Petit, and vice versa, was so well known that even the Greek ministry of foreign affairs commented on the subject. see Greek diplomatic and historical archives of the ministry for Foreign Affairs, series B/35, 1919, file 4. The Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign affairs also corroborate this view. see, for example, the reports of the french ambassadors in rome and Constantinople regarding the relations between france, austria-hungary, italy and the holy see during the balkan wars, contained in archives du ministère affaires Etrangères, Correspondance Politique et Commerciale, Nouvelle Série, Saint Siège, files 25 (1910–1913) and 47 (1912–1913). 9 evidence of this perception and these accusations was gathered by the author in the Greek diplomatic and historical archives of the ministry for foreign affairs, series b/35, as well as in the private archives of the Greek statesman and public benefactor John Gennadios (archives John Gennadios, series i, 1923–1925). in a letter to the archbishop Chrysostomos Papadopoulos dated 15 february 1929, Gennadios accused Greek governments of being too lenient towards the Catholics of byzantine rite (uniats), the missionaries and their ‘satanic propaganda’ (archives John Gennadios, series i, 1929). 10 This is easily confirmed when one reads either the French Assumptionists’ periodical Echos d’Orient or the archives of the sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide in rome.

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bizarre that the Greek state was on occasions ‘too lenient’. Of course, there were reasons for this: foreign power interference was one; belief in liberal values among the state’s elites was another. notwithstanding these reasons, the educational and charity infrastructure was by far the most important one. state authorities and urban elites had always appreciated and praised the effort of Protestant and Catholic missionaries alike. after all, their children usually attended these schools, and the state budget could not be charged with the financial burden of sustaining the equivalent infrastructures in replacement of those built by the missionaries. moreover, the Orthodox Church of Greece had never particularly solicited the state in regard to the schools or other missionary charity foundations on Greek soil during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. by the late 1920s this was no longer the case. the Orthodox Church of Greece was creating its own charity network. Private non-confessional schools were developing and, last but not least, the public education system had been stimulated. henceforth, education and social welfare were seen as exclusive domains of government action by state modernizers seeking to consolidate a shaky nationstate and to increase state control of society. in a distinctly Jacobin fashion, Greek republican governments of the 1920s were persuaded of the need to implement the homogenization of society and to institute a new modern citizenship status within the republican state by state control over education. but at the same time, in a very napoleonic way, they considered implicit that Greek nationality was realistically speaking related to and dependent upon Orthodoxy. it is therefore no surprise that most measures undertaken in favour of the church and against religious minority groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Catholics of byzantine rite and foreign missionaries, occurred during the Venizelist liberal government of 1928–1932. the areios Pagos, the Greek supreme Court, upheld the condemnation of Jehovah’s Witnesses for proselytism in august 1930 and upheld a condemnation of the Catholics of Byzantine rite for illegal use of the Orthodox religious outfit in July 1931. finally, law no. 4862, passed in december 1930, seriously circumscribed the possibilities for action and recruitment of foreign schools. this was a law that was aimed directly at reducing the importance of missionary schools, if not closing them down. it is evident from the above that the church reformers of the interwar period finally did cede to religious intolerance vis-à-vis other denominations. In fact, their intolerance became a guiding principle that spilled over onto the state as well. it is now time to address the question of the causes of such behaviour on the part of the religious reformers. Church reformers, such as the aforementioned archbishop Chrysostomos, were deeply transforming the Orthodox Church of Greece. religious traditionalists (for instance the Old Calendarists, who split from the church in reaction to the archbishop’s 1923 decision to enact the new Gregorian-like calendar within the church) were accusing him of transforming the Orthodox Church of Greece into a Protestant denomination because of his involvement in the ecumenical movement and his increasing implication of the

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church in secular activities. ‘Orthodoxy is liturgy and not charity’, they said. his position within the church was not comfortable. however, he did have allies within the church, and these were the social activists (usually laymen) found in the para-ecclesiastical organizations such as Zoe. but these allies were also particularly cumbersome. for them, social action was necessary and church inaction was reprehensible. nevertheless, if social action was necessary and social distress a reality, this was the consequence of a deep moral crisis. Greek society was parting from God. it was becoming lukewarm, and as everybody knows, God spews the lukewarm. therefore an uncompromising militant spirit and abidance by strict principles were essential, even more so because these people were laymen and did not possess the legitimacy that clergymen did. abiding by strict and sometimes excessive moral principles not only became their way of bringing society back onto ‘God’s path’ but also acted as a protective shield against accusations of innovation that could be brought against them. and such charges were indeed brought against them, as early as 1923–1924, by internal and more ‘traditional’ clergymen who did not appreciate the growing secularization of the church and the increasing importance of laymen. but the social activists survived. they survived because they continued to proclaim themselves attached to the moral tradition of the church. they survived because they had become an essential piece of church reform advocated by the archbishop himself. they survived because people, as well as public authorities confounded by the period’s social unrest, welcomed their appeals for more social activity. last but not least, they survived because they managed to channel the whole church’s attention and animosity towards other exterior and ‘more dangerous’ adversaries. after 1922, these activists had decided to invest in and take control of the lukewarm Greek society in order to save it. in their quest, they crossed the path of other militants as convinced as themselves of the necessity of social action. their survival was now at stake. The efficiency of their social action was their sole asset within the church. they could not afford to lose it. hence, the outbreak of a battle of social networks became inevitable. the shock obliged the Orthodox Church of Greece to take a stand. indifference was no longer possible. missionaries, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholic missionaries and Catholics of byzantine rite – not to mention communists and freemasons – became the victims of the church’s need to adapt to the modern world. Once opened, the Pandora’s box was hard to close. Thus the process of conservative modernization was ignited. It is definitely true that the church became more modern and more concerned with the new needs of society. but, simultaneously, intolerance settled and developed among the social networks of the church and the para-ecclesiastical organizations, which grew more and more powerful and demanding. in one case (the condemnation of the freemasons in 1932–1933), the synod of the church was even obliged to take action against its own will upon the demands of the organizations Zoe and Three Hierarchs. Sic transit gloria mundi. therefore, when one knows the paradigmatic importance of the interwar period for the implementation of reform in the Orthodox Church of Greece, one should

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not be surprised about the sporadic references to it by church reformers of the 1990s and twenty-first century.

The Greek Church in the 1990s: Charity, European Networking and Antisecularists Discourse since 1991, the issue of church–state relations has once more become the focus of debate. Putting pressure on the Greek government regarding the possible liberalization of the symbolic goods market while building an extensive network of nGOs active within and outside Greek state territory and lobbying and fundraising within the european union to support this network have been the main axes of the Orthodox Church of Greece’s action during this period. in fact, this has been the case, more precisely, since the election of archbishop Christodoulos to the see of athens in 1998. the discourse has often been very aggressive and traditionalist, especially in the direction of left-wing intellectuals who preach the separation of church and state. nevertheless, this should not surprise those who keep in mind the fragile and subtle balance of power and tensions within the church. the church’s renovation and innovation efforts can be fruitful and accepted by the institution’s most conservative elements only if they seem to be as directly as possible attached to tradition.11 in our case, the Orthodox Church of Greece has clearly decided to improve its relations with the Catholic Church for a variety of reasons. first, it must avoid becoming the victim of a drastic amplification of the relations between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and rome. this became extremely obvious recently. following Pope benedict’s historic visit to the Patriarchate in istanbul in november 2006, the Greek archbishop organized his scheduled trip to rome, a few weeks later, in such a way as to appear to be a comparable milestone event. since Pope John Paul ii visited athens in may 2001, both churches have staged a conscious and cautious piecemeal approach involving lower clergy meetings and visits and scientific or youth organizations’ cooperation. Second, the European integration process requires a stronger collaboration among churches in order to lobby successfully within the european union. informal meetings of church representatives are organized on the eve of every european summit in much the same way as meetings of trade union representatives are. Christian Churches 11

as halbwachs ([1925] 1994) has noted in Les Cadres sociaux de la mémoire, it is an error to believe that people accept, and can easily accept, innovations given that they have not experienced the results of this innovation. therefore, a successful innovation has to appear as non-innovative as possible. a church is the archetype of an institution where this theorem is regularly verified. Another attitude is that of the heralds of ‘novelty’, ‘reform’ and ‘change’, so characteristic of modernity, as hans blumenberg has depicted. in their case lampedusa’s famous phrase: ‘if we want everything to remain as it is, it will be necessary for everything to change’ applies.

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have lobbied together with regard to the drafting of the european Constitution. They have also cooperated in terms of defining a role for church volunteer/charity activities within the european union. it is under archbishop Christodoulos that the Orthodox Church of Greece finally opened a permanent European Union representation office in Brussels and has built close ties with the European Popular Party (ePP). thus, it has participated in the talks organized by the ePP, a party in which the influence of Catholic Christian democracy is obvious. Finally, one can hardly overestimate the fact, that besides any material or political common interests, Orthodox and Catholic leaders share an aversion to the ‘moral crisis’ of european society (anastassiadis 2005). simultaneously, the Orthodox Church of Greece has also decided to increase its participation in the social field either on an independent basis or in a process of collaboration with state or local authorities. It is interesting to note, in the first place, that when archbishop Christodoulos was about to be elected in 1998 and church–state relations were not at their best, law no. 2646 was passed. article eight of this law asserts that the Greek Church is a de jure member of the Greek Council of Social Welfare, thus reaffirming all previous legislation that acknowledged the church’s role in this field. At the same time, although the church gave up the battle over identity cards, law no. 2873 of 28 december 2000 increased the tax-free limit on donations to the church from about 300 euros to 3,000 euros. finally, the socialist government passed, just before the elections in 2004, law no. 3220 abolishing the obligation for the church to contribute 35 per cent of all its ordinary revenues to the state budget in order to cover that part of the clergy’s salaries paid by the state since 1945. immediately after the 2004 elections, the new centre-right government passed law no. 3296 abolishing by 2008 the 10 per cent tax on church revenues from land property rental and numerous other fiscal deductions and incentives in favour of the church’s charity work and nGOs. in a recent meeting between the prime minister and the archbishop, the latter obtained the assurance that its leading nGO, solidarity, will play a pivotal role in the handling and distribution of european funds directed towards welfare programmes. these are not pure coincidences. all over europe an increasing involvement of religious organizations in the development of charity and welfare networks is noticeable (yeung 2006) while public welfare systems are being, if not dismantled, at least partially and progressively privatized. social action within a new institutional equilibrium, where the welfare state comes under attack in the name of ‘subsidiarity’, thus becomes the church’s ‘new’ violon d’Ingres – new, but of course, ‘traditional’. This in turn authorizes specific developments within the church. first, the development of a philanthropic and redistributive network facilitates the central authority’s (that is, the synod’s and the archbishop’s) intervention in the affairs of local actors. this is a crucial point, if one considers that the Orthodox Church of Greece has always been a very loose confederate structure lacking a particularly efficient centralized bureaucracy or means of enforcing the archbishop’s authority over local bishops.

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second, the development of such a network provides the church with a bureaucracy and personnel that is dependent upon it for its survival. therefore, there is a network and, thus, people who have a strategic interest in defending the church. the aforementioned points are illustrated through the use of the following three examples, all of them drawn from recent developments. In the first case, consider the synod’s decision to implement a ‘family planning’ policy in thrace since archbishop Christodoulos’ arrival in power in 1998.12 a current allocation of 120 euros per month has been granted to Orthodox families having a third child. such a systematic policy of redistribution constitutes a break with the church’s conventional functioning. normally, it is each local metropolitan who undertakes to conduct ‘ordinary’ charitable work at the local level. extraordinary appeals to a regional or national solidarity effort have, undoubtedly, always been possible in the event of an earthquake or some disaster but remain a specifically limited event. in contrast, the allocation of a regular family subsidy requires funding from sources outside the jurisdiction of thrace’s metropolitans. the holy synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece is the only institution that can intervene beyond a metropolitan’s jurisdiction. Therefore, it is not surprising that five years after launching the programme, the synod published the encyclical no. 2768 of 4 april 2003. Considering that the programme had been a ‘success’, and that this success justified continued pursuit of the programme, the synod tackled the financial question. The growing success meant an increasing financial burden and thus the need for new resources. therefore the synod decided to tax three kinds of income sources under specific conditions. These three sources were the General Poor funds of each and every metropolitan see, the monasteries and holy pilgrimage foundations and, finally, the wealthiest parishes of each metropolitan see. the way this third income source is organized is exemplary. the synod has decided that the ten wealthiest parishes (the ‘central’ parishes) of the sees of athens and thessalonica (20 in all), as well as ten other parishes of the attica see will participate in this fundraising. moreover, each medium-sized metropolitan see ‘supplies’ three parishes, and small-sized sees participate with one parish. The procedure allows the synod to intervene directly in the financial aspects of intermediary- and local-level bodies and reinforces its role as a centralizing agent within the church. in the meantime, the metropolitan’s role in the hierarchical pyramid of the church has been once again reinstated, as has regularly been the case since the church decided to become an administrator of society in the 1920s. One should keep in mind that the ‘decentralized’ character of the Orthodox churches, 12

thrace is a region located on Greece’s border with turkey. it has a high percentage of muslims because it is inhabited by the slavic-speaking Pomakoi and mostly by an important turkish-speaking minority. due to immigration (thrace is the poorest region of Greece) and Greece’s low birth rate, discourse about the progressive de-hellenization of the region flourished in the 1990s.

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often praised by church aficionados for being ‘democratic’, is at the same time the nightmare of church reformers who cannot implement their reforms. The archbishop’s decision towards the end of 2006 to fix a predetermined amount that each athenian parochial poor fund had to contribute to the General Poor Fund of the diocese to finance the church’s NGOs and, more importantly, its charitable institutions goes in the same direction. the decision was most obviously motivated by the will to centralize resources and better control the revenues of local parishes. thus the church’s nGOs also serve as the spearhead of this centralization, without ever clearly endorsing it. the publicity given in the press to the hostile reaction of certain local priests and especially of other bishops underscores the latter’s fear of similar moves directed towards a tighter and more centralized control of their revenues by the archbishopric.13 however, although he struggles to garner approval of all the bishops, the archbishop has been building momentum and ensuring himself the support of a considerable number of influential laymen, from businessmen and executives to university personnel and even highranking state officials, who participate in the church’s NGOs either as experts or as administrators. moreover, the welfare action of the church is becoming more and more visible, thus inducing popular support. therefore, the clerical opposition within the church cannot really focus its attacks on this part of the archbishop’s reform programme. it prefers addressing certain key issues of a more ideological rather than social nature because the legitimacy of the bishops’ expression on such issues cannot be easily challenged. One example regarding the church’s eventual reform efforts, and successful internal opposition to such efforts, deals with the reading of the Gospel in modern Greek. announced in October 2004, this measure was suspended only a few months later, officially because it was not considered to be ‘appealing’ enough to the church’s following. Was the suspension of this reform, relating to an issue (the translation of the Gospels) that had initiated numerous quarrels in modern Greek history and had even cost a metropolitan of athens his job back in 1901, the result of a compromise within the church or the result of a failed marketing effort as suggested? the former explanation is more probable. it was easier for the internal opposition to criticize the ‘dangerous innovations’ and deviation from tradition with regard to such an emotionally and ideologically charged issue than for a more concrete day-to-day issue. Quite similarly, other recent attacks against the archbishop within the church have focused on his relationship with the Catholics. it was evident during Pope John Paul II’s 2001 Athens visit that many among the high clergy were dissatisfied. during the pope’s address to the synod, there was an obvious lapse of time before many senior bishops joined the archbishop in his wholehearted applause of the 13

in one article in the daily press (Papoutsaki 2007), a bishop mentioned that he had refused to follow the policy of paying in advance for the nGO solidarity’s calendars, which are sent out to every diocese to be sold, a policy which is supposed to generate an income of 200,000 euros.

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pope’s discourse. in december 2006, certain bishops formulated accusations against the archbishop’s visit to rome and criticized what they perceived as the lack of previous consultations within the church. it is now time to link this analysis to the archbishop’s discourse. as already stated, it is no secret that an ecclesiastic reformer’s nightmare consists of being accused of being an ‘innovator’. this is especially the case if these innovations are branded as ‘imported’. therefore, the fact that an Orthodox zealot, an Old Calendarist in fact, slapped archbishop Christodoulos in protest over the pope’s visit to athens should not surprise us. Orthodox zealots perceived this as one more step towards the ‘submission’ of the Orthodox Church of Greece to the Catholic Church. The adoption of the new modified calendar is considered the beginning of this process. One should keep in mind that, in a very similar fashion, a fanatic barber attacked archbishop Chrysostomos in 1924 in front of the cathedral. he wanted to shave the archbishop’s beard in protest against the instauration of the new revised calendar. indeed, Orthodox zealots did consider the archbishop a ‘papist’ because of the calendar’s modification. It seems that his discourses regarding the Catholics of byzantine rite or the Catholic missionaries,14 which were not particularly kind, did not have any effect on them. the editorials and articles of the church periodical Ecclesia from 1923 to 1930 are particularly eloquent on both issues. the editorials’ aggressiveness in regard to the Catholics escalates, while at the same time the articles reveal that the Orthodox zealots’ opposition to the archbishop remains constant or increases. nevertheless, in spite of such extreme and marginal cases, the archbishop’s discourse did have an effect on the majority of the faithful and church personnel. had it not, he wouldn’t have been able to pursue his reforms. in a similar way, archbishop Christodoulos’ aggressive ‘nationalist’ discourse is the symmetrical mental and institutional counterweight to his transformation of the church. there are no more Catholic missionaries in Greece, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Catholics of byzantine rite are very marginal and anticommunism is out of date. nevertheless, in what appears to be the revanche of the 1920s game between the Orthodox Church of Greece and religious minorities, a fight regarding issues of religious alterity has come to the surface once again. But there is a significant difference with the 1920s, given that the violent verbal opposition on these issues does not include the religious minorities per se, but mainstream political and intellectual elites in Greece. in the 1920s only leftist organizations and some isolated intellectuals were involved in this battle. Now, it is influential intellectuals 14 the Catholics of byzantine rite (also called uniats or Greek-Catholics) were, and still are, priests of Catholic faith using the Orthodox ritual. during the twentieth century they were mostly trained in the Pontifical Oriental Institute. They had been a source of conflict among the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church especially since Pope Leon xiii’s efforts towards the Oriental Churches, which aimed at developing the missionary activities of the Catholic Church. this coincided with the reform of the st athanasius Greek College in rome in 1897.

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and opinion-makers who preach the separation of the church from the state. most of them are members of the hellenic league for human rights, which champions the separation.15 it is against them that the archbishop and his followers express themselves with such vehemence. Criticizing harshly the intellectuals favouring the separation of the church from the state, repeating again and again the importance of the church for Greek identity and of Christianity for europe is in total conformity with his understanding of his role and his mentality as a church reformer.

Conclusions every now and then, intellectuals and politicians declare that they are shocked by archbishop Christodoulos’ discourse in much the same way as others were shocked in the 1920s while listening to archbishop Chrysostomos’ anti-Catholic speeches – more so for the latter given that he was a considerably appreciated intellectual figure as well. How is it, they say, that the same Greek church that has been developing innovative charitable activities, has welcomed the pope and developed interdenominational cooperation in europe surprises us every now and then by upholding particularly conservative and intolerant views? this is the apparent paradox. they quite simply miss the point. for militant church reformers, facing internal opposition and more and more heavily dependent on their militant constituencies, but also persuaded of the need to regain control of society and to modernize a fragile and staggering church, finding an external adversary who will allow the church to show a united front is the key to survival, if not success. the most obvious current adversary is the figure of the ‘progressive’ pro-separation intellectual, but not because he is opposed to the church. On the contrary, as was mentioned, this is rather a reinvigorating prospect. it’s mostly because he is considered to have an influence on the ‘lukewarm’ sheep, which are slowly drifting away from the flock. And as everybody knows God – and his servants one might add – spew the lukewarm. Polarizing the debate will scare some sheep away, but most of them will come back to the flock and stick close to the shepherd. After all, Christianity is also a question of mediterranean pastoral mentality.

15 See the Hellenic League for Human Rights’ specific file on this issue containing articles by most of the intellectuals concerned on their website at http://www.hlhr.gr/kratosekkl.htm

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References anastassiadis, anastassios. 2003. ‘de la notion patristique “d’oikonomia” et les relations avec les anglicans’, Etudes Balkaniques 10: 175–97. ——. 2005. ‘Prise entre 3 romes: l’eglise de Grèce et les relations interecclésiastiques dans la nouvelle europe: Vers un retour d’anciennes problématiques?’ Balkanologie 9(1–2) (december): 255–63. ——. forthcoming. ‘the Church of Greece and secularization at the time of the formation of the Greek national state, 1852–1936: from inertia to Conservative modernization’ (in french and Greek). Ph.d. dissertation, institut d’etudes Politiques, Paris. archives du ministère affaires etrangères, Correspondance Politique et Commerciale, nouvelle série, saint siège. 1910–1913. file 25 (dossier Général). ——. 1912–1913. file 47 (Protectorat Catholique de la france -ecoles et missions françaises). archives John Gennadios, series i. 1923–1925. file 1.10 ‘italian schools and Catholic Propaganda’. ——. 15 February 1929. File 3.1, sub-file ‘Bishops and Clergy’. atessis, Vassilios. 1948–1969. A Concise History of the Dioceses of the Church of Greece (in Greek). 3 vols. athens: Pountzas. berger, Peter and thomas luckmann. [1966] 1984. The Social Construction of Reality. london: Pelican books. bourdieu, Pierre. 1971a. ‘une interprétation de la théorie de la religion selon max Weber’, Archives Européennes de Sociologie 12(1): 1–21. ——. 1971b. ‘Genèse et structure du champ religieux’, Revue Française de Sociologie 12(3): 295–334. brown, Peter. 2002. Poverty and Leadership in the Late Roman Empire. hanover, mass.: brandeis university Press. diamandouros, nikiforos. 1994. Cultural Dualism and Political Modernization in Post-Authoritarian Greece. madrid: instituto Juan march. dimaras, Constantinos th. [1977] 1993. neoellinikos Diafotismos (Neoehellenic Enlightenment) (in Greek). athens: ermis. elm, susanna, eric rebillard and antonella romano, eds. 2000. Orthodoxy, Christianity, History. rome: e.f.r. no. 270. frazee, Charles. 1969. The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece 1821–1852. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press. Gilbert, felix, ed. 1975. The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze. new york: Oxford university Press. Greek diplomatic and historical archives of the ministry for foreign affairs, series B/35. 1919. File 4 ‘Confidential protocol,’ subfile ‘Catholics in Epirus’. ——. 1928. file ‘uniats’. Greek league of human rights. n.d. retrieved 1 february 2009 at http://www. hlhr.gr/kratos-ekkl.htm

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Grégoire, Victor. 1922. Echos d’Orient xxi(127/128): 420–22. halbwachs, maurice. [1925] 1994. Les Cadres sociaux de la mémoire. Paris: albin michel. iliou, Philippos. 1989. Ideologikes Chriseis tou Koraismou ton 20o aiona (Ideological Uses of Corayism During the 20th Century). athens: Politis. kitromilides, Paschalis and thanos Veremis, eds. 1998. The Orthodox Church in a Changing World. athens: eliameP. lipowatz, thanos. 1993. ‘Orthodox Christianity and nationalism: two aspects of modern Greek Political Culture’ (Orthodoxos Christianismos kai ethnikismos. dyo opseis tis synchronis ellinikis politikis koultouras). Elliniki Epitheorisi Politikis Epistimis 2: 31–47. makrides, Vasilios n. 2004a. ‘ekklisiastiki kai thriskeftiki istoria tis neoteris kai synchronis elladas: diafores, idiaiterotites kai Provlimata anaptyxis’ (ecclesiastical and religious history of modern and Contemporary Greece: differences, Particularities, and Problems of development). in Istoriographia tis Neoteris kai Synchronis Elladas 1833–2002 (Historiography of Modern and Contemporary Greece 1833–2002), Vol. 2, ed. P. m. kitromilides and t. sklavenitis. athens: kne–eie, pp. 587–620. ——. 2004b. ‘Orthodoxy in the service of anticommunism: the religious Organization Zoe during the Greek Civil War’. in The Greek Civil War: Essays on a Conflict of Exceptionalism and Silences, ed. P. Carabott and T. D. Sfikas. aldershot: ashgate, pp. 159–74. makrides, Vasilios n. and lina molokotos-liederman. 2004. ‘Orthodoxy in Greece today’, Social Compass 51(4): 459–70. mouzelis, nikos. 1978. Modern Greece: Facets of Underdevelopment. london: macmillan. Papataxiarchis, efthymios. 1992. ‘la Valeur du ménage: classes sociales, stratégies matrimoniales et lois ecclésiastiques à lesbos au xixe siècle’. in Espaces et familles dans l’Europe du Sud à l’Age Moderne, ed. s. Woolf. Paris: editions de la maison des sciences de l’homme, pp. 109–42. Papoutsaki, maria. 2007. ‘Vazei cheri sto pagkari’ (the state Puts its hands in the revenues of the Church from Candle selling), Eleftherotypia, 7 January. retrieved 16 february 2009 at http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/ c=110,dt=07.01.2007, id=70022756 Perselis, emmanuel. 2000. Exousia kai Thriskeutiki Agogi stin Ellada tou 19ou aiona (Power and Religious Education in Nineteenth Century Greece). athens: Grigoris. Propaganda Nueva Serie. 17 July 1920. Vol. 657, rubriche 110, f. 50. louis Petit to Cardinal Van rossum, protoc. 2136/20. ——. 22 march 1921. Vol. 693, rubriche 110, ff. 76–77, louis Petit to Cardinal Van rossum, protoc. 3868/21. reinhard, Wolfgang. [1972–1982] 1998. Papauté, confessions, modernité. Paris: editions de l’e.h.e.s.s.

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roudometof, Victor. 1999. ‘nationalism, Globalisation, eastern Orthodoxy: “unthinking” the “Clash of Civilizations” in southeastern europe’, European Journal of Social Theory 2(2): 233–47. simmel, Georg. [1908] 1999. Sociologie: Etudes sur la forme de socialisation. Paris: Puf. Stavrakakis, Yannis. 2002. ‘Religion and Populism: Reflections on the “Politicised” discourse of the Greek Church’. discussion Paper no. 7. the hellenic Observatory, the european institute, london school of economics and Political science. stragkas, theoklitos. 1969–1980. Ekklisias Ellados Istoria ek Pigon Apseudon. (History of the Church of Greece from True Sources.) 7 vols. athens: apostoliki diakonia. tocqueville, alexis de. 1856. L’ancien Régime et la Révolution. Paris: michel lévy frères. troeltsch, ernst. [1912–1921] 1991. Protestantisme et modernité. Paris: Gallimard. ——. [1912] 1994. Die Soziallehren der Christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen. tübingen: mohr. yeung, a. b., ed. 2006. Churches in Europe as Agents of Welfare. Vol. 2.1 Sweden, Norway and Finland and vol. 2.2 England, Germany, France, Italy and Greece (Working papers from the Welfare and religion in europe Project). uppsala: dVi.

Chapter 3

scandals, secret agents and Corruption: the Orthodox Church of Greece during the 2005 Crisis – its relation to the state and modernization Vasilios n. makrides

in order to assess church–state relations and church modernization in contemporary Greece this chapter takes as its starting point the major crisis that hit the Orthodox Church of Greece in the first months of 2005. In Greece, the state attempts to keep the church under control and regulate religious affairs accordingly while clearly privileging Orthodoxy vis-à-vis minority religions. the church, on the other hand, tries to voice its independence without, however, breaking its historical bonds with the state. the 2005 crisis revealed many antinomies existing in church–state relations. there is no clear-cut constitutional and legal separation between church and state in Greece, but these two institutions do not co-exist without tensions and conflicts. the ways in which political parties, even those positively disposed towards the church, used this crisis displayed some of their cardinal intentions on this matter: to prove the state’s superiority over the church, to show the church’s own limitations, to keep it under control by putting more pressure on it, to weaken its wide social influence and to loosen its bonds with the state. This chapter will focus first on presenting the main events of this crisis, its socio-political background and the reasons that led to its eruption. second, an attempt will be made to assess the attitudes of various political parties towards the church in the context of this crisis, and the argument will be made that they used this crisis – each one in its own way – as a means of exerting pressure on the church. their objective was to send a political message to the church and to continue an already initiated modernization process that could eventually reconfigure church–state relations in Greece.

The 2005 Crisis in the Orthodox Church of Greece from the end of January until march 2005 the Orthodox Church of Greece was steeped in a rather unexpected deep and multifarious crisis. What began as a fairly

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commonplace corruption scandal evolved into a severe ecclesiastical crisis. in the beginning, it involved mid-level clergymen, but it soon involved high church officials and even Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece (1998– 2008). among other things, the archbishop was linked to a convicted drug dealer, police informer and secret agent, who played a very dubious role in church affairs, as well. Christodoulos denied these accusations claiming that this was a plot orchestrated by his enemies to weaken the church and silence his critical voice in Greek society. but the constant promotion of this crisis through the mass media and the salacious stories and revelations regarding the private life of some clerics did trigger wider public interest and were certainly detrimental to the overall image of the church. it is thus not surprising that the positive image of the church waned among the Greek public. according to polls by VPrC, the archbishop’s previous high popularity rating sank dramatically (from 68 per cent in may 2004 to 43 per cent in early february 2005) (see Eleftherotypia, 11 february 2005). in addition, the whole crisis had an impact upon Greek public perception of the trustworthiness of the church. a considerable percentage of Greek citizens thought that a clearer church–state separation would be catalytic for a better-organized church (see Eleftherotypia, 13 february 2005). On the other hand, the church and its leadership appeared to have been caught by surprise when the crisis erupted. a few weeks before the crisis blew up, in december 2004, Christodoulos had given a lengthy interview to the monthly italian religious journal 30 giorni. there he had talked in his usual manner about all issues from a position of power and justified his previous decisions and tactics (Christodoulos 2005). nothing therefore hinted at the scandals that would be revealed soon afterwards. the main events1 relating to this crisis were briefly as follows. First, it pertained to the role of archimandrite iakovos yiossakis from the diocese of attica, who, considered as the tip of the iceberg, was taken into custody following accusations of acting as a middleman in illegal affairs, of corrupting government officials and bribing magistrates, of trial-fixing and influence-peddling, of receiving stolen goods and smuggling antiques, and of being involved in dubious activities (for example illegal trading of byzantine icons from a monastery on the island of kythera in the 1990s) with other circles in various dioceses in Greece where he had served earlier and in the usa. yiossakis had also been put forward for a major post in the judiciary committee of the church; thus Christodoulos must have known him. second, following several emergency meetings, some metropolitans were called before the holy synod of the Church of Greece in order to testify and answer 1

the description of this crisis will remain for the purpose of this article rather basic and minimal. detailed reports of all events, evaluations and debates regarding this crisis can be found in Greek newspapers (I Kathimerini, To Vima, Ta Nea, Eleftherotypia and so on) and journals of the period, most of which are available online. One can also consult the official website of the Orthodox Church of Greece at http://www.ecclesia.gr

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questions resulting from shocking revelations regarding their personal lives and morals (for example illegal wiretaps of sexual conversations with their boyfriends) or to answer accusations against them for various misdeeds brought up by the mass media. aside from dubious morals, the charges against them also included bribing of magistrates, possession of property and large bank accounts in Greece and abroad, financial malpractice and embezzlement. The explanations given by most of them were deemed satisfactory. two of them, however, faced disciplinary measures. metropolitan Panteleimon of attica was suspended from his functions initially for six months and later permanently for a variety of misdeeds, ranging from embezzlement to immorality, and metropolitan theoklitos of karditsa, a top aide to Christodoulos, offered his resignation after having admitted that, among other things, he cooperated with archimandrite yiossakis in several dubious affairs (for example bribing, embezzling and the destruction of financial records). he was also accused of indecent conduct. according to rumours, he had been detained by police in a disreputable club a few years previously, but the scandal was immediately hushed up. these events had an impact upon Christodoulos himself and his close associates in the archdiocese of athens. he was portrayed by the mass media as having known full well what was going on in the church and to be personally acquainted with yiossakis and other accused persons. some of his close associates were also forced to resign following these revelations, including the spokesman and director of the press office of the archdiocese, Archimandrite Epifanios Oikonomou. In addition, letters appeared in the press written by Christodoulos to magistrates when he was metropolitan of demetrias. at that time he had intervened in favour of the release of certain persons who were later convicted by civil courts for various misdeeds. Christodoulos claimed that this was done out of pastoral concern for these people, whereas his opponents portrayed these actions as clear interventions in the work of the judicial system. Proven to be more notorious in this context was his relationship with a person of doubtful character and suspicious associations, apostolos Vavylis, called ‘the man with a thousand faces’ because of his disguises ranging from a police uniform to cassocks. he was, among other things, a convicted drug dealer, police informer, secret agent and representative for companies selling security equipment to the Greek authorities. he was being sought at that time by interpol as well as by the Greek police. later he was arrested in italy and extradited to Greece. Vavylis was reported as having been sent, together with some other people, by Christodoulos himself back in 2001 to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in order to influence and assist in the election of the new Patriarch, Irenaios – a fact that the latter patriarch himself acknowledged. Christodoulos, who knew Vavylis personally, denied this allegation, but his position was weakened, for his counterarguments were not convincing. because of this, several metropolitans called for his resignation, pointing to his responsibility for the eruption of the whole crisis. in addition, 65 leading persons, priests and well-known theologians published an

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open letter addressing the episcopate as a whole and pointing to the culpability of the archbishop. despite all this, Christodoulos declared that he was neither responsible for the crisis nor part of the problem. he apologized and asked forgiveness from Orthodox believers for having disappointed them through all these scandals. at the same time, he considered the critique of the church to be exorbitant and unjust. he attributed these orchestrated attacks to his opponents, namely the secularists and the proponents of globalization, who wanted him to refrain from criticizing them publicly. he underscored that there was a clear plot to discredit and weaken the church and appealed to Orthodox believers to close their ears and to not abandon the church. He also initiated a process of self-purification within the church. this process had to be continued until ample light was cast on the allegations of corruption and scandalous behaviour of all suspected clerics. subsequently, all clergy were prohibited from speaking to the mass media or making public comments on the crisis. also, in collaboration with the ministry of finance, a special Synodical committee was entrusted with the task of auditing the finances of all dioceses. at the same time, the government announced a law requiring the publication of an inventory of the assets of each member of the episcopate, as was done for members of Parliament. finally, the holy synod of the Church of Greece issued a communiqué denouncing the devious plans to defame and denigrate all members of the Greek Orthodox clergy in the eyes of the faithful. in addition, the critics of the church were accused of surpassing all limits of decency and objectivity by spreading false rumours. in the following months the crisis gradually faded from the limelight, the mass media stopped engaging with it every day and the general public interest in it waned, although it did not disappear completely. the holy synod, for its part, claimed that the clean-up of the church initiated by the archbishop had been brought to a successful end and that the matter was closed. yet, for many intellectuals and politicians the whole issue was far from over. in fact, they continued to use the crisis to further their own agenda, particularly with regard to the weakening of the church’s influence on Greek society. It should not be forgotten, however, that the church was not the sole victim in this crisis. another major institution of the country, namely the judicial system, also stood in the middle of this turmoil because of the misdeeds of several high judges and lawyers. in this respect, two major institutions were simultaneously, and in some cases in connection with one another, under systematic attack and criticism, while the political system appeared to be the sole trustworthy one, able to rectify this situation.

Expressive Interventionism: The New Public Role of the Orthodox Church of Greece in order to understand the socio-political background of this crisis, it is necessary to pay closer attention to the changes initiated by Christodoulos after his ascendancy

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to the archbishopric in april 1998, which can be subsumed under the following rubric: a new public role for the Orthodox Church of Greece at the beginning of the third millennium, which I shall term ‘expressive interventionism’. It signifies the church’s intention to actively and critically intervene in all domains of public life, to make its views widely known and influential and to accomplish all this in highly expressive, ostentatious ways, including, for example, through the pertinent use of mass media and modern communication technologies. this new public role can be aptly illustrated by mentioning a characteristic event that occurred a few months earlier, in 2004, an event that, at first glance, had nothing to do with the 2005 crisis. in early July 2004 the Greek football team with its German coach unexpectedly and against all odds won the european football Championship in Portugal. as was to be expected, this success triggered a huge wave of enthusiasm and elation in the whole country as well as in the Greek diaspora around the globe. When the victorious team returned to Greece, a massive celebration was organized. thousands of jubilant Greeks followed the bus carrying the football team all the way from the airport to the Panathenaic stadium where the splendid ceremony reached a climax later in the evening. among the officials present there were Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, various ministers of the government and state officials, the Mayor of Athens, well-known personalities and, last but not least, archbishop Christodoulos with his entourage. at the beginning of the ceremony a rather unusual scene took place. the archbishop, who was not involved in any way in the success of the football team and had not previously demonstrated any particular interest in football, was the first to officially congratulate the players and the coach. He then made one of his usual speeches about Greek Orthodox national ideals and offered to them all on behalf of the church a golden cross. among other things, he said: ‘What you see here tonight is all Greeks united, irrespective of their political and sporting convictions, young Greeks holding the nation’s flag and defining themselves through it. We have waited many years to see this. We are grateful to you.’2 in the row of the congratulants following the archbishop were both the deputy minister of Culture (responsible for sports) and the mayor of athens – while the Prime minister himself watched the whole event rather inactively from the tiers of the stadium. in other words, the archbishop overshadowed all political leaders – including the Prime minister. undoubtedly, there is a long tradition in Orthodox Greece of beginning major events with an invocation of God or religion through the blessings of the church. yet, what happened at the stadium during the ceremony appeared to be rather unusual not only to outside observers, but to many Greeks as well. it would have been more typical for the archbishop to congratulate the football team in the line after various state officials, who were far more responsible for that celebration or, at least, for the archbishop to come after the Prime minister himself. On the contrary, 2 see ‘athens Welcomes Greece’s euro 2004 Champions in splendid Ceremony’ (2004).

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it was the archbishop who played the leading role in the ceremony, outshining the political leadership of the country. needless to say, Christodoulos’ leading involvement in this ceremony drew various criticisms from his ideological and other opponents, because he somehow ‘put in his own pocket’ an event that had much broader national dimensions. furthermore, if one compares the celebrations of 2004 with the ones back in 1987, when Greece, unexpectedly again, had won the european basketball Championship, the differences are more than striking. Christodoulos’ predecessor, Archbishop Seraphim (in office between 1974 and 1998), did not play such a leading role in the related celebrations, although he had also congratulated the Greek basketball team on behalf of the church. in this manner, by taking a closer look at Christodoulos’ policies and tactics after his election, one realizes that his zeal was hardly coincidental. it was part and parcel of his systematic effort to bring the church to the centre of attention in contemporary Greek society by bestowing a new public role upon it, namely that of expressive interventionism. it is exactly this issue that has triggered heated debates in the Greek political, intellectual, social and religious scene since 1998. in the beginning, it appeared that the new archbishop could be the long-expected, progressive-minded personality that would lead the church into the third millennium and radically modernize its structures (alivizatos 1999). yet, soon afterwards, these voices were utterly disappointed. Christodoulos had another form of church modernization in mind, one that was hardly compatible with that envisaged by many politicians and intellectuals. he also did not refrain from harshly and openly criticizing them without reservation. as a result, there was a clash of opinions, orientations, interests and policies that made the divide between Christodoulos and his opponents almost unbridgeable. ultimately, Christodoulos became a persona non grata for a part of the Greek public, although, on the other hand, he acquired numerous supporters and enjoyed very high popularity. The idea of religions becoming significant public factors is discussed amply in contemporary social science, especially after Casanova (1994) drew attention to this matter on the basis of various case studies worldwide. the same has been done for Greek Orthodoxy itself (roudometof 2005). this development is considered to cast serious doubts on the alleged process of the privatization of religions in the context of ongoing secularization. religions are no longer seen as publicly marginal or unimportant factors. On the contrary, religious actors actively participate in the public sphere today, either at the national or at the global level. in some cases, they are also welcome cooperative partners with the respective states, which no longer seem to fear their influence, as they had done in the past. yet, the renewed public role of religions is not free of dangers and challenges, especially when tensions arise between religious and non-religious actors in the public sphere (Casanova 1996). a useful question to ask here is whether there are discernible differences between Western and eastern europe with regard to the public role of the church. Certainly, the historical and socio-political trajectories of these two parts

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of europe, especially in modern times, are in many respects different. Without denying various common elements and developments, it is accurate to point to the particular evolution of Western europe and the societal role of Christianity there. despite regional variations, there are discernible common patterns of religiosity in many Western european countries. it is for this reason that (Western) europe was called an ‘exceptional case’ (see davie 2002, 2006) with regard to the rest of the world, for example in terms of secularization, which in this cultural milieu acquired a strong deterministic and teleological character having the inevitable end of religions as a future point of orientation. this conviction was often transformed into practical action against religions (Casanova 2003). but what about the situation in eastern europe as a whole where Orthodox Christianity predominates? is it exceptional in this way or another? basically, even prior to the Great schism of 1054, there are certain historical differences between Orthodox Christianity and Western Christianity that need to be taken into account. there also exists considerable internal variation within Orthodox eastern europe, for the religious situation is hardly the same in ex-communist countries as in those that never experienced communist rule. this is the case of Greece, which became the first predominantly Orthodox member-state of the European Union in 1981. because of its historical, economic and political ties with the Western world during the modern period, Greece is certainly not an exceptional case. yet, in terms of cultural, religious and historical heritage, it presents many specificities, some of which are connected with its Orthodox Christian tradition, stretching back to byzantine times (makrides 2009). When talking about Orthodox Christianity as a public religion in modern Greece, it is vital to distinguish the ‘old’ from the ‘new’ public role of the church. in actual terms, the Orthodox Church of Greece, being basically the established church of the modern Greek state from the beginning, has certainly enjoyed public visibility in the past. Orthodox presence was evident in all aspects of Greek public life, from official state ceremonies to everyday life in remote villages and islands. the fact that no complete and strict separation exists today between church and state as well as between Orthodoxy and Greek culture in general indicates that the secularization process here was markedly different from that in Western europe. although the church was subjected to state control and was socially marginalized to a considerable extent in the nineteenth century, it managed to remain vital for the Greek people and the operation of the socio-political system, for example with regard to budding Greek nationalism and irredentism. this led, in turn, to the strengthening of the bonds between church and state. in this respect, the church had indeed a multiplicity of public roles in the past and was never privatized in the sense of retreating from society or being pushed out of it and playing no role at all in public affairs. the public visibility of the church can also be attested to in the course of the twentieth century when church–state intertwining intensified with the state controlling the church, in both stronger and milder forms. the public role of the church was sanctioned by the state for many reasons, including, for example, from

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the 1930s until 1974 as a defence mechanism against the threat of communist infiltration of Greece. One can thus hardly talk of a church that existed and acted in the margins of Greek society. throughout Greece’s modern history there was a clear ‘religious monopoly’ (see iannaccone 1991) in the sense that the Orthodox Church enjoyed special favours and privileges through state support and legislation as well as through popular appeal. the Orthodox Church has dominated the Greek religious scene, as more than 90 per cent of Greeks still consider themselves Orthodox, albeit mostly nominally. due to the national and religious homogenization process induced by the Greek state from the nineteenth century onwards (margaritis 2005), modern Greeks have had rather limited exposure to other religions. the Orthodox Christian establishment as a whole was thus the outcome of state regulation of religious affairs and became closely connected with the official construction of modern Greek identity. religious minorities were clearly distinguished from this establishment and at times faced repressive measures (Clogg 2002). after all, it is known that if a single religious institution is to monopolize the religious economy of a certain country, this is basically achieved through its alliance with the state and by the use of state force to regulate the religious monopoly (stark and bainbridge [1987] 1996: 95–6; stark and finke 2000: 284). a major change in church–state relations occurred, however, after the reestablishment of democracy in 1974, as evidenced in the Constitution of 1975. some of the Constitution’s clauses regarding the Orthodox Church and minority religions were interpreted as a first attempt to weaken the previous strong bonds between church and state, to secularize the latter to a greater degree and to culturally and religiously pluralize Greek society (basdekis 1977). for example, Orthodox Christianity was simply regarded as the religion of the majority of Greeks, general religious freedom was proclaimed and proselytism for all religions operating in Greece, including the Orthodox Church, was prohibited. the post-1974 period was thus characterized by a change in state policy. this change was not one of religious deregulation and pluralism, as found in several structurally and functionally differentiated Western european societies or in the usa (machacek 2003). Greece was not to be transformed into an open religious market with all kinds of religious groups freely competing against one another. but there was clearly an attempt to limit the Orthodox monopoly and pluralize Greek society through state intervention. even so, this process would eventually foster the growth of minority religions and the spread of new religious ideas. it is through this change of state policy that church–state relations in the post-1974 period kept oscillating between the model of accommodation and that of competitive engagement. little by little, the state introduced new legislation aimed at loosening its close relationship with the church without, however, breaking it off completely (see Georgiadou 1996). as was to be expected, the church posed considerable opposition to these plans and demanded the perpetuation of its privileges. The first measures of this new state policy appeared in the late 1970s (for example with the issue of the ‘automatic divorce’ in 1979). the coming to power of the centre-left socialist PasOk party in 1981 marked the beginning of an era of continuous tension with the church

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(for example with the introduction of civil marriage in 1982 and the conflict over the nationalization of church and monastic property in 1987). these problems notwithstanding, the radical changes in the former eastern bloc after 1989 forced a new appraisal of religion in general and of Orthodox Christianity in particular. this led the major political parties, including the socialists, to reassess the role of Orthodoxy and its potential as an instrument to approach co-religionists in eastern and south eastern europe in the early 1990s. however, when a new generation of socialists with an outspokenly modernizing agenda came to power in 1996, the state policy towards the church was dictated by the interest to limit its influence and implement a greater secularization of Greek society. a case in point was the decision to omit data on religious affiliation from identity cards in 2000, which led to a major clash between church and state (dépret 2005; makrides 2005a). yet, these post-1974 changes in church–state relations were not regarded by the state as an attack against Orthodoxy but as a way of gradually adapting Greek society, including the church, to the needs and exigencies of the pan-european and global environment. it would, however, be remiss to underestimate the overall importance of Orthodoxy for Greek society and political culture as a whole because of these changes. Generally, the post-1989 developments in the former eastern bloc offered the church substantial support in its attempt to counterbalance the secularizing tendencies of the state. in the 1990s it was quite fashionable even among non-practising Greeks to declare oneself Orthodox. issues on Orthodoxy were frequently found even in lifestyle, fashion and other popular magazines of wide circulation. in addition, the political system and the Orthodox Church still remain, in many respects, closely intertwined. Political parties fear possible costs because of anti-religious policies, which is why they generally try to maintain good relations with the church. despite secularizing measures, political leaders are ambivalent in their policy towards the church. Confrontations between church and state are thus followed by periods of accommodation. moreover, the majority of the political actors, especially those of the major two parties, are reluctant to proceed with a greater formal separation between church and state. although this is an often-voiced postulate and recently there have been pertinent occasions to implement it, such as the crisis of 2005, no such decision has yet been taken. the coming of archbishop Christodoulos to power in 1998 coincided with the attempt of the church not only to reclaim its special privileges and regain the power lost during the last decades, but also to reconfigure church–state relations for its own benefit. It is against the background of the post-1974 period that this expressive interventionism, that is, the new public role of the church in the era of Christodoulos, should best be understood. even before ascending to his post as head of the church, Christodoulos was aware of the challenges posed by the secularizing tendencies of the state and the process of globalization. this becomes clear enough by looking at his multiform activities and publications during his earlier period as metropolitan of demetrias (1974–1998). the cornerstones

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of Christodoulos’ policy regarding the new public role of the church can be summarized as follows. first, he put emphasis on the independence of the church from state interventions, thus intending to weaken state control over the church. in his view, church and state had to be regarded in practice, if not in theory, as equal partners in decision-making and in formulating the future agenda for the country. the state had to avoid making any decisions without considering the church’s independent opinion. new legislation pertaining to the church was to be introduced only after consultation with church representatives and had to respect the Orthodox sensitivities of the Greek population. but many politicians and others recognized Christodoulos’ intentions from the very beginning. this is why they immediately provoked heated reactions. the issue of governing the country was regarded as the sole and exclusive responsibility of the state and was thus non-negotiable. according to socialist Prime minister Costas simitis (2005: 387–90), there were deeper tensions behind the conflict over the identity cards in 2000. It was about who governs the country: the state alone or the state in equal partnership with others including the church? in simitis’ view, Christodoulos supported the second option by putting constant pressure on the state and trying to keep it in a state of hostage. he intended to institute an ideological supervision of political leadership, to actively and critically intervene in all public debates and affairs, and to draw profit from this in various domains, from extending the church’s overall influence on society to securing more favourable treatment from the state. Simitis categorically denied Christodoulos’ vision and plan on the basis of his political convictions and the nature of the modern sovereign nation-state. the Greek state was by no means willing to succumb to church pressures. in this context, Christodoulos was often accused by his opponents of intending to undertake a clear and distinct political role for the church, perhaps through the foundation of a new religio-political party. the latter accusation does little justice to Christodoulos’ more elaborate intentions. basically, the foundation of a distinct political party by the church runs contrary to the Orthodox tradition regarding church–state relations. therefore, Christodoulos wanted a powerful, independent and effective church on the same level as the state but without openly and publicly mixing their jurisdictions and roles. Consequently, he could constantly intervene in public affairs and put pressure on the state, thereby avoiding future state resolutions that could be detrimental to the privileged position of the church in Greek society. second, Christodoulos was aware of the strategic position of the church within Greek society as a whole and, specifically, of its sensitive role in the political culture (for instance, the gathering of over 3 million signatures in favour of the church’s position in the context of the identity cards crisis and the subsequent loss of the general elections by the socialists in 2004). for this reason, he developed a specific public discourse by presenting the church as the perennial saviour of the Greek nation and as the most trustworthy institution in the country. in a period when national issues such as the ‘Cyprus issue’, the ‘macedonian Question’ and

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the general developments in the balkans were at the top of the agenda in Greek politics, he put emphasis on the immense national role of the church in past and modern times alike. He was not even afraid to enter into conflict with the Greekcontrolled Patriarchate of Constantinople over jurisdictional and other matters (Printzipas 2004; roudometof 2008; see also Valakou-theodoroudi 2003), thus emphasizing the national role and independence of the Orthodox Church of Greece. in addition, in a period when misdeeds and scandals affected both the public and the private sectors of the country, he presented the church as the sole remaining safe harbour and source of hope and integrity for Greeks. in such a generally corrupt environment the church could intervene and offer its help to the Greek nation and even to the state. moreover, he intended to show that the political scene of the country remained dependent on the church and fearful of its wider influence on Greek voters. to accomplish this, he portrayed the church as being, in fact, superior to and more reliable than any other institution in the country. this is why Prime minister simitis (2005: 379, 527, 542; 2007: 33) thought that the church under Christodoulos’ leadership was becoming more and more conservative, ethnocentric, nationalistic and unable to engage with the spirit of the global age. Christodoulos was regarded as part of the conservative status quo in Greece that historically opposed any attempts at modernizing the country, including the formal separation between church and state. from this perspective, the new public role of the church was seen as problematic and utterly dysfunctional for the operation of the Greek political system. it is clear that Christodoulos, through the new public role of the church, attempted to reverse the structural and functional differentiation of Greek society. he understood his role not as the leader of the church alone, but of the whole Greek nation, responsible for its future and its fate. he did not refrain from intervening and expressing his opinion publicly on all possible matters beyond the strict religious domain, from economy to foreign policy. in this way, he crossed the existing line dividing the jurisdictions of church and state and intended to reconfigure them. By doing this, he did not aspire to any distinct political role. He simply intended to apply his programme of expressive interventionism, namely to render the church a present, visible, strategic and influential factor in all domains of public life, yet not necessarily according to the principles of a modern ‘civil society’ (see fokas 2008: 29–35). as expected, Christodoulos not only enjoyed ardent support, but also found some declared and fierce opponents. The latter perceived him as a serious threat, undermining state authority and instituting a novel form of Orthodox theocracy in Greece. the numerous articles and books criticizing his personality and interventionist policies evidence the declared opposition to Christodoulos. it is true that after the events of 1989, the wars in the former yugoslavia and the rise of islam, there was a considerable renaissance of literature on religions worldwide. in Greece this phenomenon was also connected with a renewed interest in the Orthodox tradition and its potential role in the new world order (makrides 2003: 186–93). the stronger public re-appearance of Orthodoxy in the Christodoulos era added more to this

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renaissance. yet, his coming to power coincided with a parallel trend within Greek society, which was very critical of the new public role of the church, pointing to the concomitant dangers for civil society, religious freedom and minority rights. the latter trend became evident in the proliferation of articles and books critically dealing with the church, its relations with the state and Christodoulos himself (see kontoyiorgis 2000; lipowatz, demertzis and Georgiadou 2002; Zoumboulakis 2002; Charisis 2005). the extensive use of modern communication technologies by the church in the context of its expressive interventionism was also regarded as having a secularizing impact upon the traditional Orthodox worldview (demertzis 2000/2001, 2002). special mention must be made here of a lengthy (about 700page) book entitled The Scourge of God, having Christodoulos as its main target (Vasilakis 2006). despite its polemical tone and ideological underpinnings, this book constitutes an immense source of information regarding Christodoulos and his close associates including the crisis of 2005 (Vasilakis 2006: 559–636). the criticisms of Christodoulos’ policies were not only ideological; in the long run they did not remain unchallenged by the political world of the country. this pertains not only to the parties of the left, which were clearly inimical to him from the very beginning, but also to the centre-right new democracy party, in power since 2004; and this despite the fact that Christodoulos was allied with it in many ways. after all, challenging the existing relations between church and state was something that no political party would accept. it was thus just a matter of time before the archbishop would get his ‘lesson’ from the state. in my judgment, this became quite obvious during the crisis that unexpectedly erupted in early 2005, which was exploited for this purpose by all political parties, albeit in different ways.

Opposing the New Public Role of the Church: The 2005 Crisis and its Aftermath by looking closely at the 2005 crisis, it becomes clear that the target attracting most criticism and attacks was not the high clergy or the laypersons involved in it, but Christodoulos himself. the extensive coverage of the crisis by all mass media of the country was remarkable. even on the state-run television the crisis monopolized the main news and the interest of viewers for several months. this was hardly accidental. it is highly probable that behind this wide publicity there was a clear intention to send a message to the church and to provide a ‘lesson’ to the archbishop. this crisis made it obvious, after all, that the church was hardly the sole bastion of purity and integrity in Greece, able to guarantee a viable future for the country. it showed exactly the opposite, namely that the church itself needed an extensive internal clean-up. more importantly, it offered Christodoulos’ opponents a unique chance to put him in a difficult position and even to ‘get rid of him’. therefore, they blamed him for the church’s corruption and wanted to force him to resign, although in the end this was not possible. interestingly enough,

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his resignation was also demanded by several Orthodox clerics, professors and theologians, who in a public letter distanced themselves from him. there they criticized his running of the affairs of the church as deviating from traditional Orthodox principles. for example, his way of rendering the church public was regarded as incompatible with the humble, moderate and pragmatic spirit of the Orthodox tradition. It was very fitting for Christodoulos’ political and ideological critics to have found the church in a weak situation and attempt to draw great benefit from it. the most important issue for them was the formal separation between church and state and the religious liberalization of Greek society from a state-privileged church. although the necessity to clearly separate church and state had been voiced many times in the past, the existing church–state relations were mostly deemed satisfactory and not in need of serious revision. yet, the gradual revelation of numerous misdeeds within the church – misdeeds that were connected with its privileged treatment by the state – brought this demand again to the fore. in the midst of the crisis, on 24 february 2005, more than 500 university professors, scientists, artists and journalists published an open letter demanding formal separation between church and state, this being the foundation of every modern democratic society. They also called for a redefinition by Parliament of the links between church and state and a harmonization of the legal status of the church with current law. had he been a political actor, the archbishop would have immediately resigned. but the situation in the church is not like that in secular politics. thus, Christodoulos declared that he was not part of the whole problem, and he decided to remain in power, attributing the personal attacks against him to his enemies and their evil designs against the Orthodox Church in general. The final pressure on him to resign came on the occasion of the election of the new President of the Greek republic, karolos Papoulias, on 12 march 2005. according to tradition, the new President had to be sworn in by the archbishop in Parliament. Christodoulos’ critics, however, refused to let him perform this ceremony. therefore, they proposed several alternatives to swearing in the new President, including, for example, suggesting that the President of the Parliament do it instead of the archbishop. such a change would symbolically signify a kind of separation between church and state. however, the new democracy party in power decided to act according to tradition despite the fact that some of its influential members, including ioannis Varvitsiotis, a member of the european Parliament, openly asked for a greater separation between church and state. the minister of national education and religious affairs, marietta Giannakou, nonetheless made it clear that the government had no intention of changing the existing church–state relations. after all, such a separation would not automatically prevent any incidents of corruption in the future. a thorough clean-up of the church was deemed far more important and urgent at the time. top members of the ruling party including Prime minister Costas karamanlis voiced this demand. in the end, the archbishop remained in charge of the swearing-in ceremony. the political left reacted either by remaining

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seated out of protest during the ceremony or by leaving the parliamentary assembly hall when Christodoulos entered it. it is useful to examine here more closely the positions of the different political parties on the church in the context of this crisis, because this may reveal what was actually hidden beneath the usually smooth surface of church–state relations. a first glance may convey the impression of stability and harmony in these relations. yet, these relations were often characterized by serious tension, thus remaining quite precarious. the reason for this should be sought in the ‘different nature’ of these two major institutions and their historical relations in the modern Greek state. the long tradition of the lack of formal separation has quite a few side effects. Specifically, the crucial issue of which institution holds priority in this balance of power, alliance and cooperation has not yet been adequately addressed and solved in Greece, at least not in the way it has been done in Western europe. as a result, there is still open tension between church and state as to who holds priority in their relations, which occasionally leads to major conflicts. While Christodoulos attempted to enhance the church’s public role and reconfigure church–state relations by means of his programme of expressive interventionism, the 2005 crisis brought the politicians a long-sought-for pretence to react against these attempts and to re-affirm the state’s sovereignty, autonomy in decision-making and priority over the church. the position of the left parties, including the socialists, was more or less clear on this matter. they were virulent and aggressive in their critique of Christodoulos from the very beginning of his term as archbishop. in fact, they had always had problematic, if not outspokenly bad, relations with him, not the least because of his already-known leanings towards the political right. The aforementioned conflict over the identity cards attests to this. a change in the church leadership would, thus, have been very welcome to them. in addition, they wanted to accomplish a major reconfiguration of church–state relations, namely to proceed with a formal separation between church and state. it is also worth mentioning that, despite their criticism of Christodoulos, many politicians of the left openly acknowledged that the Orthodox Church had a positive role to play in modern society (for example in the welfare system and in cultural matters), as it had done many times throughout the history of the Greek people. their criticism was thus aimed primarily at improving the church’s structures and adjusting them to the needs of the twenty-first century, not at destroying the church as such. this shows that the ‘Orthodoxy’ factor is still crucial in Greek society and political culture and is mostly taken into account by all sides. for a party to appear publicly as an enemy of the church would be politically out of place, if not a fatal mistake. the Orthodox sensitivities of the Greek public are still vulnerable on this matter. after all, many Greeks – and not only strict believers – were convinced that the 2005 crisis was due to a conspiracy against the church because of the influential, charismatic and popular personality of Christodoulos. In this way, the left-wing parties were at pains to show that they had nothing against the church as such, but solely against the mistakes committed by Christodoulos

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and internal church corruption. at the same time, they criticized the government for not intervening to put an end to this crisis that tormented the church, thereby showing indifference to its internal problems. in addition, they blamed it for being reluctant to proceed with necessary reforms that would change the present status of church–state relations. finally, they accused the government of having secret dealings and agreements with the archbishop. in their view, this became evident in the passing of new legislation favourable to the church (for example concerning higher tax exemption for the church) at a time when the whole crisis was still ongoing. all in all, the position of the left-wing parties towards the church was expected and in full congruence with their ideological orientations and political programmes. it is far more interesting to examine the position of the centre-right party in power, to which Christodoulos was ideologically and politically closer. he was known to have entertained good relations with this party when it was in opposition. historically speaking, there was mostly ‘good chemistry’ between the church and right-wing political parties. the fear of rising anti-religious communism had led the church, for example, to support the political right. right-wing parties were generally thought to be favourably disposed towards the church; if not supportive, at least they were definitely not antagonistic towards the church for programmatic or ideological reasons. needless to say, today there are many right-wing politicians who ostentatiously exhibit their religiousness and populist support of the church. yet, this kind of closeness and alliance between the church and the political right should not be interpreted as a complete identification with their principles, intentions and objectives. Occasional tension between them was not out of the ordinary in the past. after all, the period between 1974 and 1981, with the same centre-right party in power, did exhibit the first signs towards loosening the close ties between church and state. in 2000, when in the opposition, the new democracy party had supported the church in the conflict over the identity cards, probably out of political motivations. but when in power, it did not make any changes in the identity cards issue to please the church and retained the reform introduced by the socialists. remarkably enough, it also officially backed the candidacy for the General Prefecture of Attica of the journalist yiannis tzanetakos, who had been an ardent critic of Christodoulos on the issue of the identity cards. this development cast some shadow over their mutual relations. all these examples illustrate that the closeness between the church and the political right does not guarantee a complete identification between the two. after all, the church, in principle, claims to be apolitical and to keep equal distance from all parties. When the new democracy party won the general elections in march 2004, Christodoulos visited the new prime minister soon afterwards to congratulate him and present his views on several issues that concerned him and the church. it was during this meeting that Christodoulos used the biblical expression ‘God’s right hand’, which afterwards became notorious in Greek public discourse. although his utterance was, in fact, rather ambiguous, the left-wing parties and his ideological

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opponents criticized him harshly, because they considered it clear evidence of his closeness to the political right. yet, it was clear that the new government had more pressing issues to deal with at that time, including, for example, the solution of the ‘Cyprus issue’ on the basis of a proposal by United Nations Secretary General Kofi annan, and the forthcoming athens Olympic Games in the summer. the identity cards issue did not resurface and was thought more or less closed, although the church reserved the right to bring it into discussion again at a more pertinent time. What became evident, however, was that Christodoulos had started negotiating a bargain with the new government in order to strengthen his position to further develop the new public role of the church and to gain specific benefits. Being admittedly closer to the political right, Christodoulos thought that it would be easier for him to realize his vision for the church under the new government. yet, it soon became evident to the ruling party that the archbishop was not an easy negotiator, given that he had always shown signs of independence from political authority. more importantly, Christodoulos appeared in many cases to somehow patronize the new and much younger prime minister. using his diplomatic skills, wide influence, solid social support and excellent public relations, he thus implemented his policies of expressive interventionism even further, aiming to render the church a strategic public factor, as the aforementioned incident with the celebrations for the Greek football team clearly displayed. yet, from the modern state’s point of view, the church is administratively one of its numerous departments, and therefore it should obey the directives of political authority. Politicians act primarily out of their own interests and priorities and hardly want to remain dependent on the church. the same was true for the ruling centre-right party, no matter how close its relations with Christodoulos were. as a result, the new government soon perceived Christodoulos to be a ‘problem’ in many respects. the serious clash between the Orthodox Church of Greece and the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2003–2004 and between the two prelates, Christodoulos and bartholomew, respectively, was a clear example of this (Printzipas 2004: 113–33, 182–209; roudometof 2008). the Greek archbishop was blamed to a large extent for this clash, which was unnecessary in the state’s view and was finally overcome solely through state intervention. Christodoulos was thus regarded as a difficult person to deal with, as a potential troublemaker due to his nationalist utterances (for example irredentist views on the lost Greek territories and on excluding turkey from the european union), as recalcitrant and, last but not least, as unpredictable. assessing his high popularity, the new government sensed that Christodoulos would venture to initiate several other changes in favour of the church, although a clear political role for him was thought not to be realistic. Because of all this, it seemed to be dissatisfied with Christodoulos, although it did not openly show any antipathy to him. Without a doubt, it recognized his abilities and potential. but it would certainly have preferred to have to deal with a more manageable church leader. Given this situation, it was only a matter of time before the government would teach him a ‘lesson’ as a reaction against the new public role of the church that he envisaged.

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Within less than a year of the new democracy party being in power, the serious 2005 crisis erupted. the systematic and consecutive way the scandals were made public suggests the existence of some ‘plan’ behind it – of course, not on the basis of a conspiracy theory. it was simply evident that the government showed unexpected and unusual neutrality on the whole problem and avoided taking sides. it kept a low profile and, in fact, let the church be discredited by the shocking revelations. It did not even support Christodoulos, at least not at the beginning of the crisis. the state-run television reported daily about the church scandals. it was evident that, in the government’s view, the possibility of Christodoulos resigning was initially a realistic option. yet, the government probably had very careful tactics and did not openly disclose its views on the matter. it mainly followed a ‘wait and see’ policy until more serious issues appeared on the agenda, such as the potential formal church–state separation. this was considered again a possibility, but not a panacea that would definitely solve all problems. According to the government, such a measure had to be assessed rationally and calmly once the crisis was over. the amelioration of the church organization and administration seemed to be more urgent at that moment. Generally, the government took no clear stance on the matter and left Christodoulos to suffer serious attacks and accusations. it came to his support only at the last minute, but still in a rather neutral and distanced way. at the same time, on several occasions it exhibited a critical attitude towards the church by pointing to its numerous deficiencies. This particular policy may be interpreted as a clear ‘lesson’ on the government’s part to Christodoulos and his envisaged new public role of the church. Exploiting the crisis for its own benefit, the government showed Christodoulos his limits and reminded him of the leading role of the state. it also hoped thereby to render him more cooperative in the future. even if after the crisis Christodoulos was not transformed into a spiritual invalid,3 he did realize that he, as the church leader, did not stand above the state or outside its jurisdiction. after all, church leaders and the church as a whole had quite a number of weak and problematic sides, as did all other societal sectors. this was made quite clear through this crisis, which was aptly and delicately used by the centreright government to send a related message to the church.

3 this became again evident in the discussions and debates concerning a history textbook for primary school children, which was written from an allegedly revisionist, nonnational perspective. Christodoulos was one of the most severe critics of this textbook, along with other political, intellectual and scholarly circles. his public opposition to the textbook was interpreted as a clear pressure on the political leadership of the country to withdraw it from schools and revise it, which in fact did happen in the end (see To Vima tis Kyriakis, 28 January 2007, a57–9 and 8 april 2007, a12).

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The 2005 Crisis and the Modernization of the Church the crisis did not last for long, and its repercussions have not been overly dramatic or catastrophic for the church, for it is now rather a matter of history. there are several reasons for this. first, it was a crisis affecting not only the church but also, and perhaps to a greater degree, the judicial system of the country. there were also some connections to the political world, a fact that rendered the crisis quite a complex one. its quick conclusion was thus a desideratum for many sides. second, at one point this crisis involved the Greek-controlled Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, quite a sensitive issue of national importance for Greece. the crisis thus had detrimental effects upon vital national issues abroad, and it became obvious that it should not be drawn out any longer. seen from another perspective, this crisis had quite a number of positive consequences. it basically enabled many Greeks to realize and understand the mundane aspects of the church organization and their derivatives. the church as a religious institution has structures, management, decision-making processes and rules comparable to those of any other institution in the country. Church functionaries usually exhibit the same behaviour as those working in other institutions, for example they wish to increase the efficiency and productivity of their institution. despite its extra-mundane connections and the corresponding rhetoric, the church is thus deeply embedded in worldly affairs and operates accordingly, with constant interaction with other institutions. as a result, it is also liable to all the deficiencies and problems that institutions usually present. From this perspective, the existence of scandals and corruption cases within the church should not cause surprise but should be understood primarily within the wider socio-political context in which the church exists and operates. in general, the 2005 crisis functioned as a channel through which the modernization of the church was demanded for its future viable development. this has been a constant demand over the last decades, although it has been discussed from quite a number of different perspectives (see yannaras 1999; alivizatos 2006). the ideologization of the whole issue was inevitable in this context (makrides 2005b). under the socialist Prime minister Costas simitis (1996–2004) the wholesale modernization of the country was the dominant slogan and political programme. yet, in church affairs there was a serious clash with Christodoulos, who was critical of the modernization socialists and others had in mind. the polarization between the two sides dictated the whole debate. for those modernizers, Christodoulos embodied the traditionalist status quo that was totally incompatible with modern ideals. he was criticized for promoting a tradition-bound regression to a pre-modern period for the church and rejecting all fundamental tenets of modernity, from individual human rights to religious freedom. in fact, Christodoulos’ rhetoric and actions very often conveyed such an impression (Vasilakis 2006). for example, his plan to reorganize Orthodox ecclesiastical education was not conceived in pluralist and open terms, but rather

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with the purpose of safeguarding the Orthodox Christian tradition from outside voices and influences. As a result, upon the church’s request the Ministry of national education and religious affairs issued on 3 february 2006, law 3432, which upgraded the status of higher ecclesiastical schools. their degrees became equivalent to those of the higher education institutions run by the state. however, this law has been criticized as impinging upon the established religious freedom and neutrality in state-supported higher institutions. this was because of the Orthodox prerequisites set for entering such ecclesiastical schools, the specific contents of lessons taught there and the decisive role of the church in all decision-making. in fact, the church could run such ecclesiastical schools independently without state support (see Eleftherotypia, 25 June 2007). here one encounters the antinomies of the present church–state framework in Greece. the religious neutrality of the state is virtually non-existent. legal experts claim, however, that such neutrality is guaranteed in principle by the Constitution. as a result, higher judicial bodies (for example the Council of state) make decisions on this principle, whereas the state issues laws supporting or privileging the Orthodox Church. yet, it would be remiss to judge the Christodoulos period solely by the strict dichotomy of traditionalism versus modernity. first, by placing Christodoulos exclusively in the traditionalist camp, any ‘modernizing changes’ in the church during his period could be passed over in silence. the existing polarization between Christodoulos and his many opponents thus may obscure the actual situation within the church, which exhibited some otherwise unexpected progressive aspects (for example the establishment of a special synodical Committee for bioethics in december 1998). second, it is equally problematic to identify the whole Orthodox Church with Christodoulos and his policies. in addition to his critics within the church hierarchy, Greek Orthodoxy is a multi-dimensional system with numerous manifestations and internal variations, ranging from rigorist/fundamentalist to modernist/ progressive currents. all these should be taken into account before making any general judgments about the complex relations between Greek Orthodoxy and modernity. modernization should not be equated here with a full endorsement of Western developments but should take into consideration the religious and cultural specificities of the Greek Orthodox milieu. After all, Orthodox Christianity in general encountered modernity in quite different ways than did roman Catholicism and Protestantism (makrides 2005b). for these reasons, one may look at the various negotiating processes between church and state or at other developments during the Christodoulos period, keeping in mind that modernity engenders various options (makrides and molokotos-liederman 2004). More specifically, the 2005 crisis acted as a catalyst for speeding up the modernization process within the church and improving its structure and internal organization. the church was accused in the past of having an opaque style of governance and lacking accountability and the ability to be self-critical. this pertained to unworthy clerics of all ranks who entered the church just to ‘hide their filth and bellies’ or even to lay persons in the church organization with

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similar objectives. moreover, the church traditionally enjoyed a status of a special ‘immunity’ (not in a strict legal sense) in the country and was not subject to the usual state controls as other institutions were. the regulatory mechanisms of the state have usually been relaxed when it came to the church. the immense spiritual authority and power of the church reinforced this privileged status. Lack of accountability thus applies to simple financial malpractices, such as tax evasion by lower clergy, right up to misdeeds of greater proportions. such was the financial scandal in 1998–1999 regarding huge amounts of money received by the church from the European Union. Despite severe criticism, this scandal was finally covered up. all in all, there were usually no strict inspections or investigations and no repercussions or condemnations in the higher echelons of the church regarding finances and related activities. Church leaders usually avoid such control measures by claiming that they are accountable solely before God as the ultimate judge, not before the secular state. in addition, they often like to portray the church as constantly persecuted, always in serious jeopardy due to its multifarious enemies, thus needing support, not criticism. To be more specific, the aforementioned corruption involving the metropolitan Panteleimon of attica had been known about since 2002. but it was not until 2005 that disciplinary measures were taken against him in the wake of the crisis. in other words, continuous public revelations of misdeeds and mounting public pressure forced the church to investigate this case, which otherwise would have gone unnoticed. in addition to the church’s own apologetic and defensive attitude, governments of varied provenance have tolerated this situation, usually out of political calculation, thereby intensifying the whole problem. the 2005 crisis was used as a pertinent opportunity to democratize the church structure, to shed light on its multiple activities and, in the end, to make it liable for state-induced inquiry and control. in addition, there were initiatives within the church itself for reforms that would prevent similar scandals in the future. One of these was to reform the system of ecclesiastical courts and justice. the main aim was to enable the church to better control its internal affairs and fight clergy corruption. to this purpose, the church, with the support of the ministry of national education and religious affairs, prepared a bill regarding ecclesiastical justice. however, this became contentious both within the church hierarchy and outside, particularly with the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. the latter was afraid of an ecclesiological deviation because this bill would subject the sacred canons and the holy tradition of the church to state legislation and authority. the church organization would thus be turned into a state organization with ‘ecclesiastical attorneys’ and similar apparatuses that do not correspond to Orthodox principles (see I Kathimerini, 25 february 2007 and 10 July 2007). the ongoing discussions on this matter make it evident that in any event some concrete measures will be taken to ensure the amelioration of the church structure and functioning. One should also mention several independent, yet influential and critical, voices within the broader Greek Orthodoxy who openly proclaimed the need to proceed

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with serious reforms. these voices advocate an abandonment of the traditional self-sufficiency and self-indulgence, as well as the boasting about Orthodoxy that has characterized numerous church circles in the past. the issues discussed are also related to the 2005 crisis and refer, for example, to the necessary reforms in existing church–state relations, to the need to disentangle Orthodoxy from the idea of the Greek nation and to the revival of Orthodox ecumenicity (kalaitzidis 2005). expressed through different channels,4 these voices attest to the fact that Greek Orthodoxy is not a uniform, fully homogenous or monolithic body. despite being marginal and often facing internal church critique, these voices show that ongoing fermentations within Greek Orthodoxy may lead to significant changes in the long run. special mention must be made here of the academy for theological studies, operating under the auspices of the holy metropolis of demetrias and its metropolitan ignatios since 2000.5 this is an open and democratic forum of critical thought and dialogue between Orthodox theologians and other independent intellectuals, scholars and politicians who are in many respects critical of church policies. the many controversial topics discussed in this forum are approached from different, and at times incompatible, angles that generate fresh ideas and suggestions. thus, they do not simply repeat traditional Orthodox stereotypes. the complex encounter between Orthodox Christianity and modernity remains central to all these discussions (kalaitzidis 2007; kalaitzidis and ntontos 2007). finally, it should be mentioned that the 2005 crisis launched another effort to modernize the church, yet this time from the outside. such a broad initiative was undertaken by the non-governmental organization the hellenic league for human rights (elliniki enosi gia ta dikaiomata tou anthropou), founded in 2005 with the purpose of reconfiguring church–state relations on a novel basis. It attempted to move beyond the previous polarizations and ideological debates, refocusing the issue on several key aspects. the organization published a text entitled ‘state, Para-state, and Church: the unluckily Communicating Vessels’6 (4 april 2005) in the context of the crisis. there it pointed out that this crisis was due mainly to the unhealthy interrelations between church and state and proposed some initial measures relating to a formal church–state separation. On 19 October 2005, it publicly announced its proposal on church–state relations and the necessity of their clear and distinct roles. in december 2005 it submitted a lengthy document of 21 articles entitled ‘regulation of state–Church relations, religious associations, and securing of religious freedom’ as a bill to the Greek Parliament together 4

see also the interesting articles in a special edition of a leading athens newspaper about the plurality of voices within Greek Orthodoxy entitled ‘to allo prosopo tis ekklisias’ (2006). 5 for information on the metropolis’ numerous activities, visit the website of the metropolis of demetrias at http://www.imd.gr 6 all documents issued by the hellenic league for human rights can be found on its website: http://www.hlhr.gr

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with a separate commentary. it was argued that the Greek Parliament could have adopted the proposed changes without revising the Constitution. the Greek Communist Party (kke), the left-wing Coalition Party (synaspismos), as well as two independent deputies, stephanos manos and andreas andrianopoulos, officially backed the bill. Many members of the two major political parties, the centre-right new democracy (government) and the centre-left socialist PasOk (opposition), openly favoured it. it was seen as a springboard to successful reforms of the current framework of church–state relations, which was considered utterly outdated in the present global age. at the same time, it turned neither against the Orthodox sentiments of the Greek people nor against the church’s traditions. this document was given massive publicity, although its overall backing in the political arena of the country remained doubtful. the government, for instance, did not see any need to take significant action on this matter. The opposition also did not seem ready to back immediate action, although it found the document quite important and suggested subjecting it to serious study. in contrast, the church officially expressed its reservations towards the document through its Permanent holy synod (20 October 2005) (see Eleftherotypia 21 October 2005 and 13 december 2005). yet, during the following discussions there was a clear ranking of the urgency of the specific issues that had to be decided upon. Some of them, for example the possibility of a civil funeral and cremation, were considered to be absolutely harmless to the church, so they could be immediately implemented. Other issues, such as the legal status of non-Orthodox religious minorities in the country and the issue of confessional Orthodox education in the schools, were considered more complex and in need of further deliberation among the relevant experts before making a decision. in principle, the church seemed to be ready to accept some issues relating to greater religious freedom and rights for religious minorities. but it categorically refused to consider other issues that would lead to the religious de-colouring of Greece, such as the removal of the cross from the national flag or of icons from school classes (see Eleftherotypia, 7 february 2006). in the end, the plenary session of the Greek Parliament did not endorse the proposed bill. the hellenic league for human rights reacted by accusing both major political parties of perpetuating an ill-fated relationship between church and state, and stated that it would continue to publicly proclaim its views on the matter. yet, the above initiative, occasioned by the 2005 crisis, triggered a broader discussion of this whole matter (Venizelos 2006), which might lead to significant changes in the years to come. in any event, outdated Greek legislation on religious freedom and the rights of religious minorities has been brought up to date, although it is still in need of further improvement and actualization (Papastathis and Papathomas 2006). before closing, one should note that the need for a formal church–state separation through pertinent legislation, often voiced during and after the 2005 crisis, should not be considered a panacea. in other words, it will not necessarily prevent new corruption cases and future scandals within the church. this is

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because such a separation hardly signifies the end of the church’s politicization. the interweaving of church and state in everyday life, on the level of discourses and usual practices and in the collective Greek imagination, is historically rooted and remains immensely complex. after all, many of the church’s privileges are not based directly on the Constitution or any related laws but are, to a large degree, the result of the privileged way the church is treated by various state functionaries and by the majority of the Greek population. this happens mostly at an informal level that is not based on any formal legislation or other state resolutions. the widespread rhetoric about the close historical link between Orthodoxy and Greek national identity reflects, for example, this informal privileged treatment of the church. in addition, legislation regarding church–state relations is also in many respects ambiguous and does not correspond to reality. this can be best observed in the ways the expression ‘predominant/prevailing religion’ in reference to the Orthodox Church in the Constitution is differently interpreted. some understand it as a neutral formulation, simply indicating the numerically strongest religion in Greece, whereas the majority of Greeks, including many politicians, draw normative conclusions from it and understand it as referring to the ‘official’ religion of the Greek state. thus, there is still no clear consensus on whether the Greek state is religiously neutral or not. On the basis of already existing legal documents many claim that the religious neutrality of the state is a given fact. yet, taking a look at contemporary Greek reality, this is hardly the case because of the still omnipresent symbiotic relationship and interaction between church and state. another example: when the president of the Council of state, G. Panayiotopoulos, called its members on the occasion of the new judicial year to a blessing ceremony that was to be performed by Christodoulos, many members reacted because such an act was seen as an impediment to the religious neutrality of Greek justice in general (see Eleftherotypia, 12 september to 15 september 2006). yet, the issue of such an invitation to the archbishop was not prescribed by a specific law, but was part of the common practice in Greece to begin major events (school year and other occasions) with the blessings of the church. it is thus evident that many ambiguities characterize the historically articulated relations between church and state in Greece, and their formal separation on a legal and constitutional basis will not immediately solve all problems.

Final Remarks in looking back at history, it becomes obvious that scandals and crises have been an almost permanent characteristic of the church organization – in byzantine times, under Ottoman rule and also in the modern Greek state. yet, not all of them were similar, at least as far as their significance and repercussions were concerned. in the light of the foregoing discussion, this chapter’s main argument is that Greek political parties aptly used the 2005 crisis to demonstrate their priority

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and superiority over the church, which was in need of serious help due to the numerous deficiencies in its structure, and to defend the state’s right to take the upper hand in regulating the religious affairs of the country. this crisis attests to the ongoing struggle to redefine church–state boundaries in Greek society, in which both church and state are actively involved. this struggle was given a strong impetus during the Christodoulos period because of his envisaged new public role of the church, which drew reaction from the political world of the country during and after the 2005 crisis. however, as this opposition was directed mainly against Christodoulos, it is hardly plausible that this crisis will have a lasting impact on the church’s image and prestige. to be sure, many believers were disillusioned and became more critical of the church in the aftermath of the crisis, some even publicly expressing their views.7 yet, more importantly, this crisis acted as a catalyst for speeding up the modernization of the church in several domains. despite its temporarily negative effects, the 2005 crisis has thus given the church the opportunity to expedite significant changes and gradually reform its overall structure.

7 an interesting example is the protest letter addressed to Christodoulos in 2006 by a retired merchant named dimitrios sakalak. sakalak was annoyed by the fact that the archbishop had spent a few days vacation in a luxury four seasons hotel in Paris and that the costs of his stay were borne by an unknown family acquainted with him. Christodoulos’ answer downplayed the importance of his trip and vacation, and attacked all who had designs against him and were looking everywhere for alleged scandals in order to harm him personally. the whole incident, however, was given publicity (see I Kathimerini, 18 february 2007: 29, and the sunday supplement review ‘k’ of the newspaper I Kathimerini, issue 198, 18 march 2007: 42–6) and indicates that discussion of scandal in connection with the church continued even when the 2005 crisis was over. see also a lengthy report by nefeli katakouzinou about the ‘sacred lifestyle’ of Christodoulos in the athens weekly newspaper Proto Thema, 22 April 2007: 50–51. In fact, for the fierce adversaries of Christodoulos there was no chance at all of reconciliation with him, and they continued to look for things that could make his life more difficult and, if possible, force him to resign. As a result, related articles were regularly published in those newspapers that generally maintained a critical stance towards the archbishop and his policies (one article concerned expensive pilgrimage cruises organized by the church and supported financially by the state, see To Vima tis Kyriakis, 15 april 2007: a4).

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References alivizatos, nicos C. 1999. ‘a new role for the Greek Church?’ Journal of Modern Greek Studies 17 (1): 23–40. ——. 2006. ‘mia ellada anoichti ston kosmo tis neoterikotitas’ (a Greece Open to the World of modernity), To Vima tis Kyriakis, 29 January, pp. a25–6. ‘athens Welcomes Greece’s euro 2004 Champions in splendid Ceremony’. 2004. retrieved 1 november 2008 at http://www.btinternet.com/~argyros.argyrou/ euro2004.htm basdekis, athanasios. 1977. ‘between Partnership and separation: relations between Church and state under the Constitution of 9 June 1975’, Ecumenical Review 29: 52–61. Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: university of Chicago Press. ——. 1996. ‘Chancen und Gefahren öffentlicher religion. Ost- und Westeuropa im Vergleich’. in Das Europa der Religionen. Ein Kontinent zwischen Säkularisierung und Fundamentalismus, ed. O. kallscheuer. frankfurt am main: fischer, pp. 181–210. ——. 2003. ‘beyond european and american exceptionalism: towards a Global Perspective’. in Predicting Religion, ed. G. davie, P. heelas and l. Woodhead. aldershot: ashgate, pp. 17–29. Charisis, apostolis. 2005. Thriskeia kai Politiki stin Ellada (Religion and Politics in Greece). athens: synchroni epochi. Christodoulos, archbishop of athens and all Greece. 2005. ‘interview: “notre eglise a été pendant vingt siècles le levain du peuple grec.” un entretien avec l’archevêque Christodoulos d’athènes’, Service de Presse Orthodoxe 296: 19–23. Clogg, richard, ed. 2002. Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society. london: hurst and Co. davie, Grace. 2002. Europe: The Exceptional Case. Parameters of Faith in the Modern World. london: darton, longman and todd. ——. 2006. ‘religion in europe in the 21st Century: the factors to take into account’, Archives Européennes de Sociologie 47: 271–96. demertzis, nicolas. 2000/2001. ‘i ethno-thriskeftiki kai epikoinoniaki ekkosmikefsi tis Orthodoxias’ (the ethno-religious and Communicative secularization of Orthodoxy), Epistimi kai Koinonia 5/6: 83–101. ——. 2002. ‘religion Online: the digital secularization of the Greek Orthodox Church.’ retrieved november 2008 at http://www.media.uoa.gr/people/ demertzis/papers/articles/docs/2002/religion_online.php dépret, isabelle. 2005. ‘l’eglise orthodoxe de Grèce et le “combat” des cartes d’identité (2000–2001)’, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 131/132: 27–46.

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makrides, Vasilios n. and lina molokotos-liederman. 2004. ‘introduction. l’Orthodoxie dans la Grèce contemporaine/Orthodoxy in Greece today’, Social Compass 51: 459–70. margaritis, yiorgos. 2005. Anepithymitoi Sympatriotes: Stoicheia gia tin Katastrofi ton Meionotiton tis Elladas (Unwelcome Compatriots: Data Regarding the Destruction of Minorities of Greece). athens: Vivliorama. Papastathis, Charalambos k. and Grigorios d. Papathomas, eds. 2006. Politeia, Orthodoxi Ekklisia kai Thriskefmata stin Ellada (State, Orthodox Church and Religions in Greece). katerini: epektasi. Printzipas, yiorgos th. 2004. Oi megales Kriseis stin Ekklisia: Pente Stathmoi stis Scheseis tis Ekklisias tis Ellados kai tou Oikoumenikou Patriarcheiou (The Major Crises in the Church: Five Landmarks in the Relations between the Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate). athens: Proskinio. roudometof, Victor. 2005. ‘Orthodoxy as Public religion in Post-1989 Greece’. in Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twenty-First Century, ed. V. roudometof, a. agadjanian and J. Pankhurst. Walnut Creek, Calif.: alta mira Press, pp. 84–108. ——. 2008. ‘Greek Orthodoxy, territoriality, and Globality: religious responses and institutional disputes’, Sociology of Religion 69(1): 67–91. simitis, Costas. 2005. Politiki gia mia Dimiourgiki Ellada 1996–2004 (Politics for a Creative Greece 1996–2004). athens: Polis. ——. 2007. Stochoi, Stratigiki, Prooptikes: Keimena 2000–2006 (Goals, Strategy, Prospects: Texts 2000–2006). athens: Polis. stark, rodney and William sims bainbridge. [1987] 1996. A Theory of Religion. new brunswick, nJ: rutgers university Press. stark, rodney and roger finke. 2000. Acts of Faith. berkeley: university of California Press. ‘to allo prosopo tis ekklisias’. 2006. To Vima tis Kyriakis, 26 november 2006, pp. b59–61. Valakou-theodoroudi, malamati. 2003. Politikes kai Syntagmatikes Ptyches tou Kathestotos ton Neon Choron (Political and Constitutional Aspects of the Status of the New Lands). katerini: epektasi. Vasilakis, manolis. 2006. I Mastiga tou Theou (The Scourge of God). athens: Gnoseis. Venizelos, evangelos. 2006. ‘anatheorisi scheseon kratous kai ekklisias’ (revision of state–Church relations), Eleftherotypia, 19 february. yannaras, Christos. 1999. ‘die modernisierung Griechenlands und europäische Perspektiven’, Kassandra 17: 7–16. Zoumboulakis, stavros. 2002. O Theos stin Poli. Dokimia gia ti Thriskeia kai tin Politiki (God in the City: Essays on Religion and Politics). athens: estia.

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Chapter 4

domesticating islam and muslim immigrants: Political and Church responses to Constructing a Central mosque in athens dia anagnostou and ruby Gropas

Immigration has significantly altered the demographic composition and characteristics of european societies. different waves of immigrants since the 1950s, initially as guest workers, then through family reunification schemes and, in the more recent waves of economic immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants, have increased the cultural, ethnic and religious diversity of europe (for an in-depth analysis of migration trends and characteristics in EU member-states see Triandafyllidou and Gropas 2007). The influx of rather large numbers of muslim immigrants (particularly from north africa, the wider middle east, Central asia and south east asia) over the last couple of decades, combined with the articulation of socio-political demands by second and third generation immigrants have raised a number of challenges. One of the most sensitive present challenges is the accommodation of the religious needs of europe’s growing muslim population. Inter alia this involves establishing the institutional structures that will enable its adherents to practise their religion and organize collectively. Defining the parameters of European Islam brings anew to the fore the uneasy intersection between religious and secular politics (katzenstein 2006: 31). accommodating the needs of this relatively new, rather young and rapidly growing muslim population is a new phenomenon in most european countries. in other cases where there is an autochthonous muslim population, such as in the case of Greece, it is juxtaposed with a legacy of majority–minority relations and ensuing pre-existing perceptions, structures and practices. moreover, it comes up against entrenched traditions and structures defining dominant national religions and church–state relations. in this context, this chapter focuses on the mobilization and political controversy surrounding the establishment of a mosque in the metropolitan area of athens during the last decade. It explores the influence that established relations between Orthodoxy and the Greek state weigh upon the latter, but also the fundamental ramifications of accommodating the religious needs and demands of Muslim immigrants. We argue that the active involvement of the Orthodox Church of Greece in the political debates regarding islam’s presence in the country and in

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particular the establishment of a mosque does not constitute an example of Greek exceptionalism. rather, we argue that it falls within a broader european process of redefining identity due to immigration-related diversity and of renegotiating the terms of interaction between church and state, between religious and secular spheres, and between public and private realms. in effect, immigration has presented a vast range of challenges for Greek policymakers who have been called on to formulate policies promoting socio-economic inclusion and cultural pluralism. among the normative and policy developments that merit closer attention is the response of the Greek political and religious authorities to the religious needs and claims of Greece’s muslim immigrant population in a country that is overwhelmingly Christian Orthodox. the recent immigration influx did not, of course, occasion the first encounter of contemporary Greek politics with islam. there is a long history of the autochthonous muslim population inhabiting the north-east part of Greece, a vestige of the country’s Ottoman past. Islam is officially recognized as a ‘known religion’ in the Greek Constitution (for the Constitution’s full english version, see Greek Constitution 2003). furthermore, there exists an extensive structure of mosques, religious foundations, practices and institutions that enable this historical minority of thrace, which constitutes the subject of another chapter of this volume, to practise and express its religious identity. immigrant integration encompasses a vast range of policies and challenges from reforms in the education sector, the labour markets, to housing and social policies. it also encompasses formal aspects of participation and societal cohesion and involves naturalization policies and citizenship acquisition (see brubaker 1992; Vogel 2007). at present, perhaps the most politically sensitive aspect involves the need to develop appropriate policies to respond to the muslim religious diversity in europe and the ways in which this can be expressed. this is linked to the relationship between church and state (kastoryano 2004: 1235) and is examined in the Greek context in this chapter. this chapter explores how ‘new’ islam is represented and recognized in relation to bequeathed structures and principles governing the historically symbiotic interaction between the Orthodox Church of Greece and the state. such structures and principles have framed, and frequently have constrained, the ways in which muslim immigrants have been able to organize themselves in order to practise their faith as well as the ways in which Greek state institutions have so far addressed these religious needs. The first part of this chapter places the immigration situation in Greece in the context of the current literature on immigration and religion. this is relevant for understanding the politics and political debates that have surrounded the imminent, yet still unrealized, construction of a central mosque in athens. the second part briefly depicts the inherited institutional and legal framework defining the relationship between the Greek state and the Orthodox Church of Greece. in the subsequent sections, we analyse articles from the daily and sunday press presenting the responses of the Orthodox Church of Greece regarding the, so far, suspended plan to construct an athens central mosque. We have also reviewed

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parliamentary proceedings in order to gain some insight into the political debates that took place in the Greek Parliament and the church–state dynamics that underpin these debates. On the basis of this material, we argue that the religious demands of the muslim immigrant community found themselves at the intersection of three very different, and in part contradictory, situations. first, we consider that the Greek state’s objective to regulate the institutional framework within which its new immigrant population can practise islam falls within the country’s tradition of central administration and state interventionism. this is even more accentuated in the case of religious affairs because of the legacy of policies towards the autochthonous muslim population in the north-east region of thrace and the religious structures and practices that have been in place since the treaties of lausanne between Greece and turkey. second, the debates that took place in the public sphere regarding the location and the conditions under which the mosque ought to be established were influenced by considerations relating to perceptions of threat and security. the objective, therefore, was to ensure that the Greek authorities (political and ecclesiastical) would be able to contain the political assertion of the muslim immigrant community. third, the debates that have taken place regarding the creation of a central Athens mosque presented here reflect to a large extent the political and social changes that have taken place over two decades as Greece has gradually been transformed into a de facto multicultural society. they encapsulate not only the institutional dynamics of conflict and accommodation between church and state but also the shifting manner through which Greek political and ecclesiastical authorities view and seek to manage the rights of ‘new’ religious minorities. the political and social context has significantly changed from the first law in 2000 until the promulgation of the 2006 law for the construction of a central mosque in athens. in this context, it is posited that Greece’s modernization process has also been associated with an underlying secularization trend, thereby influencing the propensity of Greek political elites and Greek society to be more open towards religious pluralism. thus, it is argued that in spite of certain nationalist or phobic reactions, the first steps towards further domesticating Islam have been made. This is the case not only on the part of the political and public spheres but also on the part of the Orthodox Church of Greece. in effect, as the following section shows, although the debates concerning the athens mosque were largely shaped by the dominance of the Orthodox Church of Greece, its role is in the process of being reconfigured.

Religion and Immigrants in Greece Immigration has transformed and diversified the composition of Greece’s demography. in the last two decades, Greece’s immigrant population has risen to approximately 10 per cent of the country’s resident population. immigrants are

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estimated at about 1.15 million people and correspond to about 12 per cent of the labour force (migration Policy institute 2004: 4; Gropas and triandafyllidou 2007). in addition to the co-ethnic returnees, such as Pontic Greeks and ethnic Greek albanians, the largest immigrant population groups are albanian, followed by bulgarians, Georgians, romanians, russians, Cypriots, Poles, Pakistanis, ukrainians and indians. Although a significant percentage of the overall immigrant population is Christian Orthodox (principally immigrants from bulgaria, romania and the former soviet union), there is a rather wide religious diversity among the immigrant population. in effect, according to the 2001 census data,1 the religious denominations are as follows: 29.5 per cent muslim, 22.4 per cent Christian Orthodox, 13.2 per cent Christian Catholic, 27.7 per cent Christian (other) and 1.8 per cent declared as atheist. thus, the muslim population is estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000, comes from various countries across the Greater middle east (mainly from Palestine, egypt and syria) and south east asia (Pakistan) and is concentrated mostly in the athens area (see marechal 2002, cited in buijs and rath 2002: 7; tsitselikis 2004: 271; triandafyllidou and Gropas 2007). similar to most other southern european countries that have also experienced immigration pressures over the same period, Greek society perceived itself as largely monocultural and monoreligious. however, this fundamental demographic change has transformed Greece into a multicultural society – a reality that has only recently, and at times rather uneasily, been gradually acknowledged (triandafyllidou and Gropas 2009). according to recent eurobarometer surveys across the eu27, although immigration and integration of foreigners do not appear to be an issue of major concern for Greeks, nonetheless they are among the europeans who hold the most negative view towards immigration (eurobarometer 2007: 45, 72). furthermore, a 2004 study on discrimination and perceptions of discrimination in Greece offers some interesting insights particularly with regard to the religious identity of immigrants and the extent to which this is accepted, tolerated or discriminated against (directly or indirectly). When immigrants of Christian Orthodox faith were asked if they faced any problems in practising their religion they replied that they faced none (marvakis, Parsanoglou and Psaroudakis 2004: 26). moving on to other nationalities and other religious affiliations, however, the situation becomes rather different. For instance, there is a wide variety in religious affiliation among albanian immigrants. about one-third of them identify themselves as Christian Orthodox (research has suggested a rather general tendency among albanians to Christianization/‘hellenization’ to facilitate integration in Greek society), one-third 1

all the data from the 2000–2001 census can be downloaded from the ‘statistical data’ section of the general website of the national statistical service of Greece at http:// www.statistics.gr/table_menu.asp?dt=0&sb=SAP_01&SSnid=%20-%20Απογραφή%20Π ληθυσμού&Dnid=%20-%20Μόνιμος,%20Πραγματικός%20και%20Νόμιμος%20Πληθυσ μός

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as muslim and a smaller percentage as atheist. however, about 40 per cent of the albanian respondents noted that they feel they cannot express their religious faith because they fear discrimination. similarly, 32 per cent of the arab respondents replied that they faced problems in exercising their religion in Greece (marvakis, Parsanoglou and Psaroudakis 2004: 37). these survey data suggest that muslim immigrants are more likely to experience some discrimination or some sort of problem in practising their religion. The most obvious problem is arguably the fact that there exists no official religious venue for muslims in athens, where non-european union immigrants are estimated at over 130,000 or 17 per cent of the city’s population (mediterranean migration Observatory 2004: 6). the need to construct a mosque to cater to the religious needs of the muslim immigrant community in athens has been long argued by diplomatic representations of arabic states and, in more recent years, by representatives of immigrant organizations. as there are no provisions for practising islam in athens, where most muslim immigrants are concentrated, several makeshift mosques have sprung up informally and are used as prayer halls by muslims from Pakistan, bangladesh, egypt and other countries (antoniou 2003: 166; tsitselikis 2004: 284–5). muslim immigrants initially gathered for prayer or other religious occasions and celebrations in private houses and apartments and have been increasingly moving towards renting accommodation (basements, storehouses, garages, small shops) on a temporary basis – generally in downgraded areas of the capital – for use as prayer halls (mescit). these places are either divided along lines of ethnicity or organized according to locality. they are essentially illegal due to the fact that the participants have not applied for and received a ‘house of prayer permit’ from the ministry of national education and religious affairs. research has shown that religion is important for new immigrants in different ways: either to provide a social space for expressing ethnic difference or as a means through which to be integrated in the host country (see levitt 2003 and yang and ebaugh 2001 for an extensive bibliography). a growing body of literature over the past couple of years shows that central factors influencing the role that religion plays for immigrants in the host country are its relative importance in the immigrant’s country of origin and the immigrant’s ties with his or her country of origin (yang and ebaugh 2001). this point may be of particular interest in the case of Greece. in effect, as noted above, over 56 per cent of the immigrant population of Greece comes from albania. Given that a large percentage of albania’s population is muslim, it would be reasonable to expect that this portion of the majority immigrant group in Greece would be the most active group in mobilizing in favour of the construction of the mosque in athens in order to provide for its religious needs. this has not been the case (triandafyllidou and Gropas 2009). On the contrary, the muslim albanian population has been among the least vocal in these claims. immigrants from various arab countries (egypt, syria, Palestine) and particularly the Pakistani community (which totals 1.4 per cent of the total immigrant population) have clearly taken the lead. drawing from

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yang and ebaugh’s research, this could be explained in part by the marginal role that religion holds in Albania, in contrast to its strong influence in most Arabic countries and Pakistan. initiatives to establish a european islam in immigrant countries are no doubt influenced by transnational contacts and practices of immigrants (Levitt 2003). the politics of transnational diasporas that grow out of these in the host countries is strongly and variably influenced by the different ethnic and social backgrounds of immigrant communities (katzenstein 2006: 13). notwithstanding the salience of transnational religious ties, though, the analysis of this chapter focuses on how host states respond to islam, and the institutional structures through which they seek to accommodate immigrants’ demands. Certainly, host states they set the parameters that encourage, or conversely discourage, the organization and formation of collective immigrant identities. for example, in the case of Germany, it has been argued that the prevalence of radical islam is closely linked to the monopolistic politics of corporatist representation that the German state imposes on its non-Christian immigrant communities (tibi 2006). in other countries as well, the nature of institutional representation has been crucial because it can potentially nurture and cement particular kinds of collective identity (kastoryano 2004: 1249).

The Institutional and Legal Framework of Religious Affairs in Greece the Greek constitutional recognition of the eastern Orthodox Church of Christ (see Greek Constitution, 2003, article 3) as the prevailing religion in Greece sets the overarching legal framework defining relations between church and state. Freedom of worship and religious freedom in general is specifically protected for all ‘known religions’, as defined by Article 13 of the Greek Constitution. ‘Known religions’ according to the Council of state decisions 721/1969 and 1444/1991 refers to religions whose worship is not against the public order or morals and where there is no exercise of proselytism. religions recognized as ‘known’ have the right to perform their rites of worship freely and under the protection of the law, and their ministers are subject to the same supervision by the state and to the same obligations towards it as those of the prevailing religion. the recognition of the Orthodox faith as the prevailing religion in Greece does not per se compromise religious pluralism. it does not make the Orthodox faith the official religion of the state, nor does it, in principle, violate any of the rights protected by the european Convention of human rights. it can be equated to a formal declaration that the vast majority of the population of the Greek state is affiliated with the Orthodox Church of Greece. This privileged positioning, however, reflects the fundamentally symbiotic and thoroughly interweaving relationship between church and state in Greece and constitutes a vestige of the past. It reflects historical processes, during the fight for independence from the Ottoman empire and the subsequent phases of nation-state building, whereby the

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Greek state made the Orthodox Church an integral part of the country’s national development (koliopoulos and Veremis 2002: 141–51, 162–3). religion (eastern Orthodox Christianity), followed by language, was one of the two principal defining criteria of Greek national identity during the struggle for independence.2 this influenced the creation of the modern state and the institutional approach towards the way ‘other’ religions can be practised in Greece. in recent decades, however, this has been at the centre of growing controversy and unease, not only with regard to the way Orthodoxy is defined as being tantamount to Greek national identity, but also with regard to the rights and freedoms of other religious minorities. the Orthodox Church of Greece is a legal entity incorporated under public law. for all other religious communities to be established, however, they have to be recognized as private law entities and abide by laws that are relevant to associations as included in the Civil Code (see konidaris 2003: 224). moreover, regarding the establishment of non-Orthodox religious venues, law 1361/1938 and its amendment 1672/1939 stipulate that this is subject to a permit issued by the ministry of national education and religious affairs. this government permit is issued following an opinion provided by the Orthodox Church of Greece. it also requires an application lodged by 50 families from the wider neighbourhood and living at a distance from a temple of the same denomination that makes it difficult for them to observe their religious duties. This restrictive framework and the way it has been managed by Greek authorities has been criticized by the european Court of human rights and has provoked reactions among religious minority groups. a number of cases brought to the european Court primarily (but not only) by Jehovah’s Witnesses during the 1990s brought attention to the fact that it allows unwarranted interference by administrative and ecclesiastical authorities with religious freedom (see ktistakis 2003: 276–7; Psychogiopoulou 2008). in about 20 unfavourable judgments against Greece, a variety of legal and administrative aspects of Greece’s regulation of the religious activity of nonOrthodox believers were found to infringe european Court provisions of religious freedom and conscience (anagnostou and Psychogiopoulou 2008).3 While Council of state case law in Greece circumscribes ministerial discretion and reduces the role of the Greek Orthodox bishop to that of consultation, the administration and the executive retain the discretion to review the necessity for establishing a place of worship (stavros 1995). 2

the heteroglossoi (those speaking a non-Greek language) did not constitute a problem in becoming assimilated in the Greek nation and incorporated into the Greek state. the main insecurity was felt by the heterothriskoi (those adhering to a religion other than Orthodox Christianity). though Jews, muslim turks and albanians were not discriminated against and were allowed to freely exercise their religion, they were clearly differentiated because it was considered that they had not fought for the country’s freedom (koliopoulos and Veremis 2002: 252). 3 see, among others, the seminal cases of Kokkinakis v. Greece (14307/88), 25 may 1993 and Manoussakis and Others v. Greece (18748/91), 26 september 1996.

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the restrictive non-Orthodox faiths framework described above does not apply to the autochthonous muslim community of thrace. the latter’s management of religious affairs is exclusively defined in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty’s bilateral (Greek–turkish) section on the protection of minorities. despite the preservation of islamic law as a local system of religious autonomy throughout this century, however, relations between the muslims of thrace and the Greek state have been strained over the last 15 years. among the main causes of friction has been the fact that Greek state authorities consider it their exclusive competence to appoint the muftis and oppose the demand for the community to select its own religious leaders (tsitselikis 1999). in recent years, the processes of modernization and ‘europeanization’ have influenced religious politics regarding the privileged position of the Orthodox Church of Greece. both have been connected with a trend of secularization among segments of Greek society, particularly when compared to the situation four or five decades ago. There is a decrease in church attendance, less tolerance towards official statements from the church on civil and political matters and, in principle, a consensus on the need to further disentangle the church from the state. this translates into an increasingly vocal debate across the political spectrum on the need to formally distinguish and detach the religious and public spheres, and to disengage state policies from the church’s influence. this does not, however, suggest that religion has become irrelevant or insignificant. Religion continues to maintain a strong presence in everyday life, and this remains uncontested by the majority. in fact, compared to certain other european union member states, Greece sits on the more religious side of the axis. indeed, eurobarometer surveys show that Greeks consider that religion rightly holds an important place in society to a much greater degree in comparison to other europeans.4 the survival of religion in Greece can be seen to underscore in a more visible manner a broader european reality in spite of the alienation of society from organized churches (berger 1999: 10). a clear manifestation of this in the Greek case is the widespread reaction to the government decision in 2000 to remove a reference to religious affiliation from police identity cards. Not only was this opposed by 46 per cent of Greek public opinion, but 3 million Greeks signed a petition (mobilized by the Orthodox Church of Greece) against it (see robinson 2005). religion, however, is important not only for the majority, native population. it is equally important for much of Greece’s new residents – its immigrant population. the increased religious diversity present in Greece today is propelling transformations in the field of religious politics regarding the rights and freedoms of non-Orthodox communities as well as the role of the state in managing the latter. at the same time, demands advanced by muslim immigrants fuel renewed assertion 4 When asked whether they consider that the place religion holds in today’s society is too important, 66 per cent of Greeks disagreed, ranking among the highest in the european union where the average lies around 48 per cent (eurobarometer 2006: 40).

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and salience of religious affinities on the part of the Greek Orthodox majority in reaction. against this background, in the next section we provide a sequence of events and an overview of the positions put forward by the different actors during the debate on whether and where to construct the mosque in athens.

The Long Road and Failed Attempts to establish a Central Mosque in Athens the establishment of a central mosque in the Greek capital is not a new issue, and the first efforts to set it up go back over two decades. In February 1979, during an official visit, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia discussed with the late Prime minister Constantine karamanlis the possibility of establishing a central mosque in athens but the project did not materialize. a decade later, in the early 1990s, a mosque was set up on the premises of a luxury hotel in the city centre of athens to serve the devotional needs of muslim businessmen from the middle east, mainly kuwait, saudi arabia and lebanon, who had moved to the Greek capital during the Gulf War. as the management of the hotel changed in the mid-1990s and most of these muslims moved to other european countries, the mosque eventually stopped functioning, leaving no formal or semiformal structure in its place. the need to construct a mosque to cater to the religious needs of the muslim immigrant community in athens has been long argued by diplomatic representations of arabic states and, in more recent years, by representatives of immigrant organizations. Over the last 15 years, successive governments of both the PasOk and the new democracy (nd) parties have tried to negotiate a solution but to no avail. they have either stumbled over legal hurdles (principally on the basis of law 1672/1939) or failed to achieve the acceptance of local bishops of the Orthodox Church of Greece to construct the mosque within their constituency.5 at the end of the 1990s, a new opportunity presented itself due to broader changes that had occurred within Greece. Greece was dynamically entering a new phase of its modernization and democratic consolidation; it was preparing to join the euro-zone and was working towards the athens 2004 Olympic Games. the country’s economic and infrastructural development was booming and offered opportunities to a growing immigrant population that was settling in Greece. yet in this period of economic prosperity and general optimism regarding the country’s security and development, there continued to be certain political issues, particularly regarding religious freedoms, that challenged Greece’s democratic image on the european and international scene (see, for instance, the ‘reports

5

deputy minister of foreign affairs Virginia tsouderou was unable to establish a mosque during Constantine mitsotakis’ government, as were theodore Pangalos and George Papandreou as ministers of foreign affairs of the PasOk governments and Petros Molyviatis during Constantine Karamanlis’ first term.

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on international religious freedom’ on Greece issued by the u.s. department of state for the last six years). the absence of a mosque for the confessional needs of the immigrant population living in athens provoked considerable criticism and led to a response on the part of the socialist government. in effect, the government decided that a new image of a modern, european, ‘multicultural’ athens had to be projected and, in practical terms, this required the establishment of a mosque in the capital city. George Papandreou, former minister of foreign affairs, declared that the mosque would be built ‘in the spirit of the multi-cultural democratic europe of which Greece is a part’ (smith 2003), and a relevant bill was submitted to Parliament. the draft bill proposed the construction of a mosque and a cultural centre – as a place of worship, study and information – in Peania, which is a suburban area of athens about 20 km east of the centre (Greek Parliament 30 June 2000). the opposition, however, virtually in unison, expressed serious objections to the project. their objections were directed not so much against the proposal to construct a mosque, but rather at the government’s approach to the issue. the main disagreement of the opposition party, nd, was twofold. first, the party disagreed with the government’s intention to establish the mosque in the town of Peania, arguing that there had been no prior study on the suitability of the proposed area for the needs of the muslims living in athens. second, it strongly criticized the government for incorporating the draft law on the mosque and the islamic cultural centre into legislation involving the 2004 Olympic Games in athens. the minister of Culture presented the construction of a mosque as a necessity for the muslim athletes who would take part in the Olympic Games – essentially as a formal requirement rather than a response to the needs of the capital’s changing population. the opposition’s representatives rejected this explanation considering it simply ‘absurd’, given that the distance between the Olympic Village – where the athletes would stay – and the mosque’s proposed location was considerable. hence, the mosque would have been too far away for the athletes to use it, particularly as a religious centre was be constructed anyway within the Olympic Village (‘hide that minaret’ 2003). in effect, the argument presented by the government appeared to be unfounded. it could thus be argued that it considered the wider public would more easily accept the construction of a central mosque in the athens area if it were presented as part of the Olympic Games’ preparations, given the symbolic importance these Games had acquired for the Greek public. With regard to the position of the other two political parties represented in the hellenic Parliament, the Greek Communist Party (kke) and the Coalition of the left and Progress (synasPismOs/syriZa), they considered the construction of a central mosque to be necessary and suggested the central area of Gazi – rather than Peania – as a possible location for its establishment (Greek Parliament 15 June 2000). Gazi is a neighbourhood that has long attracted muslim immigrants from Western thrace and more recently muslim immigrants from the middle east and south east asia due to the cheap housing available. the high concentration of

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muslim residents in this area, and its central location made it a more appropriate place for the establishment of a central mosque according to the mPs of kke and synasPismOs/syriZa. in spite of these objections of both the left and the right parties, on 30 June 2000 the ruling socialist government approved the building of the first largescale mosque and islamic cultural centre for the needs of the capital’s muslims with article seven of the law on ‘issues of Preparation of the Olympic Games 2004 and Other arrangements’ (law 2833 2000). this article was, however, never implemented and the mosque was not built. six years later, in 2006, the nd government announced that a mosque was to be built in the centre of athens and not in Peania as originally planned. yet this plan too, almost three years later, remains unrealized. a study of the parliamentary proceedings and the press indicates that across the political spectrum there was, in principle, a consensus about the necessity to establish a mosque in the athens metropolitan area, but this consensus was still rather uneasy. nonetheless, the objections expressed – formally at least – were with regard to the appropriateness of the location. indeed, Peania would not be able to adequately serve the confessional needs of athens’ muslim residents. The selection of this more remote location confirms the uneasiness among the political elite about the most suited course of action. it suggests that the government considered that, politically and symbolically, it would have been easier for the majority population to accept a mosque on the outskirts rather than in the centre of Athens where its presence would have been significantly more visible. this indicates that the new and growing presence of islam was still a rather sensitive subject within public opinion and that the political elites were still unsure of how best to accommodate this need. in the section below we explore the church’s politics regarding the establishment of the mosque and the new muslim presence, given its influence over the majority public opinion and its role in the policy process.

The Orthodox Church of Greece and the Production of uncertainty in seeking to explain why this central mosque has not yet been built in the Greek capital, a reading of the printed press implicitly refers to the Orthodox Church of Greece, even though no specific reference was made to it during the Parliamentary debates by the mPs. the Orthodox Church of Greece tends to be perceived as an actor that expresses positions of defensive nationalism and one that opposes the secularization of Greek society. discerning the church’s position regarding the issue of the mosque is not an easy task, not the least of which is because of the diversity in the statements made by different representatives of the Orthodox Church of Greece. the press quickly pointed out the multiplicity and ambivalence of positions expressed at different levels of hierarchy. the late archbishop Christodoulos usually maintained the

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official discourse in support of the mosque’s establishment, while several bishops and local priests expressed disagreement on the basis of various reasons (Gropas and triandafyllidou 2007). In effect, amongst the first to react to the government’s intention to establish a mosque in Peania was the local bishop, agathonikos of mesogaia and lavreotiki. agathonikos declared his strong disagreement with the idea of constructing a central mosque with an islamic Cultural Centre within his territory, and vociferously warned the local citizens of the oncoming ‘danger’ (mantas 2000). such reactions drew the attention of the local, national and international media as well as of several nGOs, and led the european Commissioner for human rights, alvaro Gil-robles (2002), to raise the issue of religious freedom during the course of his visit to athens and his meeting with archbishop Christodoulos. the archbishop clarified that the Orthodox Church of Greece was not opposed to the construction of a mosque in Peania but that local sensitivities had to be taken into consideration. The reader can find a more detailed treatment of the local politics in Chapter 7. he explained that emotional reactions from the local actors against this mosque were provoked by the history of islam in Greece and the country’s 400-year-long subjugation to the Ottoman turks (tsatsis 2006), and, therefore, a discreet mosque in a distant suburban region was probably the most appropriate solution. this line of reasoning appears, thus, to have been in tandem with the position of the ruling party. two years later, the holy synod of the Orthodox Church voted in favour of the establishment of a mosque in Peania. in formal terms, this decision was an important one; however, it did not put an end to the clergy’s objections to the project. Quite the contrary, a significant proportion of church officials continued to express their opposition to the project and in their public statements frequently associated muslim and islam in general with past Ottoman oppression and problematic Greco-turkish relations. thus, at the turn of the century, both the political and the ecclesiastical elites of Greece had, in principle, acknowledged and accepted the multi-religious and multicultural reality that characterized contemporary Greek society mainly as a result of its economic modernization and the ensuing immigration. however, they remained apprehensive on how to respond to the real and legitimate needs of the new and growing muslim population residing in the country.

Recasting the Politics of Religion and Religious Freedom: statist or Pluralist? the vacillation between impetuous opposition to and uneasy reception of the project to construct a central mosque in athens, expressed among the religious and political leadership in 2000, had significantly dissipated when a new bill was discussed and passed by Parliament in 2006. unlike the debate that took place in the presentation of the first bill, the parliamentary debate in 2006 was characterized

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by thorough cross-party consensus on the need to concretely proceed with the construction of the mosque. the parliamentary debate, as recorded in the proceedings, reads almost as a competition between the political parties – from the two left-wing parties (kke and syriZa), to the centre-right nd government and the centre-left opposition of PasOk – on which is the most sincere and committed supporter of multiculturalism. mr Vasiliou, the nd government representative who introduced the bill, appealed to respect for religious differences as a value to be upheld, and condemned xenophobia, stating, ‘let’s not fool ourselves – we are a multinational, if i may say so, society’ (Greek Parliament 7 november 2006: 880). furthermore, he conceded that immigration in Greece is a de facto reality; he argued, however, that it is equally a largely desirable and economically expedient phenomenon. this time the parliamentary debate revolved around the kind of institutional framework that should be put in place to define the functioning of the Athens mosque. Controversy centred on whether and the extent to which the state should exclusively control and manage the mosque, as opposed to involving the participation of muslim communities. articles 5 and 6 of the bill became the focus of contention as they stipulated that the mosque was to be managed by a seven-member management board presided over by the General director of the ministry of national education and Religious Affairs (MNERA). Comprising Ministry officials and two members from officially ‘recognized and representative’ associations of Muslims in the greater athens area, this board would be responsible for appointing the imam of the mosque and exercising administrative and financial control. PasOk deputies criticized the bill for being blind to pluralism in so far as it homogenized and therefore overlooked significant internal differences (dogmatic, national, sectarian, linguistic and so on) among the muslim population living in athens. the opposition party accused the government of failing to consult with representatives from the various muslim associations of athens and for reserving full discretion for itself to decide which ones among the latter it considers representative and thus appropriate to participate in the management board. mP evangelos Venizelos, on behalf of PasOk, claimed that the controversial articles 5 and 6 of the bill could be in violation of the spirit of article 13 of the Greek Constitution and of the european Court of human rights. he considered the status of the planned mosque particularly problematic as an institution of the Greek state, managed by a predominantly Christian board of state administrators and with an imam appointed by the mnera. in this context, mr Venizelos was especially careful in differentiating his concerns with the proposal to centrally appoint the imam from the state’s appointment of the mufti of thrace. the latter, as he implied, is rightly a prerogative of the state because the status of the Thrace mufti is defined by the special conditions of the lausanne treaty. in contrast, ‘We have here [in the athens mosque] an imam who has an exclusively religious role and not judicial, administrative and other state-related competences. this imam has nothing to do with the mufti of rhodope or xanthi’ (Greek Parliament 7 november 2006: 886).

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the opposition’s criticisms of this statist approach were evidently informed by the conflict of the Greek state with the ‘old’ historical community of Muslims in thrace and some relevant european Court of human rights judgments (see Psychogiopoulou 2008).6 Case law of the latter has found problematic and ‘unnecessary for a democratic society’ the traditional statist and centralized approach of Greek governments in prohibiting individuals other than the stateappointed muftis from acting as religious leaders of thrace’s muslims. although carefully delimiting such contentious issues with the ‘old’ islam as distinct and separate, the parliamentary debate over the ‘new’ islam was underscored by competing conceptions of state-controlled religious leadership and organizational structures versus pluralist ways of accommodating the rights of muslim immigrants. furthermore, in the representatives’ disagreement over whether the state should appoint the management board of the planned mosque, a main undercurrent was a broader and more fundamental contesting of the intimate relations between the Orthodox Church of Greece on the one hand and the Greek state on the other. in sharply criticizing the restrictive legislation regarding the establishment of non-Orthodox places of worship, as well as the state interventionism characterizing the bill of the athens mosque, deputies of leftist parties (kke, syriZa) attributed the latter to the persisting interdependence between Orthodox religion and the state in Greece. Their view as such pointed to a powerful underlying influence arguably exercised by the Orthodox Church of Greece as a result of its tight intermeshing with the state. it furthermore implicitly referred to the structural-institutional predisposition of Greek state authorities to centrally manage and administratively control religious communities instead of allowing for self-management (Greek Parliament 7 november 2006: 883–5). leftist deputies saw the state interventionism regarding the planned mosque as a reproduction of the tight interdependence of the Greek state with the Orthodox Church of Greece and sharply criticized both, demanding a definitive separation of the state from religious affairs. As if the government had been indirectly charged with succumbing to pressures from the Orthodox Church of Greece, some of nd deputies were quick to point out that archbishop Christodoulos had agreed with the plan to construct an athens mosque and they praised the Orthodox Church of Greece for its purported progressiveness in giving its official approval for it (Greek Parliament 7 November 2006: 891–3). in setting the record straight, the minister of national education and religious affairs, ms Giannakou, defended the government’s state-led approach on pragmatic grounds. She affirmed its determination to provide for ‘objective management’ and to secure the necessary preconditions for the use of the mosque by muslims living in the greater athens area (Greek Parliament 7 november 2006: 895–6). Ms Giannakou clarified that the planned mosque was to be a property of the Greek state. she dispelled the charge that the government had failed to consult representatives of the muslim communities and claimed that it had actually 6 the relevant cases are Serif v. Greece (38178/97), 14 december 1999 and Agga v. Greece (37439/97), 25 January 2000.

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opened an ongoing dialogue with them. Significantly, in assuring Parliament that the Orthodox Church of Greece was not aspiring to meddle with the new mosque issue, ms Giannakou pointed to the fact that for this reason the government had revised the provision that applications for constructing non-Orthodox places of worship required the local bishop’s consent. In sum, the centre-right government’s position exemplified a pragmatic approach to the need for a muslim place of worship in the light of long-standing and ongoing disagreements and reservations on the part of local society and segments of the Orthodox Church of Greece. at the same time, it must be noted that although pressures (more or less discreet and visible) emanating from the church had contributed to stalling earlier initiatives to create an athens mosque, there is little evidence that the church attempted to oppose the 2006 bill. this, in principle, positive disposition on the part of the Orthodox Church of Greece, in contrast to the respective debate in 2000, facilitated the government in presenting the bill in Parliament and avoided controversial reactions in the public sphere.

Conclusions in several european union countries, islam increasingly represents a unifying identity among muslim immigrants for organizing and asserting their interests collectively. this is observed irrespective of differentiated and fragmented religious denominations, national identities and social backgrounds (kastoryano 2004: 1251–2). the various ways in which european governments are responding to the religious claims and needs of muslim immigrants is closely linked to different approaches of organizing religious diversity, its relationship to the state and different conceptions of separation between church and state prevailing in each country (kastoryano 2004: 1242). in france and Germany, for example, officially recognizing Islam through the creation of representative institutions of muslims has come up against the neutrality of the state regarding religion as well as the clear demarcation between the religious and secular spheres. in france, state initiatives to create representative Islamic institutions have come into conflict with the fundamental principle of laicité. in the case of Germany, public recognition of muslim organizations has been less problematic due to earlier involvement of religious and church institutions in providing assistance and facilitating assimilation of immigrants (kastoryano 2004: 1245–8). although in other european countries it is the neutrality of the state that poses problems in government attempts to grant public recognition of and presence to islam, in Greece it is the inherent partiality of the state regarding religion that is the source of contradictions. nonetheless, the presentation and discussion of the political debate and the position of the Orthodox Church of Greece surrounding the plan to construct an athens mosque suggest notable evolution and change. it is evidenced as much in the position of the political and religious actors, both within and between church and state, as in the underlying dynamics shaping the traditionally intricate

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intermeshing between the two. such a change has been part of a process that did not start with the issue of the athens mosque. instead, it has been underway since the country’s democratization in 1974, slowly reconfiguring, rather than reproducing, the historically entrenched symbiosis between religion and politics. intellectual and political discourse in Greece has focused its criticisms mainly on the constitutionally guaranteed position of the Orthodox Church of Greece and demanded its legal separation from the state as a means of pre-empting its interference with political matters. emboldened declarations and initiatives to separate the church from the state, however, have often concluded with pragmatic compromises in fear of alienating potential supporters and voters (stavrakakis 2003: 154). as has been rightly noted, legal separation would not necessarily prevent the church’s politicization, because its relations with the state are complex and multifaceted, rooted in long-standing institutional structures, social relations and vital political interests (stavrakakis 2003: 161–2). in bringing political and ecclesiastical authorities up against the challenge of multiculturalism, the issue of constructing a central mosque in athens attests to a notable reconfiguration of church–state relations already observed by other scholars. downplaying its initial opposition to the mosque project, by 2006 the church’s leadership had shifted to a position of acceptance, even if on ambivalent and conditional grounds. Whether a response to diminished political influence or to a perceived need to engage other religious and secular actors in civil society, such a shift attests to the fact that those Orthodox leaders have been actively renegotiating and redefining the role of the church in Greek society (Prodromou 2004b: 69). In effect, the Orthodox Church of Greece has branched out and engaged with the immigrant community, adopting an increasingly multiculturalist discourse and promoting interfaith dialogue and understanding (see evangelia 2007). at the same time, Greek governments have increasingly appeared prepared to confront and gradually challenge the accommodationist pattern defining church– state relations after 1974 and have adopted a strategy of competitive engagement with the Orthodox Church of Greece (Prodromou 2004a: 473). far from a clash between modernity and tradition, such dynamics of conflict and accommodation are intrinsic to negotiating the realities of the multicultural pluralism of Greece’s recently constituted immigrant society (Prodromou 2004a: 472). in this context, both political and ecclesiastical elites have increasingly engaged in a similar multicultural rhetoric. this is the result of a number of endogenous and exogenous factors. most importantly, Greece’s wider europeanization and modernization process – the current post 9/11 international context whereby attention has been focused on finding ways to promote interreligious dialogue and constructively address the challenges of multicultural diversity and the necessity to formulate appropriate policies in response to concrete and legitimate needs of the country’s diverse population – has created the conditions for the political and ecclesiastical elites to focus on addressing this pending issue that has been controversial for Greece’s image as a tolerant, multicultural and democratic society.

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the decision reached with the latest law to establish a central athens mosque and a council responsible for managing it will grant a degree of representation to the capital’s new muslim population. however, this will be under the aegis and control of Greek authorities and the central state. this statist approach of the government is based on a familiar model of managing religious affairs in Greece: state authorities have inherited a tendency and aptitude for it through long-standing interference in and historical symbiosis with the religious sphere. in the light of the various reactions to the mosque project, it also represents a pragmatic response to the challenge of multiculturalism and the need to accommodate migration-related diversity (Gropas and triandafyllidou 2007). at the same time, representatives from across the political spectrum questioned this state-led approach. the extent to which this was not done along partisan lines is notable. a number of mPs advocated the need to promote more pluralistic structures of islamic religious practice and organization, premised on the participation of immigrant associations and communities. this could, of course, be more inclusive and possibly sustainable; however, it presupposes the existence and mobilization of well-organized and active muslim religious and civil society associations. in any case, the controversial process to establish a central mosque in athens, which has defined government initiatives over the last few years, is only the beginning of a longer-term challenge to domesticate islam in Greece. it is a challenge to achieve a transition from ‘Islam in Greece’ to an ‘Islam of Greece’, defined not only by the presence of Muslims in the country, but by affinity with Islam that will express itself and grow within the framework of Greek national institutions. nationalist reactions that perceive the institutionalization of the muslim presence in athens as potentially threatening were limited to certain actors and contained in the official public discourse of both state and church officials. undoubtedly, the country’s democratic consolidation and domestic political change is an important factor that explains this evolution. Over the past 10 to 15 years, the european human rights norms, particularly as interpreted and elaborated by the judgments of the european Court of human rights, have also proved catalytic in this respect. advocating pluralism and criticizing a statist approach to managing religious differences in Greece, they are framed through references to Greece’s democratic and european nature as well as to the democratic rights and freedoms of immigrant newcomers. to be sure, though, such views are strictly advanced in relation to the ‘new’ islam of immigrant communities, while they steer clear of any references to the ‘old’ islam pertaining to the muslim population of thrace. the religious rights and freedoms of the latter have been managed through the prism of inter-state relations and Greek–turkish antagonism. accommodating religious pluralism does not disrupt or affect the existing social order in a secularized system (machacek 2003: 152). the latter does not mean that religion does not continue to be important to the individual. however, a secularized system entails the structural and functional differentiation of religion from other institutions. it also involves the emergence of religion as a distinct institutional sector in which religious consensus is not needed for the proper functioning of

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other institutional settings (machacek 2003: 153). it would also be relevant to add here that religious consensus would also not be needed for the proper functioning of other religious institutions/religions. such a secularized system does not exist in Greece. however, a process of acknowledging the diversity that characterizes contemporary Greek society is underway. The affirmation of religious pluralism, even if confined to the level of official rhetoric, is a reality that comes hand in hand with Greece’s current understanding of democratic governance, respect and tolerance for difference, human rights and freedoms.

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katzenstein, Peter J. 2006. ‘multiple modernities as limits to secular europeanisation?’ in Religion in an Expanding Europe, ed. t. a. byrnes and P. J. katzenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, pp. 1–33. koliopoulos, John and thanos Veremis. 2002. Greece: The Modern Sequel. From 1831 to the Present. london: hurst & Company. konidaris, ioannis m. 2003. ‘the legal Parameters of Church and state relations in Greece’. in Greece in the Twentieth Century, ed. t. Couloumbis, t. kariotis and P. bellou. london: frank Cass, pp. 223–35. ktistakis, yannis. 2003. ‘thriskeftikes meionotites – i plimelis simmorfosi me tis apofaseis tou strasvourgou’ (religious minorities – defective Compliance with strasbourg decisions), To Syntagma (2): 273–80. ‘law no. 2833. issues of Preparation of the Olympic Games 2004 and Other arrangements’. 2000. Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic, fek 150, 30 June. Retrieved 26 January 2009 at http://www.hch.culture.gr/files/nomos3.pdf. levitt, Peggy. 2003. ‘you know abraham was really the first immigrant: religion and transnational migration’, International Migration Review 37(3): 847–73. machacek, david W. 2003. ‘the Problem of Pluralism’, Sociology of Religion 64: 145–61. mantas, m. 2000. ‘Gia to mousoulmaniko temenos tis Peanias’ (On the mosque of Peania), Politis ton Mesogeion, march, p. 1. marechal, b. 2002. A Guidebook on Islam and Muslims in the Wide Contemporary Europe. louvain-la-neuve: academia bruylant. marvakis, athanasios, dimitrios Parsanoglou and stavros Psaroudakis. 2004. Migrants’ Experiences of Discrimination in Greece. antigone, brussels: european monitoring Centre on racism and xenophobia. mediterranean migration Observatory. 2004. Statistical Data on Immigrants in Greece: An Analytical Study on Available Data and Recommendations for Conformity with European Union Standards. athens: migration Policy institute (imePO). retrieved 26 January 2009 at http://www.imepo.gr/documents/ imePO_final_report_15nov2004minus_typos_001.pdf Papoutsaki, maria. 2006. ‘i “machi” tou minaret’ (the ‘battle’ of the minaret), Eleftherotypia, 2 april. retrieved 26 January 2009 at http://www.enet.gr/ online/online Prodromou, elizabeth h. 2004a. ‘negotiating Pluralism and specifying modernity in Greece: reading Church–state relations in the Christodoulos Period’, Social Compass 51(4): 471–85. ——. 2004b. ‘the ambivalent Orthodox’, Journal of Democracy 15(2): 62–75. Psychogiopoulou, evangelia. 2008. ‘strasbourg Court Jurisprudence and human rights in Greece’. Juristas project report. retrieved 23 January 2009 at http://www.juristras.eliamep.gr/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/greece.pdf robinson, b. a. 2005. ‘Greek Orthodox Church and identity Cards’. kingston, On, Canada: religious tolerance.org. retrieved 23 January 2009 at http:// www.religioustolerance.org/chr_orthi.htm

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smith, helen. 2003. ‘Villagers try to block athens mosque Plan’. Guardian, 16 september. retrieved 26 January 2009 at http://www.enet.gr/online/online ‘statistical data’. 2001. national statistical service of Greece. retrieved 26 January 2009 at http://www.statistics.gr/ stavrakakis, yannis. 2003. ‘Politics and religion: On the “Politicization” of Greek Church discourse’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 21: 153–81. stavros, stephanos. 1995. ‘the legal status of minorities in Greece today: the adequacy of their Protection in the light of Current human rights Perceptions’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 13(1): 1–32. tibi, bassam. 2006. ‘europeanizing islam or the islamization of europe: Political democracy v. Cultural difference’. in Religion in an Expanding Europe, ed. t. a. byrnes and P. J. katzenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, pp. 204–24. triandafyllidou a & Gropas r., ‘Constructing difference; the mosque debate in athens’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (Jems), routledge: london, (Vol. 35: 6 July 2009, pp 957–975). triandafyllidou, anna and ruby Gropas. 2007. European Migration: A Sourcebook. aldershot: ashgate. tsatsis, thomas. 2006. ‘70 Chronia aravikon Pieson kai ellinik yposcheseon’ (70 years of arab Pressures and Greek Promises). Eleftherotypia, 28 march. retrieved 29 January 2009 at http://www.enet.gr/online tsitselikis, konstantinos. 1999. ‘i thesi tou mufti stin elliniki ennomi taxi’ (the Position of the mufti in the Greek legal Order). in Nomika Zitimata Thriskeftikis Eterotitas (Legal Issues of Religious Difference), ed. d. Christopoulos. athens: kritiki, pp. 271–330. ——. 2004. ‘thriskeftiki eleftheria ton metanaston: i Periptosi ton mousoulmanon’ (religious freedom of immigrants: the Case of muslims). in I Ellada tis Metanastefsis – Koinoniki Symmetochi, Dikaiomata kai Idiotita tou Politi (Greece of Immigration – Social Participation, Rights and Citizenship), ed. P. miltos and d. Christopoulos. athens: kritiki, pp. 267–302. u.s. department of state. Various years. ‘reports on international religious freedom – Greece’. retrieved 23 January 2009 at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/ Vogel, dita, ed. 2007. Highly Active Immigrants – A Resource for European Civil Societies. bern: Peter lang. yang, fenggang and ebaugh, helen rose. 2001. ‘religion and ethnicity among new immigrants: the impact of majority/minority status in home and host Countries’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 40(3): 367–78.

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Chapter 5

non-Orthodox minorities in Contemporary Greece: legal status and Concomitant debates between Church, state and the international Community Prodromos yannas

The Challenge of Multiculturalism With the end of the Cold War and the ideological vacuum left behind by the discrediting of communism, the dominant preoccupation became the functioning of democracy in liberal and post-communist societies. depending on the case, societies had to address internal substantive and procedural issues of democratic practice in the midst of additional external challenges emanating from globalization tendencies, ethnic strife and massive immigration flows. Questions regarding the status of minorities within nation-states have resurfaced bringing to the forefront claims ranging from instituting positive measures and granting preferential treatment to ending discriminatory practices and extending rights to previously disenfranchised groups and individuals. apart from claims for autonomy and national self-determination emanating from groups vying for national independence, the challenge confronting liberal societies is how to safeguard human and minority rights in a newly emerging multicultural setting. the challenge for a homogeneous country like Greece is how to live with, rather than suppress, difference. the issue of multiculturalism is not new, either to the peoples of the balkan Peninsula or to political theorists. actually, the process of nation-building in the balkans can be seen as an attempt to import ideas of political liberalism and nationalism to parts of the Ottoman empire during the nineteenth century. the discourse of citizenship, with its emphasis on equal rights and duties, competed with the discourse of nationhood, with its focus on elements, such as religion and language, that comprise the nation, for the attention of balkan elites in implementing their modernization projects. as far as the areas of the former Ottoman empire were concerned, the ideas of balkan federalism of the late eighteenth century and of Ottomanism in the mid-nineteenth century were multiculturalism-inspired ideologies that were overtaken by nationalism (roudometof 1999: 237–9). Within the discourse of nationhood, the re-inscription of religious symbolism onto national

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symbolism left virtually no space for equal rights granted to minorities that were, after all, considered nationally suspect. in the case of Greece, the country’s membership of the european union since 1981 has curbed rough expansionistterritorial edges off Greek nationalism and imbued conceptions of citizenship with european-wide understandings, as evidenced by Greece’s efforts to harmonize its policies with those of other member-states and to abide by the rulings of the european Court of human rights. this process of europeanization has been aided by the proliferation of non-governmental organizations rallying in favour of improving the living conditions of minority groups in Greece. multiculturalism has also become a focal point in discussions on democratic citizenship among political theorists. according to liberal theory, democracies must strive to eliminate all forms of distinctions in order to attain the goal of equal citizenship. the current debate between redistribution or recognition in philosophical circles (fraser and honneth 2003) points to the ways political theorists have framed the issue of multiculturalism, addressing the identity-based harms incurred in liberal democracies. advocates of redistribution ascribe to a difference-denying logic that views access of minority groups to more resources, opportunities and power as a corrective to forestall social harms from recurring. Recognition theorists, alternatively, favour a difference-affirming logic, attempting to remedy social harms through policies that favour and build around the distinct identity of minority groups. these two different roads to attaining equal citizenship are complementary, and the disagreements are more a question of emphasis than of substance (kiss 1999: 193). With this sketchy theoretical preview in mind, i will proceed to examine issues pertinent to the non-Orthodox minorities in Greece. My analysis will be confined to traditional religious minorities and will not raise issues related to the recently arrived immigrant groups of the last two decades (albanians, kurds, Poles and others). these have been addressed in the previous chapter. my discussion in no way attempts to provide a comprehensive treatment of the status of nonOrthodox minorities in Greece. my aim rather is to address issues of religious significance that have been contentious in Greek society, often placing supporters of the Orthodox Church of Greece and of minority religious groups in opposite camps. a list of these issues would include the optional mentioning of religious affiliation on state identity cards, the content of religious instruction in primary and secondary education, charges of proselytism, the issue of minority education, the commemoration of the holocaust, the question surrounding the election or appointment of mufti in the muslim minority, the practice of cremation and the issue of alternative forms of military service for conscientious objectors. by filtering these issues through the lens of redistribution or recognition I will also be passing judgment on steps Greek society has taken towards attaining the ideal of equal citizenship. some of these issues apply to all religious minorities, whereas others are raised in reference to the claims of specific groups.

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The Religious Landscape of Greece numerically speaking, Greece is overwhelmingly populated by Orthodox Christians. Since 1951 religious affiliation has not been recorded in official demographic statistics. it is estimated, though, that over 95 per cent of the population are followers of the Orthodox faith. Within Orthodoxy there is a hardcore traditional segment of an estimated 700,000 to 1 million faithful called Old Calendarists. Other Christians include approximately 50,000 roman Catholics, 20,000 Protestants and 70,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses. in addition to Christians, the Greek religious landscape includes adherents of the muslim and Jewish faiths. the muslims of thrace, recognized by Greece solely as a religious minority without reference to its ethnic characteristics, numbers an estimated 120,000 muslim-Greek citizens of mainly turkish, Pomak and roma ethnic origin (amor 1996: 13). the Jewish minority, recognized by Greece in 1920, had its growth and prosperity abruptly cut short by the extermination of close to 60,000 of its members in the nazi concentration camps. Currently, the number of Greek Jews is estimated at 4,000. to understand the position of the Orthodox Church of Greece on various issues impinging upon religious minorities, one must dwell on the contribution of Orthodoxy to the struggle for national Greek independence and the subsequent development of modern Greek culture. since its inception, the Orthodox Church of Greece has been a champion and ardent supporter of Greek national interests, reserving for itself the right to express the soul of the Greek national community and to stigmatize thoughts and actions directed against the viability of Greek national identity. In essence, the preservation and refinement of the ideological project of hellenic Orthodoxy uncontaminated by Western ideological challenges is the main contribution of the Orthodox Church of Greece to the national culture (fokas 2000; roudometof 2005). it should come as no surprise that the separation of church and state, a highly contested topic given Greece’s history, was not granted the floor for parliamentary deliberations in the constitutional revision that was completed in april 2001. the present constitutional regime will, therefore, remain unchanged well beyond 2010 (mavrogordatos 2003: 120). according to article 3 of the Constitution of the hellenic republic, ‘the prevailing religion of Greece is that of the eastern Orthodox Church of the Christ’ and its administration by the ‘statutory Charter of the Church’ points to the relevant law of the charter in which the church is treated as a legal entity incorporated under public law (stavros 1996: 120–21; alivizatos 1999: 631). the special status accorded to the Orthodox Church of Greece in the Greek Constitution resembles the legal orders of other european countries as the cases of the uk and other northern european countries aptly attest. What renders the Greek case unique is that a number of important privileges emanate from the public entity legal personality of the Orthodox Church of Greece and the ‘prevailing religion’ clause.

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Legal status of Churches in Greece Religious classification in Greece takes two forms. The first category refers to the legal status of a church and differentiates churches into legal persons of public law and legal persons of private law. the Orthodox Church of Greece, as stipulated also in law 590 of 1977, along with islam and Judaism, is regarded as a legal person of public law. as a public law entity, privileges that accrue to the Orthodox Church of Greece include the issuance of administrative acts, the payment of the clergy out of the state budget, the granting of tax exemptions and tax-deductible donations (alivizatos 1999: 633–4). all other churches are assigned the status of legal persons of private law and fall under the purview of the Greek Civil Code. this status places them at a comparative disadvantage because they cannot be represented as corporate bodies in courts and, as a consequence, cannot possess or inherit private property. The second category of legal classification draws a distinction between ‘known’ religions and the rest. the reference to a ‘known’ religion in article 13, paragraph 2 of the Greek Constitution is made in the context of specifying the prerequisites that apply to the freedom of religious practice. However, the definition of what constitutes a known religion is not included in the Constitution and courts have been asked to specify the criteria for recognition as a known religion. Greek courts have defined the term ‘known religion’ as a religion or a dogma whose doctrine is open and not secret, is taught publicly and its rites of worship are also open to the public, irrespective of whether its adherents have religious authorities; such a religion or dogma needs not to be recognized or approved by an act of the state or Church. (u.s. helsinki Commission 2000: 54)

however, problems arise because known religions have long discovered that they cannot exercise their right of religious practice without obtaining the approval of the state and, up until recently, the consent of the prevailing religion. they could not, for instance, operate houses of worship without permission from both state and ecclesiastical authorities. the stronghold of the dual recognition requirement on religious practice has been eased since the judgment of the european Court of human rights in Manoussakis v. Greece in september 1996, which ruled that building permits for new houses of worship imposed limitations on, in this case, the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to practise their religion (u.s. helsinki Commission 2000: 60–61). approval of Orthodox ecclesiastical authorities for the construction of places of worship was finally lifted in June 2006 with the passage of Article 27 in law no. 3467 (Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic 2006c). however, the necessity acts no. 1363 of 1938 and no. 1672 of 1939 are still in operation as far as state authorization being required for the operation of places of worship.

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Religious Education: A Difference-Denying Logic sought the ‘prevailing religion’ clause, elevating the Orthodox Church of Greece to the status of a state religion, finds specific application in the area of religious education. at the level of higher education, the theological schools of statefunded universities, the university of athens and the university of thessaloniki, have been in charge of religious studies. in addition the Orthodox Church of Greece managed in 2006 to upgrade four of its ecclesiastical schools – in athens, thessaloniki, Vella of ioannina and heraclion of Crete – to the status of statefunded higher education academies. the input of the Orthodox Church of Greece to the operation of the academies is profound, as a good number of graduates are expected to enter the ranks of the church as clergy. according to law no. 3432 (Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic 2006a), admission is granted only to students of the Orthodox faith (article 4.1) and for those intending to become clergymen the recommendation of the metropolitan in charge is a credential that carries considerable weight in the admission process (article 4.2). the pervasive influence of the Orthodox Church of Greece is evident in the composition and tasks of the highest organ, the Scientific Council. The church can appoint three out of six members to the council, the main tasks of which entail the review and evaluation of religious education according to the precepts of the Orthodox faith and tradition and offering directions for the conduct of research topics that are of interest to the Orthodox Church of Greece (article 6). school curricula, designed and monitored by the ministry of education and religious affairs, also bear the imprint of the prevailing religion clause. the content of religious instruction in primary and secondary education is heavily skewed in favour of Orthodoxy. students at both public and private schools are taught the prevailing religion’s doctrines in an obligatory course entitled ‘religious education’ and are asked to participate in activities such as mandatory morning school prayer and church attendance. a content analysis of texts assigned to the course on religious education from the third grade of primary school to the last grade of high school found that out of a total of 2,300 pages only 100 are devoted to other religions (Zambeta 2003: 131). The first and only encounter of students with non-Orthodox religions takes place in the junior year of high school. the textbook makes only passing reference to the Catholic and Protestant versions of Christianity and makes derogatory references to islam, both as a religion that stands only to benefit from contact with the Western European civilization and as the faith of the principal Ottoman enemy, which kept the nation subjugated for four centuries (Zambeta 2003: 132–3). the content of the religious education course raises a number of issues. first and foremost is the nature of religious instruction and how to reconcile the character of religious education both with the constitutional provision regarding the development of religious conscience and with Orthodoxy as a prevailing religion. the content of religious education has been an issue of intense debate in europe with countries adopting positions that span the spectrum from the french practice

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of neutral character religious instruction to the Greek practice of indoctrination in the established religion. from a legal perspective, Orthodoxy is accorded the characterization of the prevailing religion of Greece not because it turns out to be by far the majority religion but as an acknowledgment and recognition that Orthodoxy forms an indispensable part of Greek cultural heritage (sotirelis 2000: 374). seen in this light, the teaching of Orthodoxy should be given prominence in a curriculum of religious education that provides a comprehensive review of all religions. the religious education course would therefore lose its doctrinaire character and become more even-handed and pluralistic regarding the treatment of the religious element in life. such a view is espoused not only by legal experts (sotirelis 2000) but by religious scholars of Orthodoxy as well. in fact, Pantelis kalaitzidis (2004) is in favour of maintaining as obligatory a religious studies course that would stress the contributions of Orthodoxy and of other religions to humanity and would encourage multicultural exchange and dialogue among religions. as the religious education course is currently taught, it is obligatory for all students, except those belonging to religious minorities. for students to be exempted, their parents must submit to local school authorities a written request stating the religious grounds for non-attendance. although this policy sounds fair and respectful of the religious beliefs of minority groups, it runs the risk of minority students being cast out by their peers. to avert such likelihood, some parents prefer not to disclose the religious denomination of their children and subject them to the teachings of the Orthodox dogma rather than expose them to negative commentary and public ostracism. from a minority perspective, the purpose and content of the Religious Education course must be substantially modified and turned into a religious studies course that all students, irrespective of their religious faith, would attend. this way, identity-based harms can be ameliorated through a difference-denying logic.

Proselytism: A Difference-Denying Logic Recommended a newly reformulated religious studies course would also silence critics (alivizatos 1999: 634; stamoulas 2004: 484) who contend that the teaching of religion presently in schools borders on proselytism. the issue of proselytism is a sensitive matter that has not been dealt with adequately in the Greek Constitution. article 13, paragraph 2 of the constitution prohibits proselytism, though without providing a definition. This lacuna in the Greek Constitution has two side effects: it confuses proselytism with the freedom to manifest one’s religion and may easily lead one to assume that only followers of non-Orthodox faiths are liable to the charge of proselytism. the key question is, where does freedom to propagate one’s religion, an internationally recognized human right, end and proselytism begin? One way to answer this question is to draw a distinction between proper and improper ways of circulating religious ideas with the intent of altering one’s

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religion (stamoulas 2004: 484). actually, the judgment of the european Court of human rights in the case of Kokkinakis v. Greece in 1993 points in the direction of concentrating on the means used for propagating one’s religious beliefs. according to the european Court, brainwashing and use of force are coercive means that were not used in the discussions minos kokkinakis, a Jehovah’s Witness, had with the wife of an Orthodox priest regarding the bible (dimitropoulos 2001: 134–7). in line with the above decision, it should become a matter of concern to state officials and jurists whether the propagation of one’s religious ideas is (a) targeting schoolchildren or adults, (b) taking place outside schoolyards or in open gatherings and (c) done through persuasion or coercion. Cases that have been brought before the judicial system in Greece involving proselytism concern members of non-Orthodox religions. activities of minority religions to propagate their own faith may be considered and prosecuted as proselytism because laws that had been crafted at a time when proselytism was penalized as a way of protecting Orthodoxy are still in force. it is a fact that the explicit reference to Orthodoxy has been dropped from the current constitution, but it is also equally true that necessity acts no. 1363 of 1938 and no. 1672 of 1939 that elaborate, albeit in a broad and vague manner, on the concept of proselytism are still in force (forum 18 2001: 64–5). many human rights activists and legal experts consider the necessity acts either outdated or contrary to the constitution (amor 1996: 6). the difference-denying logic of abolishing proselytism is included as a priority in the report of abdelfattah amor, the special rapporteur of the Commission on human rights, submitted to the un General assembly in 1996.

The ID Card Issue: A Difference-Denying Logic Asserted the difference-denying logic between the majority population and the minorities is also asserted in the conflict over information included on the identity cards that Greeks over 14 years of age are required to possess. not mentioning the religious denomination of the possessor safeguards members of religious groups from discrimination or unequal treatment in seeking employment in both the public and private sectors of the economy. The conflict, which sparked a heated debate in the period 2000–2002, arose over the strong opposition of the Orthodox Church of Greece to the Greek government’s decision to treat religious identification as sensitive personal information not to be disclosed in state documents like id cards. the Orthodox Church of Greece reacted over the government’s intention to amend law no. 1988 of 1991 and bar the mentioning of religion on identity cards. the Greek government’s intention, made known through michalis stathopoulos, its minister of Justice, was given additional impetus a few days later, on 15 may 2000, with decision no. 510/17 of the hellenic data Protection authority, an independent agency, and the statement of Prime minister Costas simitis before the Greek Parliament on 24 may to exclude religion from identity cards. the reaction

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of the Orthodox Church of Greece was immediate and included a well-orchestrated campaign throughout 2000–2001 with the aim of reversing the government’s decision and, if that was not possible, of securing at least the optional mention of religion on id cards. the church’s campaign included a series of actions involving media placements, organization of mass rallies on 14 July 2000 in thessaloniki and on 21 July in athens and the circulation of a petition asking that the issue of the optional inclusion of religion on id cards be put to a referendum. the petition received more than 3 million signatures but Costis stephanopoulos, the President of the republic, cut short the church’s mobilization effort by stating that holding a referendum on this issue was not in line with the legal procedures and laws of the country (stavrakakis 2003: 155; roudometof 2005: 89). the Orthodox Church of Greece took the case to the Council of state, Greece’s administrative court. the court declared by majority vote in the summer of 2001 that the mentioning, mandatory and/or optional, of religion in id cards (a) violates the freedoms of conscience and religion as specified in Article 13, Paragraph 1 of the Greek Constitution and (b) runs counter to conceiving freedom of religion in the negative sense, the notion of requiring states to abstain from actions that put up obstacles to the exercise of the freedoms of conscience and worship (dimitropoulos 2001: 154–6). as a last resort, a number of Greek clerics and theologians appealed the case to the european Court of human rights, which in december 2002 put an end to the two-year-long debate, stating that ‘the recording of individuals’ religious beliefs on an official document … threatens to open the way to discriminations in their relations with the administration, or even in professional matters’ (human rights Without frontiers 2002). two broad ideological coalitions formed around the debate over the mentioning or not of religion on id cards. the camp of supporters favoured the views of the Orthodox Church of Greece about inclusion of religion on id cards and was made up mainly of clerics, theologians and centre-right politicians. the opposing camp, which voiced its disagreements to the mentioning of religion on id cards, comprised intellectuals, journalists, legal experts and centre-left politicians. understandably, members of the Catholic and Jewish religions sided with the opponents, choosing to advocate a difference-denying logic. the choice of muslims not to protest the inclusion of religion on id cards remains a vexing question. it seems that their urge to reveal the numerical strength of the muslim minority in thrace overshadowed any discrimination they might suffer from registering their religion (molokotosliederman 2003: 12). the impact of the id card issue is of utmost importance to the concerns of members of religious minorities. it seems that a difference-denying logic is the best way to shield minorities from discrimination and to safeguard the equality of all citizens. in a democracy, respect for fundamental rights of minorities takes precedence over the rights of the majority. liberal principles guaranteed by the constitution, national laws and international norms could not become a matter of choice in a procedure like a referendum (Papadopoulou 2000: 16). even if a referendum were to be held and the results turned out to be in favour of the optional

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mention of religion on id cards, citizens choosing to conceal their religion on id cards would be perceived as either belonging to non-Orthodox faiths or having no faith at all. a double distinction would ensue between Orthodox and the rest on the one hand and between ‘true’ Orthodox and persons ‘refusing’ their Orthodox faith on the other hand (Papadopoulou 2000: 12). Alternative Military Service and Cremation: A Difference-Affirming Logic Legally sanctioned two issues related to protecting the freedom of religion that were resolved in favour of non-Orthodox faiths concerned the right of alternative military service for conscientious objectors and acceptance of the practice of cremation. both issues were resolved through a difference-affirming logic with the onus falling upon persons to declare their stated religious beliefs in order for Jehovah’s Witnesses to be allowed not to bear arms or for adherents of religious faiths like buddhism to be cremated, had they expressed such a wish. Given that military service is obligatory for all Greek males between the ages of 20 and 50, persons who declare themselves to be conscientious objectors due to their religious beliefs are given the opportunity with the passage of law no. 2510 in 1997 to serve either unarmed military duty or to engage in community service (Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic 1997). the duration of service for all conscientious objectors is lengthier than the time specified for ordinary conscripts (U.S. Helsinki Commission 2000: 71). legislation on conscientious objectors was supplemented with an additional constitutional provision in 2001 and the passage of a law in 2004 delimiting the areas in which civilian service could be performed (bureau of democracy, human rights, and labour 2005). the issue of cremation has been on the public agenda since the early 1980s. the Orthodox dogma, along with other Christian religions, allows only for the traditional religious burial. Greek citizens may, however, opt for a ‘political’, non-religious funeral or for cremation. according to article 35 of law no. 3448 (Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic 2006b), which has been in force since 15 march 2006, for cremation to take place statements to that effect should have been issued prior to death either by the person in question or by his/her close relatives. The Jews of Greece: A Difference-Affirming Logic Acknowledged the deportation and brutal death of millions of Jews in concentration camps during the second World War has cast such a shadow on human consciousness that Western countries have vowed to ensure that it is never repeated. for this reason, events are held every year in many parts of the world to pay tribute to millions of Jews whose lives were abruptly and violently terminated. it is estimated that out of 73,000 Jews living in Greece in 1941 only 12,400 managed to survive the

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nazi’s ‘final solution’ (fleischer 1996: 26). the loss of approximately 60,000 people in the concentration camps of auschwitz-birkenau destroyed most of the Greek Jewish communities with only 4,000 Jews currently living in Greece. Greek Jews have no major complaints in practising their religion. Greek Jews, however, do have reason to be upset by the anti-semitic statements often expressed by extreme right-wing nationalist fringe parties like the Popular Orthodox herald Party (laOs). these statements have sometimes taken the form of verbal attacks by the leadership of the LAOS party directed against specific individuals or have been triggered by the outrage some prominent Greeks, like composer mikis theodorakis, felt over israel’s policies towards the Palestinians in 2003–2004. also, acts of vandalism committed in Jewish cemeteries and to Jewish monuments have been reported in the last few years (bureau of democracy, human rights, and labour 2002). an encouraging sign is that acts of vandalism are on the decline and George karatzaferis, the leader of the laOs party, has recently toned down his vitriolic nationalist rhetoric and has stopped making anti-semitic remarks. The difference-affirming logic is attested in events commemorating the holocaust of the Jews held since 2004. state actions as well as the works produced by independent researchers in the last decade are apt demonstrations of respect for the suffering of the Jewish people. listed among the state’s initiatives is the official designation – via Presidential Decree No. 51 – in 2005 of 27 January as Jewish holocaust remembrance day (Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic 2005). moreover, the government has sponsored a teacher-training seminar dealing with the teaching of the holocaust in primary and secondary schools and has disseminated throughout the school system educational material to be read on holocaust remembrance day (bureau of democracy, human rights, and labour 2005, 2006).

The Muslims of Thrace: The Politics of Recognition under the shadow of National security the muslims residing in thrace provide an intriguing case that demonstrates how promotion of human rights often gets entangled with national security considerations and the climate of bilateral relations between Greece and turkey. since 1923 the fate of the minority has been tied, through reciprocal arrangements outlined in the lausanne treaty, to the worsening condition of the rums in istanbul (rozakis 1996: 105). successive Greek governments instituted a number of harsh measures as reprisals for the mass expulsion of rums from turkey in 1964 and the ‘second exodus’ of istanbul rums following turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Viewed from the perspective of the politics of recognition, Greek governments acknowledged the national character of the minority in 1954 (human rights Watch 1999; meinardus 2002: 87). for a short interval, the minority was recognized as Turkish. For all other periods, the official Greek position has held steadfastly to acknowledging only the religious character of the minority as muslim. irrespective

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of its character, the harms inflicted on the minority took a turn for the better as a consequence of the rapprochement that began in Greek–turkish relations in the mid-1980s and the europeanization of Greek foreign policy inaugurated in the early 1990s. beginning in may 1991, Greek governments embarked on a new course of action beginning to redress past harms inflicted on the minority. The upshot of the new minority policy based on the principles of ‘legal equality – equal citizenship’ was the abrogation of article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code in June 1998, which ended a harsh discriminatory practice against non-ethnic Greeks and cleared the way for thousands of minority members to acquire Greek citizenship (anagnostou 2005: 350). improvements in educating the children of minority members have included positive measures for entry of minority students into Greek higher education and a pilot programme for the teaching of Greek as a second language. beginning in 1997, a number of places in universities and technological educational institutes are allotted to muslim students each year under a quota system. in 1999 the 129 beneficiaries of the measure could not fill the total of 376 spaces available for muslim students (bureau of democracy, human rights, and labour 2000). by 2005, close to 900 muslim students had gained entry to higher education institutions thanks to this positive measure (bureau of democracy, human rights, and labour 2005). the pilot programme for teaching Greek as a second language to muslim students is one bold step the ministry of education and religious affairs took in collaboration with the university of athens to bring about a re-orientation of teaching methods and educational material in order to address the needs of the muslim student population. by introducing principles of bilingual education, the educators in charge of the programme espoused a difference-affirming logic. It was openly acknowledged that the mother tongue for most, if not all, children of the muslim minority was turkish, and special care was needed in delivering Greek language and Greek-taught courses to the student population of the minority. the programme, entitled ‘Project for reform in the education of muslim Children’ (Pem), was funded by the european union and was implemented in two phases: 1997–2000 and 2002–2004 (askouni 2006: 15). it encompassed primary and secondary minority schools as well as public secondary schools with a substantial muslim student cohort and included, among other things, the development of new student textbooks on various subjects that treated Greek as a second language and the creation of teacher-training material for use by primary school teachers (dragonas and frangoudaki 2006: 29–32). despite the above-mentioned positive steps of the Greek state during the last 15 years, the muslim minority maintains that problems persist in the sphere of human rights protection. One major minority claim concerns the recognition of its ethnic character as Turkish. The self-identification of minority members is a norm widely accepted in the human rights area and is also enshrined in international agreements like the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (Council of europe 1995). Greece signed the Convention on 22 september 1997 but did not proceed to ratify it on the basis of national security considerations and demographic

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concerns. this is a case where contextual complexities enter into the calculus of the politics of recognition. theorists of recognition acknowledge that states can apply discretion in reaching the goal of democratic equality. state measures, as elizabeth kiss (1999: 206) contends, ‘will depend on particularities of context, ranging from the nature and the degree of the harms and vulnerabilities experienced by a minority group to probabilistic and strategic judgments concerning the intended and unintended consequences of minority demands’. Greek authorities fear that ratification of the convention would exacerbate ethnic tensions and would also provide leverage to turkey, a country with a poor human rights record that has mistreated the rums of istanbul (Eleftherotypia–Sunday Edition 2006: 53). an additional consideration is alteration of the region’s demographic composition, raising fears that the population growth of the minority will soon cause it to surpass the Greek-Orthodox population residing in thrace. in such an eventuality, the reasoning goes, turkey would play the ‘ethnic card’ and the minority would demand collective rights for self-determination and autonomy. to avert the likelihood of upsetting the demographic balance, the Orthodox Church of Greece has had in place since september 1999 a ‘family planning’ policy of allocating a subsidy to orthodox families having a third child (Eleftherotypia–Sunday Edition 2005: 53). the Greek state has also created settlements in the region for Pontic Greek refugees originating from areas of the former soviet union to stem a probable demographic reversal. The lack of official census data recording religion is of no help in assessing the ‘demographic threat’. However, the fears of state officials and of the Orthodox Church of Greece are blown out of proportion in public discourse and cannot be substantiated by recent research findings. In fact, Askouni (2006), utilizing education statistics of school attendance in the region, reaches the conclusion that the ‘demographic threat’ thesis is unfounded. the percentage of minority students in the total number of students enrolled has been on a declining curve in the last 30 years. Whereas in 1970–1971, minority students accounted for 63 per cent in the rodopi prefecture and 58 per cent in the xanthi prefecture, the corresponding figures dropped to 51 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively, in 1999–2000. the decline in birth rates and minority student enrolment is attributed to internal immigration, urbanization and the effects of modernization in the last two decades (askouni 2006: 129–31). notwithstanding the evidence amassed to dispel the fears of nationalists, state officials and Orthodox clerics, the fact remains that national security considerations will stand in the way of fulfilling the minority’s aspirations, at least for the foreseeable future. a 27 march 2008 decision of the european Court of human rights concerning the cases of Emin and Others v. Greece and ‘Turkish Association of Xanthi’ and Others v. Greece has given a new impetus to the claim of ethnic identification by the minority. the european Court of human rights (2008) ruled that Greek courts had, by banning minority associations avowed to be turkish, violated article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the european Convention on human Rights. Of paramount significance is the European Court’s reasoning that a minority association bearing the term ‘turkish’ in its title, even if its professed

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intent is to propagate the existence of an ethnic minority in Greece, should find its place within a democratic society like Greece’s and does not pose a threat to the territorial integrity of the country. it remains to be seen how Greece will react to this latest european Court of human rights ruling given the aforementioned fears among important segments of Greek society and the steadfast anchoring of the Greek position to the terms of the Convention Concerning the exchange of Greekturkish Populations signed at lausanne in 1923 that designate the minority solely by its religious identification as Muslim. related to the ethnic determination of the minority as turkish is the issue of electing or appointing muftis – that is religious leaders – in thrace. representatives of the minority have maintained that the election of muftis is provided by the agreement of athens in 1913 and law 2345/1920 and criticize the Greek government for abolishing law 2345/1920 and replacing it with law 1920 in 1991 (tsitselikis 1999: 277–88). the position of the Greek government is that muftis are elected nowhere in the islamic world and muftis exercise judicial, in addition to religious, duties. as such, they form part of the Greek state administrative system and must be appointed for a 10-year term by the Greek ministry of education and religious affairs following a process of selection in consultation with the leadership of the muslim communities. the paradox that presently exists is that two ‘elected muftis’, chosen by ballots cast by the faithful in mosques, co-exist uneasily with two official muftis who have been appointed by the Greek state. elected muftis have in the past taken their case to the european Court of human rights, protesting against the prosecution the Greek state launched against them for unlawfully bearing the title of mufti. the judgments of the european Court in the cases of Serif v. Greece and Agga v. Greece in 1999 and 2002 held that Greece had violated article 9 of the european Convention on human rights and fundamental freedoms by punishing religious leaders who had not exercised their judicial duties. at the same time, though, the court asserted Greece’s right to bestow civic responsibilities to muftis (konidaris 2006). the deadlock can be overcome with a compromise solution reached at a political level. the compromise legislation would strip the muftis of their judicial duties, making a great legislative leap forward in modernizing the codes of civic conduct of the muslim minority while prescribing the election of the muftis.

Greece: Coping with the Politics of Recognition in a Multicultural World in the last two decades Greece has made considerable progress in addressing harms inflicted on non-Orthodox minorities residing in the country. The twin pressures that the processes of democratization and europeanization exerted on Greek society in the post-1974 period strengthened the promotion of civic and cultural rights and resulted in a host of measures that improved the condition of religious minorities in Greece. slowly but surely discriminatory practices are beginning to tumble. the process has been aided by judgments issued by the european Court

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of human rights as well as by the efforts of Greek governments to implement positive affirmative action measures and devise policies friendly to the concerns of specific religious minorities. A new educational policy aimed at the integration of muslim youth in the social fabric is beginning to bear fruit, and new legislation has come into effect regarding alternative military service for conscientious objectors, the practice of cremation and the commemoration of the holocaust. all of the above measures have been devised with the particularities of each minority group in mind. moreover, the Greek government stood its ground on excluding religious identification from ID cards in a head-on collision with the Orthodox Church of Greece. by taking this action, the government protected fundamental rights and foreclosed any future attempts aimed at discrimination. the discussion over the content of religious education in Greek primary and secondary education has reached a critical stage with theologians becoming aware of the necessity to move in the direction of devising a course that would teach Orthodox dogma to students while exposing them to other religions. the interpenetration of church and state will continue in Greece in the foreseeable future. historical reasons and political considerations dictate that the Orthodox Church of Greece will continue to be the ‘prevailing religion’ of the country and be accorded state privileges vis-à-vis other religions. Without underestimating the contribution of Orthodoxy to Greek culture, the main challenge lying ahead for Greece is how to adjust to the requirements of a multicultural society. this challenge concerns as much the intellectual and political elites of the country as the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church of Greece. together they can devise a course of action that weaves together the legacies of the past with the demands for respect of the rights of others to be different.

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fleischer, hagen. 1996. ‘shoah – i Genoktonia ton ellinon evraion’ (shoah – the Genocide of the Greek Jews). in Oi Evraioi tis Elladas (The Jews of Greece), ed. kostis liontis. athens: i kathimerini-seven days, pp. 24–6. Fokas, Effie. 2000. ‘Greek Orthodoxy and European Identity’. In Contemporary Greece and Europe, ed. a. mitsos and e. mossialos. aldershot: ashgate, pp. 275–300. forum 18. 2001. Freedom of Religion: A Report with Special Emphasis on the Right to Choose Religion and Registration System. Oslo: forum 18. retrieved 6 december 2006 at http://www.forum18.org/Pdf/freedomofreligion.pdf fraser, nancy and axel honneth. 2003. Redistribution or Recognition? london: Verso. human rights Watch. 1999. Greece: The Turks of Western Thrace, human rights Watch 11(1)(d). retrieved 28 January 2002 at http://www.hrw.org/ reports/1999/greece/ human rights Without frontiers. 2002. ‘last bid to keep faith on the ids fails’. retrieved 4 January 2007 at http://www.hrwf.net/religiousfreedom/news/ greece2002.htm kalaitzidis, Pantelis. 2004. ‘epimetro’ (Postscript). in I Didaskalia tis Thriskeias sto Oudeterothrisko Scholeio (The Teaching of Religion in the ReligiouslyNeutral School), ed. régis debray. athens: estia bookstore, pp. 69–101. kiss, elizabeth. 1999. ‘democracy and the Politics of recognition’. in Democracy’s Edges, ed. i. shapiro and C. hacker-Cordon. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, pp. 193–209. konidaris, ioannis. 2006. ‘(Pseudo-)mouftides kai (pseudo-)politiki’ (Pseudo‘muftis’ and Pseudo-‘Politics’), To Vima–Sunday Edition, 9 July, p. a55. mavrogordatos, George t. 2003. ‘Orthodoxy and nationalism in the Greek Case’, West European Politics 26(1): 117–36. meinardus, ronald. 2002. ‘muslims: turks, Pomaks and Gypsies’. in Minorities in Greece, ed. r. Clogg. london: hirst & Company, pp. 81–93. molokotos-liederman, lina. 2003. ‘the religious factor in the Construction of europe: Greece, Orthodoxy and the european union’. Paper Presented at the 1st lse Ph.d. symposium on modern Greece, 21 June. retrieved 18 may 2006 at http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/hellenicObservatory/pdf/ symposiumPapersOnline/molokotos.pdf Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic. 1997. Official Gazette of the hellenic republic. 1997. ‘nomos yp’arithmon 2510. rythmisi stratiotikon ypochreoseon, Orismenon katiforion strateusimon, anypotakton kai Opliton, tropopoiisi diataxeon tis stratologikis nomothesias, kathierosi enallaktikis ypiresias kai alles diataxeis.’ ‘law no. 2510. regulation of military Obligations Regarding Specific Categories of Conscripts, Draft-Evaders and Soldiers, Modification of Clauses of Military Legislation, Establishment of alternative service and Other Clauses’. no. 136, 27 June. ——. 2005. ‘Proedriko diatagma 31. ekdiloseis gia tin 27h ianouariou, imera mnimis ton ellinon evraion martyron kai iroon tou Olokautomatos.

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Part ii Orthodox Christianity and Greek Culture

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Chapter 6

‘the traditional modern’: rethinking the Position of Contemporary Greek Women in Orthodoxy eleni sotiriu

Post-Traditional Replies Victoria Clark, an english journalist and a roman Catholic, in the opening paragraphs of her travelogue and religious commentary entitled Why Angels Fall (2000), offered a vivid exposé of Orthodox women’s ‘non-reaction’ to their exclusion from mount athos. While Clark – following perhaps in the steps of her predecessors, the nineteenth-century english lady travellers – dreamed of setting foot on the forbidden peninsula, her Orthodox co-travellers on a boat cruising at a distance of 500 metres away from the holy shores showed ‘no signs of resentment’ at all. she writes: a serbian woman told me she would be quite content to hear what her husband had to say about his stay at the holy mountain’s serbian monastery of hilandar when they reunited in a day’s time. a young romanian woman, a stockbroker from bucharest, said she believed that men and women should know their proper places and that a woman’s proper place was certainly not on mount athos. (Clark 2000: 5–6)

more important though, for the purpose of this chapter, is the reply of a young Greek woman, born in the area: ‘look’, she said, ‘a lot of the monks are sick – sick in mind or in body or both, nothing special at all. but there are some – perhaps just a few – who are doing something so holy there that they are saints. i’m sure of that. they need peace and silence to do this work’. ‘yes, but …’ she knew what i was about to say and waved a hand dismissively. ‘the european union will never force athos to allow women in just because Greece is a member of it. What kind of human rights would that be? Where is the freedom in that?’ (Clark 2000: 6)

such responses are quite common among Orthodox women and, on a basic level, invite one to suppose a generalized conservative stance that is imbedded in the

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acceptance of Orthodox Christianity as the authentic tradition par excellence. Yet, the unified front presented by the three women in their approval of their ban from mount athos stems not only from their common Orthodox faith but, and perhaps more importantly, from the fact that in their countries of origin, as indeed in most Orthodox countries of eastern europe, religion historically played a pivotal role in shaping and re-shaping social and ethno-national identities. the above replies are not those of women caught up in a cultural time lag but, rather, of modern individuals who choose to emphasize religious solidarity bonds instead of identifying themselves with gender-bound solidarities. their stance can be termed as ‘post-traditional’ in that these women are less concerned with furthering women’s rights than with the expression of their own Orthodox identity in the eyes of an outsider. Gender identity is subdued to religious and national identity because of the perceived and internalized frontier between eastern and Western Christianity. feminist concerns, such as those expressed by Clark (2000), are seen as Western products threatening the ‘alterity’ and ‘superiority’ of Orthodoxy. This is best exemplified in the response of the Greek woman. She is neither an uncritical proponent of ‘tradition’ nor a proponent of change for its own sake. rather, she turns her Greekness and its concomitant Orthodoxy into weapons against Western conceptions of individual human rights. What she stresses in fact is the ‘Greek way of doing things’. her position invites a discussion of tradition and ‘modernity’ and how women juxtapose certain elements of both to produce an alternative but still viable way of ‘doing religion’ in twenty-first-century Greece. What will become apparent in the course of this chapter is that, as the context changes, so does the rhetoric and the practices of women, oscillating between conservatism and traditionalism to liberalism and ‘expressive individualism’ as an external manifestation and mass phenomenon (taylor 2002: 80). however, tradition and modernity are also often played against one another, particularly in the discourse presented by the official ecclesiastical hierarchy. the dualities and oppositions upon which this discourse is based pose on women unsurpassable dilemmas that hinder their role as a collective agent of social change (sotiriu 2004: 508). yet, increasingly, Orthodox clerics and theologians, albeit mainly male, question the uncritical acceptance of tradition as the basis of the exclusion of women from ordained priesthood, demanding its reinterpretation. such efforts pave the way for a more active and public role of women in the Greek Orthodox domain. the purpose of this chapter is to examine recent discourses on the position of women in Greek Orthodoxy and to show possible changes in thinking and acting on the issue. in addition, it will try to address women’s apparent indifference towards their admission to the exclusive male domains of the church and to show that women’s decisions and actions in the sphere of religion do not manifest an either–or preference of tradition or modernity, but rather a negotiation between the different aspects that constitute their identity as Greek women.

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Recent Discourses on Women’s Issues: A Turning Point? One of the most powerful collisions of Greek Orthodoxy with modernity came via its enforced encounter with women’s issues. although in the last few decades in the West, women’s organizations have vehemently demanded the admission of women to priestly office with successful results in the churches of both liberal and evangelical reformation traditions (see hopko 1999b: 249), the Orthodox Churches have remained far removed from an attitude that might entertain such a possibility. the space for a public dialogue on the role and the participation of Orthodox women in the church opened in 1976 with the first International symposium of Orthodox Women in agapia (romania) and distended in 1988 with the inter-Orthodox symposium in rhodes (Greece) and in 1990 with the second international symposium of Orthodox Women in Chania (Greece). the period between 1988 and 1998 was the ecumenical decade of solidarity with Women, and the Orthodox Churches, as part of the modern ecumenical movement, multiplied their efforts to deal with issues of feminism and feminist theology. thus, under the auspices of the World Council of Churches (WCC), further discussions among Orthodox officials, both male and female, delegates of their local churches, took place during the seventh General assembly of the WCC (Canberra, australia) in 1991 followed by a special conference in livadia (Greece) in 1994, another in damascus in 1996, and a third one in Constantinople in 1997, ending the decade with the eighth General assembly of the WCC in harare (Zimbabwe) in 1998 (see limouris 2000; yiokarinis 2004: 331–3). the last meeting of Orthodox women (about 40) from various countries with the support of the WCC took place from 8–12 June 2008 at the academy for theological studies (Volos). in all these meetings Orthodox participants of varied ethnic provenance deliberated and offered strong recommendations on a wide range of feminist issues, the most important among them being the re-introduction of the institution of deaconesses; the need to re-evaluate the concept of ritual impurity; the enrichment of the hymnologion of the church with new hymns extolling the lives of modern women martyrs; women’s participation in the liturgical life of the church as readers, singers and choir directors; their involvement in decisionmaking bodies at the level of the parish, the diocese and the local (‘national’) churches; their full participation in the ecumenical movement; their distinctive role as wives of priests; their use in the educational and missionary work of the church, in youth work and in social services; and the encouragement of women’s theological research and publications. Women’s ordination to priesthood proved, in all these meetings, to be the most sensitive issue for the Orthodox, and although most delegates agreed on the need for a continuing discussion on the matter, very few of them called for its realization. yet, even the most passionate advocates of women’s entry to ordained priesthood circumscribe themselves in supporting the argument for the absence of serious theological reasons for women’s exclusion without really taking any further activist stances (see hopko 1999a).

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the Orthodox Church of Greece, in a manner similar to its sister Orthodox Churches, set out to prove the impossibility of ordained ministry for its women members.1 articles by various Greek clerics and theologians demonstrate this (limouris 1992; harrison 1999; larentzakis 2000: 73). the rhetoric upon which this position was based up to the 1990s, however, has changed somewhat in tone at the beginning of the twenty-first century. From the very beginning, most Greek Orthodox were and still are quick to point out that in Orthodoxy there was never a real demand for the ministerial ordination of females at the grass-roots level and that Orthodoxy’s engagement with the matter is more preparatory in its readiness to give answers to all non-Orthodox who demand them. Orthodox self-sufficiency in dealing with this issue was not called into question (koukoura 2005: 110–32). until the 1990s, thus, the Greek Orthodox discourses were more directed towards external ears, particularly those of Western european Protestants and roman Catholics, and in accord with a prevailing mentality that equated europe with the West and Orthodoxy with the east. it was based mainly on a ‘narcissistic attitude’ that extolled the Orthodox tradition as the most authentic and liberating one, involving an unbroken continuity from the times of the early church and which, unlike the Protestant, was non-reducible to an ‘object’ of continuous reflection and reform. furthermore, roman Catholics were grouped together with the Protestants, even though they hold a negative stance on women’s ordained priesthood, for their attitude is – among other things – connected to the doctrine of the Pope’s infallibility and is historically, as such, antithetical to Orthodox ecclesiology (see hopko 1999b: 226–36). until 2004, Greece was the sole predominantly Orthodox member-state of the european union. this explains why several Greek Orthodox were usually at pains to prove that Orthodoxy was ‘the magical pill’ that would cure a europe that was already on its deathbed due to the illnesses of ‘isms’: individualism, rationalism, modernism, consumerism, materialism, eudemonism and the like. along with numerous contributions on the potentially important input of Orthodox Greece to European culture, various articles appeared focusing on the possible significance of Orthodox women to a united europe. feminism and women’s issues in general, including the issue of women’s ordination, were thought of as having been addressed by the Orthodox Church in the most satisfying way (Paraskevaidis 1986). unfortunately, those articles written by Greek Orthodox women were too general, containing a critique of the rationalistic Western world and of the unequal representation of females in all the leading decision-making centres of europe. they also did not offer any new ideas concerning the spiritual input of Orthodox 1 there exist, however, major or minor differences among the various Orthodox Churches regarding women’s issues. for a useful comparative overview of the respective situation in Greece, Cyprus, finland, romania, russia, serbia, bulgaria, the Czech republic and slovakia, see various articles in the special issue of the review Kanon 17 (2005) with the general theme, ‘roles and rights of Women in european Orthodoxy’, edited by eva m. synek.

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females to the world in general and to europe in particular, limiting themselves to repeating traditional Orthodox arguments (regarding the equality of sexes in the church, the valuation of women by Orthodoxy and so on). in sum, the position of women within the Orthodox Church was not thought to need any revisions or changes (kyriatzi 1994). One of the most eminent contemporary Greek theologians and hierarchs, the metropolitan of Pergamon ioannis (John Zizioulas), in an article examining the position of Orthodox women in the united europe, posed the wider questions of whether indeed Europe should be identified with the West and Orthodoxy with the east and of whether an ‘Orthodox’ can be a ‘european’ (ioannis 1997). he argued that such distinctions, though historically grounded, should not be exaggerated, for they can lead to the political and spiritual alienation of Orthodox countries from europe. according to him, Orthodoxy should not be turned into another political power and ideology within the european context, but rather the emphasis should be put on its Eucharistic character. He firmly believed that the contribution of Orthodoxy to europe is spiritual and is based on a different way of conceiving God, life and the world. it is against this background that metropolitan ioannis proceeded to evaluate the position of women in Orthodoxy. he began by contrasting the views of thomas aquinas with those of basil the Great in order to prove that in Orthodox theology women are not seen as imperfect and defective males who should be submitted to male intellect, but rather as equally sharing with men in the image of God as perfect human beings and, thus, of equal worth to men. the exalted position of the mother of God and the equal honour with which male and female saints are venerated within Orthodoxy attests, according to him, to the absolute equality of men and women. he argued that from a theological point of view, as far as the equality of men and women is concerned, one should not put the Orthodox Church in the same category as the Western Christian Churches. he went on to highlight certain differences between eastern and Western Christianity that he regarded as essential to the understanding of the contribution of Orthodox women to Europe. The first important difference stems from the fact that in the Orthodox context equality (isotita) is not perceived as the levelling (isopedosi) of difference. the West always regarded unity and variety as two antithetical things. Orthodox ecclesiology, on the other hand, respects particularity and uniqueness. metropolitan ioannis cited Pauline doctrine to prove that in Orthodoxy the special characteristics of women and their unique position in the church are not devalued in the way that perhaps they are in Western Christianity. he argued that, as with the parts of our body that have a unique function, so should the members of the church not demand to have the same function, for this is a sign of sickness both of the members and of the whole body. The second difference lies in the fact that the various offices of the church are conceived in Orthodoxy not as authority and power, but rather as diakonia and even martyrdom. Western societies that exhibit a dependence on claims for individual rights view ecclesiastical offices as ‘rights to be given’ and not as sacrifice. In this

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context, Orthodox women regard the priesthood simply as another kind of diakonia that entails another kind of sacrifice. This is why, according to Ioannis, Orthodox women do not share in the anxiety of women of other Christian denominations to achieving sacramental priesthood. for metropolitan ioannis, the greatest contribution of Orthodox women to europe is to become the embodiment of the eucharistic ethos of Orthodoxy by surpassing the individualistic and rationalistic mentality of the West and by showing that they live life as ‘persons’ – that is as part of a network of communitarian relationships – and not as ‘individuals’. the controversial issue of ordaining women to sacramental priesthood was thus traditionally a non-existent one within Greek Orthodoxy. those who dealt with it were mostly Orthodox clerics and theologians (kallistos 1997: 292–4; 1999), including women (behr-sigel 2001) from the Orthodox diaspora around the globe, who had faced the challenge since the 1970s when some Protestant Churches started ordaining women ministers/priests and later bishops. this discussion goes on in various forms, ranging from special journals (for example, MaryMartha, edited by leonie liveris in australia) to international and interOrthodox consultations (see himmel-agisburg 2005). Generally, the issue of women’s ordination to any ecclesial office is treated by the Orthodox with caution, because it is viewed mainly ‘as the product of feminism’ (kollontai 2000: 172) containing fundamentally different and often incongruous elements to those of Orthodoxy, but also as the result of Western Christian views, which promote the ‘heresy of clericalism’ by considering ordained ministry as the only meaningful means of service to the church (karras 1998: 33–4). although within europe even conservative churches, such as that of the Old Catholics, have allowed the ordination of women to sacramental priesthood (kallis 2003: 325), the whole issue in Greece was treated, as already mentioned above, as an exogenous one, imported from abroad rather than based on any real demand on the part of women. the manner with which the majority of Greek women approached and still approach their exclusion from the most sacred part of liturgical space, the altar, is based on their internalization of an enduring religious ideology concerning reproduction, gender and kinship. the fetishism of motherhood by Greek Orthodoxy, represented by the exalted position that mary occupies as ‘theotokos’ (the birth-giver of God),2 overshadows women’s moral devaluation as distinct sexual beings. it is worth noting here that only old, nonmenstruating women or professed nuns surmount their exclusion from the altar and that only for cleaning purposes. the problems surrounding the ‘demonization of sexuality’ in the Orthodox Church, which leads to a clear devaluation of women through the overemphasis on the status of virginity, the impurity of women on the basis of their feminine nature and the need to succumb female sexuality even within the context of marriage, 2 many ethnographers have pointed out the appeal that the model of mary as mother of God has for Greek women and that such a model may not necessarily be an oppressive one (see hirschon 1978 and du boulay 1986).

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have been recently dealt with by a leading Greek theologian and philosopher Christos yannaras. according to him, such issues are the clear result of what he calls the ‘religionization of Christianity’, that is, the transformation of a living and vibrant church experience into an institutionalized and fossilized religious structure and ideology (yannaras 2006). although he does not directly tackle the issue of women’s ordination, he offers a valuable critique of the idolization and fetishization of tradition as a symptom of religionization (yannaras 2006: 167–85). Within Greek Orthodoxy, tradition as a whole is considered a sacrosanct topic that should not be altered, even in its insignificant details. Yannaras asks for a more critical approach to all forms of tradition that moves away from absolutes. the connection to the issue of women’s ordination is obvious here because, as already shown, it is considered to be, first and foremost, a matter of tradition. in recent years, voices that pointed to a real need for the re-evaluation of women’s access to ordained priesthood have multiplied. Contrary to the headfast insistence of the majority of Orthodox clerics and theologians against the ordination of women for a variety of theological and other reasons, a growing number of Orthodox thinkers, and even members of the clergy, have succumbed to the view that women’s ordination is not categorically forbidden within the church and that there are no substantive theological reasons against it. it is more a matter of traditional church practice that led to the exclusion of women from priesthood. as a result, these Orthodox believe that existing decisions pertaining to this issue should not be treated as final, but be open for reconsideration if the need arises in the future. One of the first theologians to adopt a more liberal stance on the issue was Constantinos yiokarinis (1995). he considered women’s ordination not a matter for mere academic theology and reflection, but a real problem to be faced by the Orthodox Church. his main focus was on the connection of exclusive male priesthood with the male character of Christ in relation to the dogma of Christ’s incarnation, as formulated by the Council of Chalcedon (ad 451). he came to the conclusion that exclusive male priesthood is falsely based on the maleness of Jesus Christ and on concomitant biological arguments. God’s incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ is archetypal for all humans, not only for males. the same pertains to his crucifixion and sacrifice. Priesthood also has an ontological content and an ecclesiological dimension transcending male and female distinctions and polarities. Women’s exclusion from priesthood should be attributed, first, to human weaknesses in apprehending the mystery of the ‘divine economy’ and, second, to specific historical circumstances pertaining to the opposition of the sexes. from the perspective of Christ’s recapitulation of ‘the divided creation and human beings’, yiokarinis argues, women cannot be excluded from priesthood on the grounds of their sex alone. megas farantos (2000: 151–4), a professor emeritus of dogmatics at the faculty of theology of the university of athens, also raised the question of the possibility of women’s access to ordained ministry. in his opinion, no dogmatic impediment to the ordination of women exists, and there was never any official decision by

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the church against this in the past. in his view, Jesus Christ did not underestimate women, who are absolutely equal to men. Paul’s admonitions and prohibitions to women (1 Cor. 14, 34) were circumstantial with no normative value. established practices within the church thus have a temporary value and should not be turned into taboos. the existing silence of Christian sources regarding women’s issues in the church cannot be used as an argument against women’s ordination. the fact that deaconesses were ordained in the church in earlier centuries demonstrates that women were not excluded altogether from ordained functions. after all, given that all sacraments are accessible to women, this may hold true also for ordination. Farantos went so far as to suggest that ordination fits women much more than men, because Christianity is a religion of love, which is expressed in the best way through women and their maternity. the church may draw many privileges from women’s ordination, as it did in the area of theology teaching, in which many women are today active. farantos’ conclusion is that the church, if necessary, may reassess its traditional practice on this matter, as it should do with many other issues (for example ordaining married priests as bishops). Perhaps the best example of the ongoing changes in Greek Orthodox discourses on women’s issues comes from a recent initiative under the auspices of the holy metropolis of demetrias, which since 2000 has operated an academy for theological studies. this is an open forum of critical thought and dialogue between Orthodox clerics and theologians and other independent intellectuals, scholars and politicians, who are, in many respects, critical of the church. One of the topics under discussion was the overall position of women in the Orthodox Church as well as the relationship of gender to religion in general. the result was a lengthy volume including a variety of contributions from both men and women (kalaitzidis and ntontos 2004). its intention was not to repeat previous eulogies regarding the amelioration of women’s status brought about by Christianity or regarding the alleged high position of women within the Orthodox Church in contrast to Western Christianity. avoiding such an Orthodox triumphalism so often met in the past, this volume tried to approach the modern Western world and its by-product feminism not as evils to be exorcized but, rather, as opportunities for a more critical appraisal of the actual position of women in Greek Orthodox ecclesiology, which admittedly is far from ideal. Critical voices were thus directed against the subjection of the church to social conservatism, which exhibited a discriminatory face towards women leading to their devalued presence in the church itself. Paradoxically, however, even in this new progressive climate, it was the male contributors to the volume who adopted a more critical stance in their consideration of the topic of gender and religion in Greek Orthodoxy. Out of the fourteen main contributors only four were women and, in their articles, the emphasis was still on the traditional arguments that stress the equal position that women enjoyed in the early church in relation to men, the possible contribution of Orthodoxy to feminist theology (and not the other way round), the return to the real eucharistic tradition of the church and the equality of the sexes in the face of a flourishing female Orthodox

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monasticism. Virtually all of them upheld the rigorously anti-Western, narcissistic rhetoric that their sisters, previously as delegates at the WCC, exhibited. for all of them, the Orthodox tradition has been and still is a liberating one for women. Perhaps, their position is better understood when placed in the wider context of the general appeal of feminism in Greece. as other scholars have noted, feminism in Greece was never a real revolutionary movement but, rather, a reformist one, and its effects on the re-evaluation of gender concepts was and still remains a limited one (faubion 1993: 176). thus, Greek women involved in theological matters appear to be content, at least at the moment, in seeing themselves as agents of change in so far as they have managed to carve for themselves a public space within the male-dominated Orthodox domain. also taking into account the fact that Greeks are usually in the habit of defining themselves ‘against others’ (Faubion 1993: 181), the anti-feminist stance of women theologians does not represent so much a submission to an androcentric intellectual discourse and the loss of freedom of expression but, rather, their fear of the loss of Greekness, which Western modernity seems to threaten. ethnographers have pointed out that Greek women in general are often found ‘in outward conformity to the androcentric norm’ (loizos and Papataxiarchis 1991: 13). as will become apparent in the course of this chapter, the adoption of androcentric models of thinking by female theologians is met with their inward challenge by ordinary laywomen in the field of action. On the other hand, what becomes obvious from the brief exposition of the above more ‘modern’ male theological discourses on women’s issues is not so much their novelty in the field of theory but more their change in attitude. One can see that they are no longer directed to a non-Orthodox external, Western european or otherwise, audience that needs to be persuaded of the correctness of the Orthodox tradition-boundedness. they are not any more apologetic or defensive in tone. rather, they try to examine the whole issue more thoroughly, explore its antinomies and formulate concrete measures to be taken. moreover, they are characterized by a readiness to be more self-critical, thus avoiding the self-indulgence that traditionally characterized Orthodox rhetoric. it is clearly a novel phenomenon with modern overtones, creating a new and more positive atmosphere in which to discuss women’s issues within Greek Orthodoxy and one which may bear fruit in the years to come. One of the most important reasons behind this apparent change in attitude is the fact that Greek women’s involvement in the Orthodox public sphere, though in most cases not a systematic one, has greatly increased. in recent years the theological schools of Greece have undergone a process of ‘feminization’, given that more and more women are now studying theology and an increasing number of females are included in the academic staff of Orthodox divinity schools as well as in secondary education and in other positions of theological instruction (koukoura 2005: 88–99). although the growing number of female theology students is not the direct result of an increased interest in theological matters on the part of women but, rather, the outcome of the specificities of the system pertaining to entrance examinations in Greek universities, it remains a significant

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factor in augmenting women’s participation in the Orthodox domain. it must be noted, however, that in spite of the increased involvement of women in lay ministry through their educational, administrative and philanthropic activities, their main contribution still remains at the unofficial, lower levels within the church, in a role that has been termed as ‘supportive diakonia’ (limouris 1992: 30), that is, as the indispensable helper of the male clergy. in this way, the traditional model of gender complementarity, so often mentioned in the ethnographic literature on Greece (du boulay 1983; hirschon 1989), persists as do the structural conditions that nourish it, thus giving an impression of a relationship between the sexes based on unity and equality at both the religious and the societal levels.

From Theory to Praxis: Orthodoxy, Women and Modernity all the above demonstrate a certain change, mainly in the male Orthodox theological discourses on women’s issues, that is not congruent with the pervasive idea about Orthodox immutability and traditionalism. to discuss such issues is no longer regarded as blasphemous, against the holy tradition of the church or a by-product of the fallen West. the remaining question, however, is whether these discourses or the ongoing reflection on such matters have led to concrete action by the male hierarchy of the Orthodox Church. admittedly, the changes described until now are rather timid ones and may take a long time to produce any real results. Yet, there is some evidence that they have begun to take effect in specific areas. The first visible change on the part of the church in the new millennium was the decision of the Permanent holy synod of the Church of Greece in 2002 (no. 153) to establish a special synodical committee that will address all issues relating to women within church and society in such a way that will be acceptable to the majority of church hierarchs and in accordance with Orthodox tradition and practice. among other things, this committee was entrusted with the tasks of examining all issues relating to the social position of women within or outside Greek society that might have a direct bearing on the church; formulating related proposals to the holy synod in order to take relative measures; informing the holy synod of developments in women’s issues in other eu and foreign countries and churches; initiating concrete measures for women’s continuous education and improving the women’s service within the church in accordance with the tradition and the Holy Canons; and, finally, cooperating with state and non-governmental organizations on women’s issues. a considerable number of the seven members of this committee were women (troiannos 2005: 83–5). in 2005 the holy synod also admonished local metropolitans to reconstruct parish councils in such a way that both men and women could equally participate in them (troiannos 2005: 88). the committee, among other things, established a special place for abused women in the archdiocese of athens, but its main contribution should be seen in its support for the re-activation of the institution of deaconesses. this was obviously

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the outcome of previous repeated inter-Orthodox consultations (limouris 1992). it is widely accepted among Orthodox theologians that in the early church women had greater responsibilities than those allowed them today (see agourides 1999: 23–36), and the institution of deaconesses in early Christian and byzantine times attests to this (karidoyanes fitzgerald 1998, 1999). the institution of deaconesses was considered mainly to be an ‘eastern’ one (theodorou 1992: 210), given that in the West, in spite of its persistence up until at least the eleventh century, it did not develop in numbers or prestige as in the eastern Church. the order reached its height in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries and was regarded as an honourable office filled by women who either belonged to the order of virgins dedicated to God or to the order of widows who were married only once. Charismatic nuns of the great schema, abbesses of convents and wives of bishops could also serve as deaconesses. apart from their virtue, charisma and commitment, women selected to this office had also to be at least 40 years of age and had to possess the necessary education that allowed them to meet their catechetical responsibilities. deaconesses were considered members of the clergy in both civil and ecclesiastical law. their ordination took place at the altar during the liturgy and was similar to that of the deacons. the deaconess was considered of higher rank than the sub-deacon, received holy Communion directly after the clergy and was addressed by terms that conferred to her high esteem, such as ‘most honoured’ and ‘most Pious’. the role of deaconesses was more concerned with the pastoral and sacramental care of the female portion of the congregation: ministering in their houses, visiting the sick and the elderly, taking holy Communion to women unable to attend church, assisting at baptisms, supervising women during worship, preparing the bodies of women for burial and acting as intermediaries between women and the bishop. after the ninth century the order began to decline for several reasons, but it was never abolished; rather, it simply ceased to function. in the Greek case in particular, it never ceased to exist completely, and individual women of the monastic order have been ordained as deaconesses on several occasions. in 1911, the later-canonized bishop nektarios (kephalas) ordained nuns into the deaconate (Chaldaiakis 1998). between 1957 and 1963, the church established in athens a school of deaconesses for the purpose of preparing women to assist the clergy in philanthropic activities. however, no graduates were ever ordained. that is why it was later renamed and functioned under the auspices of the church until 1984 when it was subjected to the national ministry of health. the institution of the deaconesses was also re-activated in cases of necessity and in accordance with the Orthodox principle of ‘oikonomia’, which, as will be shown, allows exceptions to the rule. such was the case of the abbess of the convent of st spyridon (Promiri, magnesia), who in 1986 was ordained into the deaconate by the former archbishop of Greece Christodoulos (1998–2008) while serving as metropolitan of demetrias (1974–1998). the abbess, in the absence of a male clergyman, was given the right to administer the sacrament of holy Communion to the nuns, particularly in the winter months when access to the convent was difficult due to restrictive weather conditions. Later, on 6 October 1998, in the first meeting of the entire church

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hierarchy following his election, archbishop Christodoulos announced that such a revival would in fact be desirable and he remained a consistent advocate for the restoration of the order throughout his ministry. in general, the re-activation and re-establishment of the female deaconate, perhaps because of its ‘eastern-ness’ and its connection to tradition, has been viewed by the majority of Greek clergymen and theologians as a positive measure that will result in an amelioration of the position of Greek Orthodox women in the church. tradition here has paradoxically become a ‘modern’ tool effecting the most exciting and important change pertaining to women to take place in Greek Orthodoxy in recent years: the restitution of the order of deaconesses. On 8 October 2004, the holy synod of the Church of Greece, under the leadership of the archbishop Christodoulos, made the historic decision to restore the female deaconate. in the extensive discussion preceding this important decision, 64 representatives of various dioceses offered their views on the matter. metropolitan Chrysostomos of Chalkis (2004) submitted a lengthy report entitled ‘the role of Women in the Organism of the Church: the re-activation of the institution of deaconesses’. aside from addressing various issues therein, he discussed in the third part the issue of deaconesses from a historical and canonical point of view and their liturgical ordination through the imposition of hands, which had to be distinguished from that of the deacons. he also favoured the sober re-activation of the institution adapted to the needs of the church today, while pointing to the problems related to it that had to be resolved (for example regarding the personal status of the deaconesses whether married, widows or nuns). this proposal was discussed differently in the church hierarchy with both positive and negative opinions. finally, archbishop Christodoulos formulated a proposal, which was ratified by the Holy Synod. According to this, each metropolitan was given the right and the freedom to decide, if there was such a need, to ordain deaconesses from the nuns of the ‘great schema’ (megaloschimes) of his jurisdiction in order to support the practical needs of the monastery or of the metropolis. it was clearly stated that this measure was by no means equal to women’s ordination in the church. deaconesses were supposed to help at the christening of adult women or to bring the holy Communion to ill people when priests were unable to do so (troiannos 2005: 85–7). however, limiting the restitution of the female deaconate to the monastic order did meet with opposition from some individual bishops who believed that it should be open to all women and should benefit the wider society-at-large. nevertheless, evangelos theodorou, a professor emeritus of practical theology at the university of athens, an authority on the issue and a senior advisor to archbishop Christodoulos, regarded the decision of the holy Synod as the first step towards the full re-establishment of the order. Hence, the office of deaconesses appears, in words at least, as a target within reach in the near future. yet, its very restriction to the monastic order clearly demonstrates the anxiety of the Greek male clergy that women may use such a position as a stepping stone to priesthood.

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another area in which the church hierarchy rubbed shoulders with modernity was the creation of a special synodical Committee for bioethics in december 1998 with the purpose of forming the official position of the church on the emerging problems of modern medical technological capabilities concerning the two broad areas of the protection and transmission of life. What is of particular concern here is the church’s stance on the issues of contraception, abortion and assisted fertility and the gender assumptions that inform its discourse. this discourse rests on the concept of the female body as the holy site of nature in which God’s will and divine plan are realized. In the official statement of the Bioethics Committee (2006) on its basic positions on the ethics of assisted reproduction one reads: the anatomy, physiology, the monthly period, the hormonal balance and the overall physiology of the female sex are oriented towards motherhood … the basic function of the female body to which the entire female existence is directed is the reproductive function. the woman exists anatomically, physiologically and sentimentally for the embryo, the pregnancy and childbearing.

it is interesting to note that the committee’s report continues with the recognition that fatherhood is a ‘need’ equivalent to that of motherhood, but says nothing about the male body; it simply proceeds in the same paragraph to ‘de-pathologize’ the state of infertility: equivalent to the need for motherhood is also the need for fatherhood. for this reason, the Church acknowledges that sterility and childlessness can become an unbearable cross that often creates intense mental distress, social difficulties and, sometimes, insoluble problems affecting the harmonious coexistence of the spouses. sterility, apart from being characterized as a biological imperfection, is regarded by the Church as an expression of God’s will or even a blessing in the form of a trial.

this is an important statement if one considers the wider context of the sociocultural importance that Greeks place on ‘gender proficiency’ that is realized through the virile capability of men to succeed in sexual intercourse and women’s ability to achieve motherhood (Paxson, 2003: 1860). here, i would go so far as to suggest that the fact that sterility is mentioned in the above passage right after the need for fatherhood is not just a fortuitous occurrence. moreover, the fact that it is not treated as a biological imperfection that needs to be corrected, but rather as an opportunity for spiritual perfection may be regarded as an effort by the male ecclesiasts to ease the ‘negative’ effects and ambiguity that such a state may confer on male identity. needless to say, from the perspective of the church both genders should realize their full potential only within the sacred context of marriage. sperm obtained outside normal marital sexual intercourse is considered as both an unnatural and an unethical act. but it becomes a non-sin when it is obtained for the sole purpose of childbearing. yet, the mild stance adopted here is considerably

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hardened when matters concerning in vitro fertilization practised by unwed mothers or older women are put into focus. such practices are outright rejected for they are based on the women’s ‘egoistic’ desire for children. the unequal treatment of men and women in the statement produced by this bioethics Committee is an obvious one. dealing with the language and the paradoxes contained in such statements is a project of its own. Here suffice it to say that the church is neither totally rejecting assisted reproduction nor bestowing on it its blessing. rather, it treats it as a recognized reality that should be confronted according to the church’s spiritual dispensation and not on the basis of its theological precision. its general stance remains a deeply conservative one clothed with apparent modern and progressive concerns. It is within the above context of the glorification of motherhood and what I call the ‘domestication of sperm’ that the official ecclesiastical stance on contraception and abortion should be understood. Contraception, even when it is used for the purpose of spacing the number of children within the context of marriage, is considered as ‘immoral’ and as hindering spiritual perfection. the only acceptable form of contraception is that of sexual abstinence because it involves no loss of sperm. in a parallel manner, abortion is seen as an ‘evil’ act even in cases when the embryo suffers serious deformities. the only exception considered as acceptable and as an ‘involuntary sin’, but a sin nonetheless, is where the life of the mother is endangered. interestingly enough, in Greece and at the level of practice, women challenge the official ecclesiastical prohibitions on reproductive issues. A ‘family-oriented’ culture like Greece, where the ideal of motherhood is both socially ascribed and institutionally reinforced, paradoxically boasts one of the highest abortion rates in the european union. indeed, modern urban middle-class Greek women regard abortion as a ‘necessary evil’, imposed by patriarchal gender relations and modern economic pressures, as well as the ‘main method of birth control’ (Paxson 2002: 308, 310). more than 300,000 abortions were performed in Greece in the 1980s, almost two to three times the live birth rate (Paxson, 2005: 101). moreover, abortion is not considered a moral issue of any degree and is relatively free from guilt (Paxson 2005: 102). as one priest pointed out to me, in women’s confessions, we often hear of abortion. Women confess to such an act with a greater ease than in the past and because we so often hear of it, even we priests came to view it as a kind of a lesser sin and no longer pose any of the strict penances that we used to.

yet, abortion in Greece may no longer be regarded so much as a sin against God, but coupled with the low fertility rate of the country, it is construed and portrayed in the dominant discourses of the state, church hierarchy, family planners and medical professionals as a sin against the nation. Women’s preference for abortion is seen as putting Greece’s future at risk. Women, however, are putting themselves at risk by relying on abortion as a form of contraception. in this context, risk does

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not imply any passive submission to fate but, rather, is employed as a means of contending against ‘modernity’. as alexandra halkias (2004: 154) argues, sex that involves risk is ‘perhaps one of the last remaining vestiges of resistance against the onslaught of the … forces of modernity’. far from being backward, ignorant and irrational, as family planners and medical professionals often portray them, women prefer abortion over other means of medical contraception not because of a conscious rational choice that turns a traditional practice into a modern one but, rather, because it best serves the conflicting demands and expectations of their gender. as daughters, wives, mothers and Greeks they must be at once both traditional and modern. This contradictory nature of Greek femininity is also exemplified in women’s attitude towards in vitro fertilization (Paxson 2004). As Paxson’s field study of Athenian women has shown, by upholding the religious glorified ideal of motherhood and feeling that motherhood ‘completes’ a woman, women are able to use modern reproductive techniques – despite religious opposition, social ignorance and fears about the well-being of the embryo conceived in such a way – and to normalize them. they do so through the adoption of an ethic of maternal sacrifice and suffering, which links them to the Mother of God. Yet, motherhood as ‘tradition’ is re-evaluated through a modern lens and ceases to be simply ‘natural’. It becomes a socially fulfilled potential and, as such, a matter of personal responsibility and work. thus, mothers who give birth after the ordeal of pursuing in vitro fertilization are seen as ‘better’ mothers (Paxson, 2006: 488). it is interesting to see here that women not only bypass the religious prohibitions posed by the church, but manage to ‘incorporate [in vitro fertilization] into a repertoire of spiritual kin work, allowing them to factor new medical practices into symbolic equations of gender and kinship consistent with Orthodox values’ (Paxson 2006: 499). yet, as in the case of abortion, in vitro fertilization makes apparent how female corporeality is used for the protection of patriarchal ideals and values. i would argue that perhaps the most modern and underestimated tool that Greek Orthodoxy possesses, and the one that leaves space for women to elbow their way into the church and justifies women’s agency, is that of oikonomia. indeed, the lack of strong sentiments and reactions on the part of women against the male ecclesiastical hierarchy can be best explained by reference to this notion. a traditional concept stemming from Orthodox Canon law, oikonomia basically refers to the mild application of church rules and prescriptions out of philanthropic concern, especially when it is believed that the strict application of these rules would accentuate problems and lead to the abandoning of the church. in other words, the principle of oikonomia allows things to happen within the church that would be otherwise unacceptable. these exceptions do not become the rule, but they are tolerated under special circumstances and give to the church a ‘popular tinge’. as a result, this principle is not only applied generally and adaptively in numerous situations, but also taken for granted by the believers, including women, in practising Orthodoxy. Whatever they might do, it is usually regarded as ‘allowed’ and ‘acceptable’ under the auspices of oikonomia. thus, if women make

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a conscious decision not to strictly follow church rules and prohibitions, they know very well that they can be easily ‘forgiven’ by appealing to this principle. in this way, women can exercise agency, albeit within the constraints of an androcentric religious system. it is against this background that women’s preference for abortion and their use of what the church regards as morally ambiguous means of reproductive technology may be best understood. moreover, when forbidden practices become regular, they may produce reformist results. this is evident in the case of prescriptions of the church concerning women’s attire. more and more women attend church wearing trousers to the point that the church hierarchy has tacitly approved the relaxation of such prescriptions. In the course of my fieldwork3 many women also admitted that they were kissing the icons, lighting candles or receiving the ‘antidoron’ (consecrated bread), although they were menstruating, because they just felt ‘a need for it’. such practices indicate a more ‘muted’ female model of piety that runs against the official prescriptions concerning the ritual impurity of women. in general, what the use of the principle of oikonomia exposes is modernity’s dependence on tradition. by employing an Orthodox traditional notion and practice, women are free from the weight of sin and further their own individual interests. in doing so, they modernize long-standing religious practices of asymmetrical gender relations. even as laywomen are involved in silent practices – however small – of resistance and reform, Orthodox sisterhoods in Greece have recently gained in importance. this has been achieved in two different ways. first, nuns assume roles as ‘spiritual mothers’ and custodians of sacred, miraculous relics, thereby serving as powerful intercessors between the believers and the saints to whom the relics belong. an example of such a spiritual mother is that of the abbess of the convent of saint raphael on the island of lesvos, evgenia kleidara. the ‘holy mother’, as the islanders address her, has written a large number of books, many of which have been translated into different languages and some of which have been included in school syllabi. she has also received many awards for her written and social work. yet, her exalted position in the Greek Orthodox milieu stems more from her role as the guardian and protector of the miraculous relics of the fifteenth-century martyrs saint raphael, saint nicholas and saint irini. People suffering from illnesses or other misfortunes, especially women, often make pilgrimages to the convent in order to gain access to the supernatural power that the relics possess. the abbess, as a person closer to these saints, through her prayers often mediates the relationship between the saints and the pilgrims, thus facilitating their access to supernatural power (see monastery of saint raphael n.d.). the second way in which nuns have managed to better their position in Greek Orthodoxy is through the increased appeal that Orthodox spirituality has assumed in recent decades among the educated female population, not only of Greece, 3 fieldwork was conducted between 1991 and 1993 in an urban Greek Orthodox convent and updated in 2006–2007 to include international convents in Greece.

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but also internationally. Orthodox female monasticism is no longer viewed as an alternative way of life for those women with restricted marriage prospects and few social opportunities, as it was in the past. in the last few decades, more and more educated women are entering monasticism, reviving the institution, thus attracting more converts from abroad. a new type of ‘international convent’ has appeared in Greece in recent years. Convents of this new type are run by highly educated nuns from various, mainly Western countries. these convents have received fame not only for their spiritual work, but also – and perhaps more importantly – for their engagement with modern projects, thus making female monasticism an institution far more involved in society-at-large. such projects include medical, educational and scientific research, and some convents have made headway in ecological projects by introducing organic farming principles to their agricultural properties. in this way, such international convents became models for farmers all over Greece, and the nuns residing in them became the possessors not only of spiritual, but also of valuable technical knowledge. their exemplary way of treating the environment has increased environmental sensitivity among the people living close by the convents. the most well known among them is the holy Convent of the annunciation at Ormylia (Chalkidiki) with over 120 nuns from various nations, the majority of whom are highly educated. in cooperation with its mother male monastery of simonopetra on mount athos, in 1982 this convent established the Panagia Philantropini Centre with the purpose of making contributions to society and culture as well as to the tradition of Orthodox monasticism. in february 2006, the Greek state passed a special law approving its establishment as a public welfare institution under the name the Ormylia foundation, thus recognizing the convent’s social and scientific contribution. It is also worth noting that, with the expressed purpose of documenting and protecting cultural heritage works through the use of modern methods and technologies, the nuns founded an Ormylia art diagnosis Centre in 1996 – thus reinforcing modern artistic creation (see the Ormylia foundation n.d.). it is clear, therefore, that modernity has completely altered the face of Orthodox female monasticism; perhaps this is the only context within Orthodoxy in which Western influence, represented by the ‘international nuns’, has not encountered resistance but, rather, is positively valued. again here though, modernity met Orthodoxy through the most traditional of institutions, that of monasticism. moreover, the absence of an analogous phenomenon among monks may point to the persistence of traditional gender models and roles within the religious sphere. Women, because of their devalued spiritual worth and because of their ethos of service, are more actively engaged in practical and earthly matters, whereas males are left free to pursue spiritual ones. the fact that most foreign monk converted to Orthodoxy reside on mount athos, the bastion of Orthodox tradition and spirituality, may further attest to this fact. i began this chapter by considering Orthodox women’s acceptance and defence of the long-standing prohibition of their entry to mount athos – the so-called ‘avaton’. the lifting of the ban has been seen by many female euro-deputies as a

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mark of european status and as a tool by which Greek women will earn Westernstyle rights and, with that, a passport to modernity (Papastathis 2000). however, many Greek women have strongly defended the need to keep this long tradition intact as an element of Greek cultural and religious idiosyncrasy. the avaton in Greece is not regarded, first and foremost, as a gender issue to be addressed from a conventional feminist perspective but, rather, as a national one. moreover, due to prevailing gender roles and images that associate women with Panagia, the mother of God and the protector of both mount athos and the Greek nation as a whole, Greekness is gendered feminine and actions that secure its preservation and perpetuation are obviously a ‘women’s issue’ (sotiriu 2004: 508). thus, women who demand the abolition of the ban may be seen as betraying their identity as women, as Orthodox and as Greek. yet, whereas Greek women will defend tradition to outsiders as members of the ‘bigger family’ – that of the Greek nation – they are prepared to violate the prohibition of entry to athos when their personal interest or that of their immediate family are at risk, as a recent incident has shown. In 2008, six female protesters, among them a Parliamentarian, defied the 1,000-year-old rule and entered the monastic sanctuary of mount athos as a symbolic gesture against the illegal claims of monks on their properties. as the spokesman for the Chalkidiki citizen’s movement, herself one of the women who entered athos, said to the associated Press: ‘if [the monks] are to take away our homes, then it might be better for us to go to prison … We are fed up and angry about this land seizure and the monasteries’ demands’ (‘Greece: Women Protest’ 2008). such comments and actions on the part of the women reveal quite clearly that, far from being the passive recipients of state and religious discourses, they use strategy and agency to further their personal and family interests against male domination.

Epilogue in this chapter, i have tried to present snippets of modernity and its effects on religious and gender discourses and actions in a country on the ‘margins’ of europe. these i would argue are best understood by adopting the ‘multiple modernities’ approach, which supports the view that different cultures construct different modernity projects, allowing for the cross-fertilization of religion, gender, tradition and modernity. in describing how the ecclesiastical hierarchs, male theologians and Greek women try to update religious and gender discourses and practices i have demonstrated how ‘tradition’ has provided the stepping stone for ‘modernity’ and became its defining force. In the Greek context, as indeed in many others, ‘things “modern” are implicitly incomplete, lacking, without key aspects of “tradition”’ (Paxson 2003: 1863). Greek Orthodoxy’s entry into modernity has proved to be a feminine one. the most concrete, exciting and interesting change that has happened in Greek Orthodoxy in recent years is the restoration of the female deaconate. furthermore,

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it was mainly ‘women’s issues’ that provided the opportunity for the church to engage in a dialogue with modernity. the main purpose of this engagement, however, was not so much to produce specific actions but, rather, to keep up appearances vis-à-vis Western forms of Christianity. the church pursued not reform and transformation, but instead restoration. Greek women theologians have proven, as shown here, to be great mimics of androcentric models of thinking on religious matters, because they mainly preferred a model of representation of the self that emphasized ‘otherness’ rather than ‘commonalities’ with their sisters in the West. together with the rest of Greek women, they seem to carry on their backs the weight of the nation. their stance, however, is not one of gender blindness, but rather one that reveals women’s strategy and agency. Greek Orthodox women may feel discriminated against by the male church hierarchy, its decisions and admonitions or by still existing traditions. nonetheless, this does not prohibit them from practising Orthodoxy and being modern in their own way. they sometimes raise their voice against the male-dominated domains of the church and demand greater access to positions of power and influence, but more often than not, their reactions and resistance assume a covert form. Greek Orthodox women are both mimics and transformers, both Greek and european, exhibiting a distinctly Greek stance. in this way, they become the ‘traditional modern’.

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loizos, Peter and evthymios Papataxiarchis. 1991. ‘introduction’. in Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, ed. P. loizos and e. Papataxiarchis. Princeton: Princeton university Press, pp. 3–25. monastery of saint raphael n.d.. Welcome to the Monastery of Saint Raphael. retrieved 1 november 2008 at http://www.agios-raphael.com the Ormylia foundation. n.d. Welcome to the Ormylia Foundation. retrieved 1 november 2008 at http://www.ormyliafoundation.gr Papastathis, Charalambos k. 2000. ‘the enclosure of mount athos in the framework of Gender discrimination’, Kanon 16: 265–81. Paraskevaidis, Christodoulos, metropolitan of demetrias. 1986. Feminismos kai Ekklisia (Feminism and Church). athens: apostoliki diakonia. Paxson, heather. 2002. ‘rationalizing sex: family Planning and the making of modern lovers in urban Greece’, American Ethnologist 29: 307–34. ——. 2003. ‘With or against nature? iVf, Gender and reproductive agency in athens, Greece’, Social Science and Medicine 56: 1853–66. ——. 2004. Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece. berkeley: university of California Press. ——. 2005. ‘family Planning, human nature, and the ethical subject of sex in urban Greece’. in Sex in Development: Science, Sexuality, and Morality in Global Perspective, ed. V. adams and s. l. Pigg. durham, nC: duke university Press, pp. 95–124. ——. 2006. ‘reproduction as spiritual kin Work: Orthodoxy, iVf, and the moral economy of motherhood in Greece’, Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 30: 481–505. sotiriu, eleni. 2004. ‘Contested masculine spaces in Greek Orthodoxy’, Social Compass 51: 499–510. taylor, Charles. 2002. Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited. Cambridge, mass.: harvard university Press. theodorou, evangelos. 1992. ‘the institution of deaconesses in the Orthodox Church and the Possibility of its restoration’. in The Place of the Woman in the Orthodox Church and the Question of the Ordination of Women. Interorthodox Symposium, Rhodos, Greece (30 October – 7 November 1988), ed. Gennadios limouris. katerini: tertios, pp. 207–38. troiannos, spyros n. 2005. ‘die Position der kirche Griechenlands in der frauenfrage’, Kanon 16: 80–94. yannaras, Christos. 2006. Enantia sti Thriskeia (Against Religion). athens: ikaros. yiokarinis, Constantinos n. 1995. I Ierosyni ton Gynaikon sto Plaisio tis Oikoumenikis Kinisis (The Priesthood of Women in the Context of the Ecumenical Movement). katerini: epektasi. ——. 2004. ‘to Zitima tis Cheirotonias ton Gynaikon: Oi anthropologikes kai Christologikes diastaseis tou thematos’ (the issue of the Ordination of Women: the anthropological and Christological dimensions of the topic). in Fylo kai Thriskeia: I Thesi tis Gynaikas stin Ekklisia (Gender and Religion:

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Chapter 7

the mosque that was not there: ethnographic elaborations on Orthodox Conceptions of Sacrifice 1

dimitris antoniou

from the beginning of the 1990s, at a time when the Greek economy had begun to prosper and the prospect of greater european integration was looming, thousands of muslim immigrants started to settle in athens (antoniou 2003). this was a time of great optimism marked by the beginning of a Greco-turkish rapprochement, the rise of the stock market and the vision of the athens 2004 Olympic Games that would prove to the world the country’s democratic stability, cultural achievements and infrastructural advancement. it was in this context that successive Greek governments tried to respond to allegations made by various non-governmental organizations, the united states Government, the european union and the international press regarding the status of religious freedom in the country.2 One of the most common accusations was crystallized in a cliché phrase: ‘athens is the only European capital without an official mosque’. Thus a new image of a modern, european, ‘multicultural’ and rather more islamic athens had to be projected. Part of this endeavour was an initiative taken by the Greek ministry of foreign affairs to establish a central mosque in the capital city. When the bill reached Parliament, a heated debate commenced. an overview of these debates is offered in Chapter 4 of this volume. despite these controversies, on 20 June 2000 the building of the mosque was approved. this would have been a place of worship, study and information, to be constructed in the town of P, almost 20 km from the centre of athens (antoniou 2003: 168). nevertheless, it was never built. to paraphrase Pierre nora ([1992] 1996), it existed only as a lieu de fantasme, a site of fantasy. some years later, in 2006, the government once 1 To Anna and Tasos for years of sacrifice. This chapter originated in a paper delivered at a workshop organized by Princeton university’s Program in hellenic studies. my thanks go to all participants in discussions, but especially to anne-marie alexander, leo Coleman, nikolaos michailidis, John borneman, abdellah hammoudi, norman itskowitz and dimitris Gondicas. i would also like to express my gratitude to Celia kerslake and Walter armbrust from Oxford university’s st antony’s College who read earlier versions of this work and also dimitris hatzis for his invaluable insights. 2 see for instance, ‘ieres enstaseis gia tin ekthesi tou state department’ (2005).

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again declared its determination to establish a central mosque in the capital. the plans, however, had somewhat changed, and P was no longer considered the ideal location (Papahristou 2006). in an effort to explain why this project failed to materialize, many blamed the Orthodox Church of Greece. these accusations not only were found in the Greek media but also transcended national boundaries. a fairly creative encapsulation of this assumption is offered in the form of a drawing in a turkish newspaper article entitled ‘Atina’daki cami tartışması semboller savaşına dönüştü’ (The Debate on the athenian mosque has turned into a War of symbols) (arslan 2003) (see figure 7.1). the drawing presents a structure reminiscent of the Parthenon on top of which

figure 7.1

‘the way to the athens mosque passes through the church’, reproduction of the original drawing that appeared in Zaman, 11 march 2003 by dimitris antoniou.

there is both a cross and a crescent. the structure itself constitutes a framework for an inscription revealing to readers who is responsible for the non-establishment of the mosque in athens: ‘the way to the athens mosque passes through the church’ (atina camii’nin yolu kiliseden geçiyor). the meaning of this inscription is further elaborated in the main body of the article: [athens] is the only capital in europe that does not have a mosque, because the strongest institution in the country is the Church. the Orthodox Church is

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against the building of the mosque. subconsciously there is the thought that one day the turks will come back. for this reason a very simple matter of worship is turning into a crisis.

interestingly enough, in the little town of P, in various academic forums and international organizations, a similar assumption could easily be noted. Many seemed to believe that the official church would automatically oppose the construction of a mosque in athens. this was also the case with european Commissioner alvaro Gil-robles, who met with archbishop Christodoulos in June 2002 in order to discuss the mosque issue. after completing his short visit, the commissioner produced an interesting report for the consideration of the european Committee of ministers and the Parliamentary assembly in which he stated: A question related to that of places of worship is the lack of an official mosque in athens where, apart from the Greek muslims, several thousand muslims of foreign origin live as a result of the heavy migration flow. At present these worshippers, according to the report that i received from several nGOs with official confirmation, meet in clearly unsuitable places such as flats, basements, garages and other private premises. When this question was raised, the secretary General for religious affairs – as well as archbishop Christodoulos – assured me that he had no objection to the building of a mosque, but invoked potential local resistance. i appeal to the solidarity, spirit of tolerance and good will of all concerned to pick out a place readily accessible to worshippers on which to build a mosque for muslims established in athens district. (Gil-robles 2002: 6)

the Commissioner’s meeting with the leader of the Orthodox Church of Greece was also attended by many Greek journalists who recorded and subsequently incorporated into their articles parts of the archbishop’s welcoming speech to the european Commissioner: We, being Greeks, were subjected to the [rule of the] turks for 400 years. and this occupation (katohi) by the Turks was paid for with sacrifices in blood. We had hundreds of victims who were sacrificed for the freedom of this land. Our religion played the primary role in protecting our language, history, religion and identity, for at that time it had no political power. in the mind of the Greeks, everything islamic is turkish … thus there is this hatred which, i would say, we do not cultivate. We are trying to silence it and this is also known to the government. for this reason, [the government] has chosen a place outside the city of athens [P], so that [the muslims] are not right in the middle … we are afraid that such a mosque right in the centre of athens with a minaret … and a muezzin who will be heard five times a day performing the prayer, will provoke a reaction from the Greek people, the extent of which we cannot know. (translated by the author from tsatsis 2006)

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as one can see, the archbishop adopts a ‘psychoanalytical’ perspective concerning the mosque issue. the Greek population constitutes a homogenous body that reacts in the same way for the same reasons. the complicated mechanics of the public psyche are, for him, easily explained. in this particular case, the opposition to the establishment of a central mosque stems from the memory of a ‘turkish occupation’ that lasted for ‘400 years’. this lengthy period has apparently caused a severe trauma, a lasting wound inflicted upon the Greek psyche. This is what halbwachs (1980: 52) describes as collective/historical memory: to imagine the memory of an event you have never witnessed. thus present-day Greeks cannot forget the ‘turkish rule’ even though they never experienced it. for the archbishop this national remembrance also creates a kind of ‘permanent after-effect’. in the case of the Greek collective trauma that he describes, this passes from one generation to the next and unfolds in a two-stage process. first it leads collective cognition to an immediate identification of ‘everything Islamic’ with ‘everything Turkish’. Then it causes a reflex reaction, the exact form and extent of which cannot be foreseen. in order to avoid the triggering of such a process the archbishop suggests hiding the mosque from the public eye. even though he is not against it, as the european Commissioner is quick to point out, he prefers an almost invisible mosque lost in suburbia. it is for all these reasons that the above quotation from the archbishop’s speech deserves analysis and attention. indeed, there are many more thoughts that one could share simply by studying his discourse. nevertheless, in the context of this chapter it is important to identify the official church’s stance regarding the issue in question. like the people of P and the turkish journalists, the european Commissioner seems to believe that the church might represent a serious obstacle to his attempts to support the construction of an official place of worship for the capital’s muslims. but the church does not oppose the construction of a mosque in athens. its leader, the archbishop, shares with the european Commissioner his concerns, lectures him on Greek history and collective memory, but does not seem to disagree with the main idea. Quite the contrary, he appears to endorse this governmental initiative. this became very clear, in february 2002, nine months after archbishop Christodoulos’ meeting with the Commissioner, when the church’s holy synod voted in favour of the construction of a mosque in athens (kalokerinos 2002) so it is only reasonable at this point, now that one studies the church at the level of perception, to ask why people of diverse social and educational backgrounds appear to think in a similar manner, why they anticipate the same reaction and, most importantly, what exactly is meant by the term ‘church’? in an attempt to answer the first question I could point to a number of recent works discussing the origins of the Orthodox Church of Greece, its identification with the nation, its traditional opposition to anything associated with turkey (even the ecumenical Patriarchate; see roudometof 2008), the fact that it is not legally separated from the Greek state, the politics of archbishop Christodoulos and his gradual emergence as one of the most ‘outspoken guardians of national identity under imminent

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threat’ (mavrogordatos 2003: 130). the works of several Greek political scientists (mavrogordatos 2003; stavrakakis 2003; Chrysoloras 2004; Prodromou 2004) could provide adequate proof to that end and at the same time offer a thorough treatment of contemporary church–state relations. however, when it comes to answering the second question, one should keep in mind that the research praxis of political science to a large extent excludes ethnography. thus the church is usually portrayed only as a sum of internal mechanisms and formal institutions (that is, the holy synod) operating in the shadow of one man – archbishop Christodoulos. naturally political scientists are not interested in the ways in which Orthodox Christianity is lived, experienced, perceived and fantasized not only by clergy but also by laity. When these scholars refer to the ‘church’ they mean ‘the official Church’, the ‘holy synod’ and/or archbishop Christodoulos. this is by no means a point of criticism, but rather one of clarification that takes into account a discipline’s limitations and tradition of research. after all it is political science and political philosophy that help one think of the official church as a political entity that, as will be seen, provides refuge to diverse points of view. so now my task is to bring the aforementioned perceptions to the level of ethnography, to give ‘a human face’ to fragments of ecclesiastical discourses. One man instantly comes to mind: kostis. his narratives and actions constitute only one example of the many possible ways in which individuals perceive, experience and transform theological teachings and traditions into concrete actions. in terms of a political metaphor, I would like to think of him as an individual who finds himself in the ideological extreme of a political party but still manages to operate under its roof. I first became interested in Kostis’ case when one day in 2004 I saw him on television saying that he had built a chapel on the site on which the mosque was supposed to be built. during that televised panel discussion he also noted that this chapel is dedicated to ‘the Saviour Jesus Christ’ and that it temporarily fulfils an old promise the Greek nation had made to mary, usually termed in Greece Panagia, the ‘all holy One’. later i discovered that kostis was referring to the so-called ‘Tama tou Ethnous’ (the nation’s Vow). the term refers to a church that the revolutionary hero theodoros kolokotronis3 and other Greeks had promised to construct during the years of the Epanastasi (revolution against the Ottomans).4 almost 150 years later, during the time of the military dictatorship (1967–1974), the idea of fulfilling that old promise was endorsed by despoina Papadopoulou, Colonel Papadopoulos’ wife, and the brigadier stylianos Pattakos, who established a committee headed by

3

theodoros kolokotronis was the principal Greek commander in the uprising against the Ottomans. in the contemporary popular imagination, he undoubtedly constitutes the symbol par excellence of pre-national resistance to the turks. 4 for an interesting parallel case of a national ex-voto, that of the basilica of sacréCoeur, see the work of raymond Jonas (1993).

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the then mayor of Piraeus aristeidis skylitsis.5 soon several architectural contests were launched, a special fund was created (the special fund for the Construction of the holy Church of the saviour) and many fundraising campaigns took place throughout Greece from early 1970 to autumn 1972 (for more information, see raftopoulos 1989). some architects found the idea appealing and submitted plans and models to the organizing committee. in addition, many Greek citizens were asked to make monetary contributions. yiannis latsis, a Greek shipping magnate, also contributed a large sum of money for the establishment of the Tama tou Ethnous on tourcovounia (the turkish mountains), the location in athens that the regime had designated for its construction (Vokkakios 1998). there is undoubtedly a parallel between the central mosque in athens and the Tama tou Ethnous: neither of them were ever built. this was exactly the point that caused much distress to kostis. he was upset about the government’s loss of memory, its disrespect to those fighting for independence and its preference for building a mosque rather than a church. there is a double strategy employed by him here. On the one hand, the little chapel on the top of the hill creates a ‘hellenoChristian’ geography. On the other hand, it constitutes a concrete reminder of a battle that takes place at the level of imagination. in this context, the Tama tou Ethnous clearly becomes a counter-fantasy. both my father and a good number of friends could not see the rationale behind a meeting with kostis. they all agreed that he is a rather problematic individual and were quick to predict a social catastrophe in the form of a huge argument between him and me. ‘Pou pas kai blekis?’ (What are you getting yourself involved in?), my dad would say. ‘Dimitri prosehe, o theios Kostis ine fanatikos. Paei me to palio’ (Watch out dimitri! uncle kostis is a fanatic. he follows the Old Calendar), Grigoris, my architect friend, would concur. despite all these warnings and shared concerns, my first meeting with him was facilitated by the person who worried the most: by coincidence my father – a medical doctor too – ran into kostis in central athens and informed him of my intention to discuss my research with him. it was, i felt, the kind of situation that Clifford Geertz (1972) discusses in his famous essay ‘Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight’, that is, an unforeseen event that affects the dynamics of ethnographic research. in the case of Geertz, the unforeseen appears in the form of a police raid. as he and his wife run away from the policemen, they finally manage to enter the seemingly impenetrable cosmos of the balinese village and be accepted as guests. in my case, although less adventurous, a coincidental meeting sets up the framework of research and the appointment was arranged – Thursday evening at his office at nine.

On 21 April 1967, a group of relatively junior officers mounted an efficiently executed coup, the purpose of which was to ‘forestall an imminent communist seizure of power’. two colonels, Georgios Papadopoulos and nikolaos makarezos, and a brigadier, stylianos Pattakos, engineered this. for more information see Clogg (1992: 162–3). 5

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On social Geography and Decorative Plates: Thoughts from the Waiting Room as i enter the surgeon’s waiting room, i immediately notice the particularity of its social geography. to put it bluntly, kostis’ patients look different from those of my father’s. they seem less educated, economically disadvantaged and obviously religious. there are two elderly nuns, one priest and a man also waiting. the man must have been working in the fields – I can tell from the mud stains on his trousers and the white truck parked outside. i must also constitute a spectacle for them, i think. it is very clear to all of us that i have entered a world in which i do not belong. they see difference in my clothes, my glasses, my new mobile phone, the notebook that i carry, the very way that i say to them ‘Kalispera!’ (Good afternoon). i take a seat among them, thinking that it will be quite some time before I finally meet Kostis. in the room are a large couch, four chairs, a small television showing the evening news and a coffee table placed right in the middle. it is fully covered with several days’ worth of newspapers i have never seen before: Athinaiki Protovoulia (Athenian Initiative) and Ellinorthodoxo Kinima Sotirias (Helleno-Orthodox Salvation Movement). On the walls i see a collection of decorative plates with local embroidery patterns and a framed black and white picture of the church of saint sophia in istanbul with the note pali dika mas tha’nai (ours once more). This was certainly not the first time that I had come across a reference to the famous Byzantine church during my fieldwork research. On the contrary, Saint sophia seemed to play a central role in the debate over the establishment of a mosque in athens. it was a clear case of collective memory. thus direct references to its current state were easily traceable in television, radio programmes, online debates and articles published in the national and local press.6 the statements of stelios Papathemelis, a former minister of education, and bishop anthimos of thessaloniki are particularly telling in this regard. both of them have argued that there should be a quid pro quo from turkey – that the Greek government should allow the operation of a mosque on condition that saint sophia is restored to its status quo ante and used as a church by the Orthodox. in this way, it emerges as a symbol of mosque opposition, imbued with symbolic value. its power challenges the mosque proponents to approach the mosque issue through the norm of reciprocity. the rationale behind its usage could be crystallized in the following question: if the turks do not have any respect for Greek symbols, why should the Greeks allow the existence of a turkish symbol in their capital city? in this case of reciprocity as remedy for the memory of loss, i want to turn to the psychoanalytic perspective of Volkan and itzkowitz (1994: 47) and suggest that such references See Papahristou, ‘Interview with Metropolitan Anthimos’ on ΣΚΑÏ Radio Station (2004); for an online discussion see ‘Provlimatismoi gia to mellon tou ellinismou’ (n.d.); for an article appearing in the local press see ‘sinendefksi me ton k. kosma karanikola’ (2004); for an article appearing in national press see ‘anthimos temenomenos’ (2004). 6

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represent a ‘Greek inability to mourn over the loss of Constantinople’. if mourning is considered a necessary stage for coping with actual or imaginary loss, then its lack clearly signifies a Freudian ‘melancholia’ or what in this context one might term ‘social depression’. With these kinds of thoughts on my mind, I find myself waiting for almost two and a half hours. no regrets, however. this is a useful time for observation, i tell myself. it seems that the waiting room contains only depictions of a faded world kostis is trying to preserve and perhaps all the fears and wishes he has ever entertained. there is a lot to be learnt from this transitional space, which might be as telling as my imminent discussions with kostis. a few minutes later, the door finally opens and Kostis, by a way of welcome, says: Dimitraki agori mou, ti kaneis? (Dimitraki, my boy, how are you?). Oh, I’m fine, thank you. Nice meeting you’, i reply. i cannot help but notice that, from the beginning, kostis is very keen on attaching the diminutive suffix, ‘akis’, to my name. i have now become Dimitrakis mou, ‘my little dimitris’. is this my father’s fault? As I was to find out, Kostis was not a man of few words. During that first meeting he wasn’t very interested in interlocution but, rather, in posing himself rhetorical questions and repeating endless monologues that were constantly interrupted by phone calls. the meeting lasted for many hours, far into the night, and a great many things were said concerning his humble origins, his mother who worked hard in the family’s bakery and installed in him the traditional values of religion and family, the importance of studying the lives of the neo-martyrs,7 the activities of an Orthodox association of which he is the president, the plans of the ‘new Order’ and the impact of globalization on helleno-Christian tradition, the turks’ evil nature, the Tama tou Ethnous, the building of a chapel, the ‘miracle’ of carrying and erecting an eight-metre high metal cross on the hill on which the mosque was supposed to be built and the superiority of Greek chromosomes. kostis was so passionate in his discussion of the church that one might almost say that his devotion to the Orthodox faith and his deep love for his mother had somehow become one in his mind. to understand this particular attitude and the traditions that underlie it, it is important to refer at this point to the work of hirschon ([1989] 1998: 220) who highlighted the sacred dimension of female domestic activity. the term ‘domestic priestess’ used by this anthropologist corresponds beautifully, i believe, to my interlocutor’s accounts of his mother and her crucial role in installing in him the values of religion and family: in many rituals in the home, church and cemetery, women play the central role. the house, says hirschon, itself is accorded attention – the iconostasi is kept stocked with holy substances, the kandili is lit for festivals and, on sundays, 7

‘“neo-martyrs” were those who chose to die, often in horrible circumstances, rather than compromise their Orthodox Christian faith. most commonly they had reverted to Christianity after embracing islam and thus were regarded by the turks as renegades’ (Clogg 1992: 57).

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the courtyard and interior is scented with incense. in these observances the woman can be seen as a ‘domestic priestess’, the house manifesting its sacred dimension. in other activities, especially pilgrimage, the woman’s role parallels that of the most holy One, the Panagia, who is seen as intercessor, as mother of God and of all the world.

there was also a strong sense of disappointment and betrayal conveyed by kostis’ narrative. On a number of occasions i was told that people are no longer interested in the preservation of ‘our’ faith and tradition and that present-day Greeks are in state of ‘functional hibernation’. What about the church? What about the local bishop? Wasn’t it in 2003 that he had had a rather polemic message regarding the mosque sent out for public announcement at the end of a sunday mass in all churches of his diocese, i asked, showing him that i was also knowledgeable about the debate. (bishop agathonikos of mesogaia and lavreotiki sent that message on the 27 november 2003 to all churches of his diocese with the note that it should be read on sunday, 30 november 2003.) then i received a surprising answer: Who do you think wrote it asked kostis while pointing at himself. i must have met with agathonikos more than ten times, he said, and started recreating a series of dialogues with the local bishop. your eminence, this is an important issue. they are planning to build a mosque in your area! you have to do something! i understand your concerns, said the metropolitan, but i met with the archbishop last week and he said i shouldn’t take any initiatives. let’s meet some time soon to discuss this again! replied the bishop. And I kept on going to his office, with books and evidence, Dimitraki mou, warning him of the oncoming danger. i guess at some point he had had enough of me and sent out the document i had drafted for him. ‘but i wrote it! i wrote it’, kostis said. The Sacrifice of Agathangellos: An Illustrated Story of Old Calendarism On the desk in front of me is a magazine that kostis gave me to study on my first visit to his office. This was the trophy from a meeting that lasted for more than five hours. It is a relatively small magazine measuring about 25 by 15 centimetres, printed, however, on paper of the finest quality. It is named after Saint agathangellos the Esphgmenitis (a monk from the esphigmenos monastery on mount athos).8 according to the synaxaria of the eastern Church,9 agathangelos 8 mount athos is a mountain and peninsula in northern Greece. it is home to 20 eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a semi-autonomous monastic republic within Greece. 9 synaxarion (pl. synaxaria) is the name given in the Orthodox Church to an abridged listing of feast days and compilation of hagiographies, ‘lives of the saints’. a synaxarion roughly corresponds to the martyrology of the roman Catholic Church, and its content is arranged according to the ecclesiastical calendar. for more information on the life and martyrdom of st agathangelos, see doukakis (1962: 128–33) and mattheos (1968: 367–95).

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(originally named athanasios) was a young sailor from thrace. he was forced to embrace islam and, after a short period of preparation for martyrdom in mount athos, embarked on a death pilgrimage to smyrna in order to suffer a martyr’s death at the hands of the turks. in accordance with his wish, he was decapitated on 19 april 1818 at the age of 19. One possible way of understanding this kind of willing self-sacrifice (c.f. Alexiou 1990: 110) is simply by identifying it as a case of mimesis of the sacrifice of the early Christian martyrs of roman times (hence the term neo-martyrs) as the kontakion10 of agathangelos indicates: Os ton osíon zilotín kai omodíaiton kai ton Martyron mimitín kai isostásion anymnoúmen se simfónos Osiomártys. (as [you] being the saints’ zealot and their fellow and the imitator of the martyrs [emphasis mine] and equally significant amongst them we praise you in unison saint martyr.)

in this sense the neo-martyrs’ mimesis is an act of imitation. nevertheless, Gregory nagy, a renowned homericist, in his study of the song of the nightingale (1996:56) reminds us of a second and deeper meaning of mimesis. that of re-enactment in ritual: both re-enactment and imitation are genuine aspects of the older conceptual world of mimesis. if you re-enact an archetypal action in ritual, it only stands to reason that you have to imitate those who re-enacted before you and who served as your immediate models. but the ultimate model is still the archetypal action or figure that you are re-enacting in ritual, which is coextensive with the whole line of imitators who re-enact the way in which their ultimate model acted, each imitating each one’s predecessor.

Nagy’s insights on mimesis help in understanding the sacrifice of Agathangelos not only as the historical product of a renewed tradition of martyrdom but also as an act of re-enactment that establishes a link of blood to Jesus’ archetypal death on the cross.11 From a broader new testament perspective this is clearly affirmed 10 the hymn appointed to be sung after the sixth ode of the canons; it is generally followed immediately by its oikos. both the kontakion and the oikos are derived from the early kontakion, which was a long poem, intended to be sung in church. it consisted of a short preliminary stanza, followed by some 18–24 strophes, each known as an oikos. 11 to better understand nagy’s insights regarding re-enactment in ritual we need to divert for a moment from our study of sacrifice as imitation and re-visit cases of baptismus sanguinis (blood baptism) of early martyrs. for the undivided church this kind of self sacrifice contained all the necessary ritualistic aspects of the very sacrament of baptism as

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in the book of revelation in which he is described as o mártys o pistós, the faithful martyr, (rev:1,5; 3,14) and in this particular case through a close reading of the saint’s megalinarion: Pyr to zoifóron éndon lavón, ólos anefléxthis, ti agápi tou Iisoú⋅ óthen kai athlísas, Aftoú to kállos vlépeis, os pálai epethímis, o agathángele. (Having received inside the life-giving fire, you were utterly inflamed with the love of Jesus; from which you derived the courage and the strength for martyrdom, and it is His beauty that you gaze upon [emphasis mine], as you long ago wished agathangele.)

there is no doubt that the brutal death of young agathangelos is one of the many examples modern Greek history (actual or imaginary) has to offer concerning the sacrifice of one’s own life both as an ultimate manifestation of faith and as a dedication to the causes of the Greek nation. as in the case of almost every neomartyr, it constitutes a peak moment of convergence between nationalism and religious faith that is also linked to Jesus’ own sacrifice on the Cross. In that sense, refraining from keeping the memory of a neo-martyr’s sacrifice alive constitutes a double betrayal. it is perhaps for this reason that the rums of smyrna purchased agathangelos’ relics right after his martyrdom and buried them in the tomb of the neo-martyr demos >1763. almost 25 years later in 1844, his head, right arm and feet were returned to the esphigmenos monastery on mount athos, thus following a long tradition of purchasing, donating and circulating human remains for religious purposes (doukakis 1962: 133; mattheos 1968: 393). the cover of the magazine kostis gave to me (see figure 7.2) consists more or less of a picture of a fresco depicting the martyrdom of several monks in mount athos entitled The Holy [Fathers] of Mount Athos who became Martyrs at the Time of the Patriarch Vekkos, the Latin-minded (Oi agioi agioreitai Osiomartyres epi Patriarhou Vekkou tou latinofronos martyrisantes).12 the fresco is thematically divided into four quadrants that narrate their own history of violence, sacrifice and state cruelty. byzantine soldiers are shown decapitating and hanging monks in front of the church of Protato and the Vatopedi Monastery (first and fourth quadrant), burning alive those living in the Zografou monastery (second quadrant) and drowning monks in the sea of Chalkidiki (third quadrant). and all of this takes place in the presence of the highest civil and religious authorities, the byzantine martyrs were thought of becoming members of the Church by being baptized in their own blood. 12 ioannes Vekkos, John beccus to the Catholics, was Patriarch of Constantinople in the second half of the thirteenth century, one of the few Greek ecclesiastics who was sincerely in favour of reunion with the Church of rome. it is for this reason that the Orthodox Church describes him as Latinofron (latin-minded). for more information, see the electronic version of the Catholic encyclopaedia (schaefer 1907).

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the holy [fathers] of mount athos who became martyrs at the time of the Patriarch Vekkos, the latin-minded. source: agios agathangelos o esphigmenitis 215 (may–June 2006): cover.

emperor and the Patriarch ioannes Vekkos (who is standing in front of him). in a way, this depiction of profound suffering and subsequent martyrdom ordered by a latin-minded patriarch corresponds perfectly both to the subtitle of the magazine, Martyria Agonizomenis Orthodoxias Agioreiton Monahon (Witness of struggling Orthodox monks of mt athos), and its content. almost all of the articles appearing in Agathangelos portray archbishop Christodoulos and Patriarch bartholomew as traitors who, like ioannes Vekkos, seek union with the Church of rome and are ready to accept papal supremacy and the validity of the latin doctrine on the procession of the holy spirit through their

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involvement with the ecumenical movement (see kitsikis 1995).13 the Greek state, for its part, also appears to be governed by ‘the victims of Globalization’ and advocates of the ‘new Order’, a new global reality aiming to erase the hellenoChristian tradition. it is no surprise that the esphigmenos monastery publishes Agathangelos. this constitutes the spiritual centre of the so-called Palaioimerologites, Old Calendarists, a group of Orthodox Christians that continue to follow the Julian calendar despite the official church’s decision to adopt the New Style Gregorian calendar in the year 1924. as Ware (2002: 3) has argued, ‘for this group, the Julian Calendar possesses a profound symbolical experience’ and ‘is seen as the touchstone of loyalty to the Orthodox faith in its true and full integrity’. nowadays the Palaioimerologites have their own bishops, parishes and monasteries that are totally independent from the new Calendar state Church. they identify themselves as Gnisioi Orthodoxoi Christianoi, the true Orthodox Christians of Greece. nevertheless, for the Orthodox Church the Palaioimerologites are not considered schismatics but simply devoted Christians obsessed with the preservation of insignificant traditions (Ware 2002). as i leaf through the pages of the magazine, i come across an article written by kostis. in it, he refers to his successful efforts to prevent the construction of a mosque in P, his televised skirmishes with muslim spokesmen and leftists and, most importantly, the authorities’ reluctance to support him. What is the official position of the head of the prefecture? What is the official position of the local bishop? these are the kind of questions kostis poses to his readers. he seems to know all too well that, with the exception of the ‘true Christians’, everybody is a traitor. Yet, this does not prevent him from meeting with church officials and asking for their help.

second Visit with kostis On a later visit to Kostis’ office, when I enquired further about his contact with the official church, I learnt that in the summer of 2003 he had managed to meet with Archbishop Christodoulos himself. As if in affirmation of this fact, he put before me a 10-page text dated 25th of august. this was the speech he had prepared for that meeting. i leafed through the document from beginning to end, only to realize how similar this was to the document we had discussed at our previous meeting. Perhaps kostis was sincere after all. from the texts i have so far collected, i can attest to the particularity of his writing style. kostis’ texts are polemic in nature, aimed at the awakening of Orthodox Greeks, incorporating security and strategic considerations, popular religious beliefs and didactic references to both the ancient and more recent 13 the issues of Papal supremacy and the procession of the holy spirit are considered by Orthodox theologians to be the main doctrinal reasons behind the schism between the two churches (see matsoukas 1999: 151).

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revolutionary past. It is easy to identify Kostis’ insistence on using specific phrases and arguments against the construction of the mosque. he always seems to suggest that the ‘islamic complex’ will be too big (35,000 square metres), that it will eventually be transformed into a centre of propaganda and that it will soon constitute ‘a new mecca’. nevertheless, this kind of material is always supposed to look academic and scientific. It therefore includes citations and references taken from Old Calendarist magazines and nationalist pamphlets that he seems to collect in great numbers. he personally signs every text at the end: dr. kostis, medical doctor, university of athens, Ph.d. tell me more about the meeting with the archbishop, i asked. i was in charge of the epitropi agona [campaign committee] the mayor and i had put together, and in that capacity i was able to arrange a meeting with Christodoulos in agia Philothei, he started telling me and continued: i had tried really hard to organize that meeting and i had told both the mayor and the vouleftes [members of Parliament] to meet in the coffee shop early in the morning on the day of the meeting. no one had replied to my messages and when i went to the coffee shop i thought that it would only be myself and some other members of our association meeting with the archbishop.14 naturally everybody came, despite their initial reluctance. Who would miss that opportunity, the whole publicity? i saw nikolis [the mayor], who was originally very sceptical about that meeting, coming down the street and i shouted at him in excitement: Ela re Nikoli, ela re dimarhe, pos tha pame horis esena [Come nikolis, come mayor. how are we going to go without you?]. and so we went, Dimitraki mou. Christodoulos kept us waiting for two and a half hours. he really did not want to meet with us. i guess he [the archbishop] thought that we would get tired and leave. eventually he appeared. Eulogeite Makariotate, Eulogeite [blessings, your holiness, blessings], i said, only to be interrupted by the local new democracy mP who knew nothing about our efforts. and then nikolis started talking. remember, this is the guy i had had to convince to join us. it did not occur to him that he was the mayor, that this is what he was supposed to do. the archbishop replied – you know, talking and saying nothing at the same time – along these lines: mother Church understands your concerns and will stand by you in your attempts to empower Orthodoxy and disseminate the message of our lord, Jesus Christ’ and so on. i got so upset at one point that i interrupted him, ‘your holiness, i have prepared a text to read and with your permission i would like to do so. and then Dimitraki mou, i read for 30 minutes and all of them were standing. Ohi tha tous afina [would i let them go that easily]? Whenever i think of this meeting, said kostis, i get so angry that my blood pressure goes up. but you know what? it was for the best. because the next day i was able to say that everybody supports our activities, the mayor, the mPs, the people of P, but the truth is, Dimitraki mou, no one really cares. 14 the document that kostis gave me was dated 25/08/03. this is when the meeting with the archbishop took place.

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interestingly enough, the strategy employed by kostis was extremely effective. by being able to mobilize reluctant local authorities, he was able to fill a representational void, to fight a battle that few people wanted to engage in, to become the living metonymy of the ‘rebellious’ locals of P in tV panels and documentaries. even the archbishop himself believed that the people of P and the surrounding villages were ready to actively oppose the establishment of a mosque in their area, and some days after his meeting with kostis and the ‘campaign committee’, he sent a letter of complaint to the minister of foreign affairs. this was published in Ecclesia, the church’s official magazine, and describes the church’s ambivalent position: in principle, it supports the construction of a mosque in athens; however, it also takes into consideration local reactions. When i showed that article to kostis, he was not surprised. as he explained to me, he was well aware of the fact that the church engages in doubletalk. this practice, however, was explained on a basis i had not anticipated: ‘What did you expect’, he told me, ‘they are all faggots!’ as i now understand, what he was witnessing in all of his meetings was the church’s concise effort to protect its interests. in particular, what caused him much distress was the realization that the church officials were interested in reducing the possible ‘political cost’ of their actions and thus engaged in a series of delicate negotiations with different constituencies. in that context he was right in pointing out that the church of Greece is also economically connected to the state, for it receives revenue from the Greek ministry of foreign affairs, the very institution in charge of constructing the athens mosque.15 for kostis there are also financial considerations that might condition the official church’s discourse and, interestingly enough, this profound dissatisfaction is expressed in the form of sexually charged terminology. Conclusions: Sacrifice and the Institutional Production of Ambivalence In this chapter, I have tried to examine the politics of the official church regarding the mosque debate through my encounters with kostis in order to show that its position was less rigid than popularly believed. it is in this context of institutional ambivalence that his narratives fit and reveal a different kind of church than the one usually described by political scientists and historians: a lay church that disagrees, criticizes but at the same time interacts and utilizes official church authorities, while also being instrumentalized by them. there is no doubt that for kostis the imaginary mosque in P is an uneasy site of fantasy that he clearly rejects. In order to do so effectively, he first attempts to 15

kostis was referring to the activities of ‘allilengyi’ (solidarity), the Church of Greece’s Humanitarian Aid Organization, which receives significant financial support from the Greek ministry of foreign affairs. Over the last few years many articles have been published in the Greek press highlighting this financial interconnection between the church and the state (see, for instance, Petropoulos and lontopoulos 2006).

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identify the church’s position regarding the issue at question and to convince his interlocutors that he is actually representing local anti-islamic sentiments. during this endeavour both he and i become increasingly confused as to how the church will respond to the following question: ‘do you support the building of a mosque?’ One expects a ‘yes or no’ type of answer, a binary opposition. nevertheless, one asks the wrong question. for the church on many occasions says ‘yes’ and ‘no’ at the same time. the answer seems to depend on the interlocutor: if it is the european Commissioner for human rights, then it is a ‘yes’. if it is kostis asking, it might be a ‘no’. One has seen, for instance, bishop anthimos of thessaloniki expressing his dissatisfaction with the government’s decision and asking for a quid pro quo from turkey even though he is well aware of the church’s decision in 2002 to allow the construction of a mosque. archbishop Christodoulos, on the other hand, agrees to the establishment of a muslim place of worship on the condition that there will be no adverse reactions. Nevertheless, this is what Žižek (1989) would describe as ‘real–impossible’ in the sense that there will always be some source of opposition. It is thus obvious that there is something at stake that prevents church officials from conveying a clear and unqualified message. Undoubtedly, the very nature of the mosque controversy created space for diplomatic manoeuvres. in other words, the state’s decision to construct an official place of worship for the capital’s muslims did not touch upon the creed of eastern Orthodoxy, and in that sense, the official church’s discourse did not have to express an absolute and non-negotiable certainty. but this is exactly what enrages kostis: the realization that the church is also a political entity with a long-established diplomatic mechanism, which, as he would sometimes say, worries about the possible ‘political cost’ of its decisions. history, however, has also taught kostis that sometimes it is the leaders of the church who harm it the most, as in the case of ioannes Vekkos. at these moments it is the duty of the ‘true Christians’ to safeguard the faith and, if necessary, fight a war from within. So what would then be the ideal way for the church to deal with this troubling issue, according to kostis? i have now come to realize that the story of agathangelos and the cover of the Old Calendarists’ magazine are far more important than i had originally believed. following the pattern of sacrifice that the neo-martyrs’ stories offer, Kostis would like the church to sacrifice its political and economic interests stemming from its relationship with the ministry for foreign affairs and the european union. as in the case of Agathangellos, whose death signifies in the collective memory and imagination of the Old-Calendarists ultimate dedication to Orthodox Christianity and to the causes of the Greek nation state, he seems to assume the necessity of a symbolic sacrifice as a prerequisite for safeguarding Orthodoxy and Greece. Kostis’ adherence to a particular theology of sacrifice with clear political implications is also reinforced by long-established motherhood attributes of the Orthodox Church, which are encapsulated in the popular term ‘mother Church’ used by archbishop Christodoulos in response to the campaign committee’s considerations regarding the mosque. in the beginning of my ethnographic

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narrations i alluded to kostis’ respect for his mother who installed in him the traditional values of family and religion. i would now like to connect this ethnographic observation to alexiou’s observation (1990: 117) that ‘the noun Thysia, together with the verb Thysiazo/Thysiazomai, has the positive connotation of giving up one’s interests or oneself for another, especially in the context of what a mother will do for a child’. this combination of anthropology and philological knowledge allows one to approach the centrality of the concept of sacrifice in this individual’s cosmology from a different angle and in this way to witness an infiltration of the religious into domains usually considered secular. in this regard the case of kostis offers a possible link to the work of other anthropologists who have managed to show how the Cartesian dichotomy between theory and practice – or, in this case, between religious beliefs and political activism – is a troubling one. stewart (1989, 1991) and hirschon ([1989] 1998), for instance, ‘have persuasively argued against the conceptual separation of church doctrine from folk practice in Greece’ and also revealed ‘the persistence of Orthodox concepts in the organization of social space – even amongst supposedly atheist urbanites’ (herzfeld 2008: 153–4). this kind of research wonderfully reminds one how anthropology questions the given and, more specifically, how one could be shaped by Orthodox traditions without really realizing it. in a similar yet unexpected manner, this ethnography suggests that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross not only constitutes an archetypal example for armies of martyrs but also impacts the way kostis formulates political stances on a seemingly unrelated issue.

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References Alexiou, Margaret. 1990. ‘Reappropriating Greek Sacrifice: Home Necans or anthrôpos thysiazôn?’ Journal of Modern Greek Studies 8: 97–123. ‘anthimos temenomenos’. 2004. Eleftherotypia, 26 July. retrieved 16 february 2009 at http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,dt=26.07.2004,id=10974 884 antoniou, dimitris. 2003. ‘muslim immigrants in Greece: religious Organization and local responses’, Immigrants and Minorities 22(2/3): 155–74. Arslan, A. Y. 2003. ‘Atina’daki cami tartışması semboller savaşına dönüştü’ (The debate over the mosque in athens has turned into a War of symbols), Zaman, 11 march. retrieved 18 may 2005 at http://www.zaman.com.tr/2003/11/03/ haberler/h1.htm Chrysoloras, nikos. 2004. ‘religion and nationalism in Greece’. second Paneuropean Conference, standing Group on eu Politics, bologna, 24–26 June. Clogg, richard. 1992. A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press. doukakis, konstantinos. 1962. O Megas Synaxaristis (The Great Synaxaristis), Vol. 8. athens: Orthodoxoi Christianikai enoseis. Gil-robles, alvaro. 2002. Report by Mr. Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights, on His Visit to the Hellenic Republic 2–5 June 2002 for the Attention of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly, Strasbourg, 17 July 2002. retrieved 22 January 2009 at http://www.unhcr.org/ refworld/docid/41596fd24.html Geertz, Clifford. 1972. ‘Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight’, Daedalus 101(1): 1–37. halbwachs, maurice. 1980. The Collective Memory. new york: harper & row. herzfeld, michael. 2008. ‘the ethnographer as theorist: John Campbell and the Power of detail’. in Networks of Power in Modern Greece: Essays in Honor of John Campbell, ed. m. mazower. london: hurst, pp. 147–68. hirschon, renée. [1989] 1998. Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus. new york: berghahn books. ‘ieres enstaseis gia tin ekthesi tou state department’ (holy Objections regarding the state department’s report). 2005. Eleftherotypia, 13 January. retrieved 22 January 2009 at http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,dt=13.01.20 05,id=31943584 Jonas, raymond. 1993. ‘monument as ex-Voto, monument as historiosophy: the basilica of sacré-Coeur’, French Historical Studies 18(2): 482–502. kalokerinos, Grigoris. 2002. ‘ekklisia: “nai” sto temenos’ (Church: “yes” to the mosque), Kathimerini, 6 february. retrieved 15 may 2005 at http://news. kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_1_06/02/2002_15003) kitsikis, dimitri. 1995. The Old Calendarist Movement and the Rise of Religious Conservatism in Greece, trans. novice Patrick and bishop Chrysostomos of etna. etna, Calif.: Center for traditionalist Orthodox studies.

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matsoukas, nikos. 1999. Dogmatiki kai Symvoliki Theologia (Doctrinal and Symbolic Theology). thesaloniki: ekdoseis Pournaras. mattheos, Victor. 1968. O Megas Synaxarististis tis Orthodoxou Ekklisias. athens. mavrogordatos, George th. 2003. ‘Orthodoxy and nationalism in the Greek Case’, West European Politics 26(1): 117–36. nagy, Gregory. 1996. Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press. nora, Pierre. [1992] 1996. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, Vol. i: Conflicts and Divisions. new york: Columbia university Press. Papahristou, Nikos. 2004. ‘Interview with Metropolitan Anthimos’, ΣΚΑÏ Radio station. 1 august. retrieved 13 June 2005 at http://www.papaxristou.gr ——. 2006. ‘to 2009, ston eleona to islamiko temenos’ (in 2009, in eleonas, the islamic temple), Kathimerini, 7 October. retrieved 15 may 2005 at http:// papaxristou.gr/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=132& itemid=39 Petropoulos, m. and n. lontopoulos. 2006. ‘sheseis storgis me tin mkO tis ekklisias’ (relations of affection with the Church’s nGO), Eleftherotypia, 4 June. retrieved 16 february 2009 at http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/ c=112,dt=04.06.2006 Prodromou, elizabeth. 2004. ‘negotiating Pluralism and specifying modernity in Greece: reading Church–state relations in the Christodoulos Period’, Social Compass 51(4): 471–85. ‘Provlimatismoi gia to mellon tou ellinismou’ (thoughts for the future of hellenism). n.d. Apodimos. retrieved 13 June 2005 at http://www.apodimos. com/arthra/index_gen18.html raftopoulos, dimitris. 1989. ‘kitsch as a fascism-indicator’. in Kitsch Made in Greece, ed. h. kambouridis, d. koutsikou and C. Papoutsakis. athens: friends of ‘anti’ magazine, pp. 98–9. roudometof, Victor. 2008. ‘Greek-Orthodoxy, territoriality and Globality: religious responses and institutional disputes’, Sociology of Religion 69(1): 67–91. schaefer, francis. 1907. ‘John beccus’. in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2. new york: robert appleton Company. retrieved 15 January 2009 at http:// www.newadvent.org/cathen/02380b.htm ‘sinendefksi with mr. kosma karanikola’ (interview me ton k. kosma karanikola). 2004 Attiki Gi, december, p. 6. stavrakakis, yannis. 2003. ‘Politics and religion: On the “Politicization” of Greek Church discourse’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 21: 153–81. stewart, Charles. 1989. ‘hegemony or rationality? the Position of the supernatural in modern Greece’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 7: 77–104. ——. 1991. Demons and the Devil: Moral Imagination in Modern Greek Culture. Princeton: Princeton university Press.

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tsatsis, thomas. 2006. ‘sti mahi tou minare kai i dora’ (dora also enters the battle of the minaret), Eleftherotypia, 29 march. retrieved 10 february 2009 at http://enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=87255464 Vokkakios. 1998. erga kai 7imerai (deeds and 7 days) To Vima, 6 december. retrieved 15 may 2005 at http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&ct=76&a rtid=105686&dt=06/12/1998 Volkan, Vamik d. and norman itzkowitz. 1994. Turks & Greeks: Neighbours in Conflict. huntingdon, Cambridgeshire: eothen Press. Ware, kallistos. 2002. ‘Old Calendarists’. in Minorities in Greece, ed. r. Clogg. london: C. hurst and Co, pp. 1–23. Žižek, S. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology. london: Verso.

Chapter 8

religion and Welfare in Greece: a new, or renewed, role for the Church? Effie Fokas

‘modernization does not mean a Church that does not have a role in society’ antonis liakos

for many readers, this remark by historian antonis liakos (2006) is a statement of an obvious fact. however, in Greece’s current climate of discussions on church modernization, the point is not so self-evident. this is perhaps because the discussion tends to centre on the subject of church–state relations and, in turn, the debates on church–state separation tend to be located at the two extremes of a spectrum of opinion – ranging from ‘separation means, or intends, the end of the church’ to ‘separation means (and intends) the regeneration of the church’. On the contrary, suggests liakos, by ‘modernization’ one does not mean church– state separation: separation alone would not be sufficient. Rather, modernization requires a ‘renovation’ of the church itself, a change of its role. throughout europe, the role of welfare provider is a new or renewed role that is claimed by majority churches in the context of both secularization (in terms of institutional differentiation) and increasingly challenged state welfare systems. to what extent is welfare provision a potential new or renewed role for the Orthodox Church of Greece? Or, rather, is church welfare provision in the Greek case simply part of a perpetuation of the church’s ‘old’ role in relation as ‘partner’, so to speak, to the state? response to these questions requires exploration of a number of related factors. first, it is important to understand the central role that the Orthodox Church played historically in welfare provision and the fluctuations in this role over time. Related to this are certain theological considerations that have influenced the church’s role in welfare provision and thus are addressed below. second, insight into the ‘meaning’ of the church’s current activities in the domain of welfare requires comprehension of the context in which these activities are played out in terms of church–state relations: the role that the church assumes in welfare provision, as well as popular expectations of the church in terms of its welfare provision activities and the resources the church has to offer in welfare provision are all connected – at some level – to church–state relations. an exploration of these interrelated historical, theological and political factors serves as the backdrop against which i examine a particular case study of

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church welfare activities – that of the diocese of thiva and livadeia. anastassios anastassiadis (in Chapter 2 in this volume) examines the links between religion and welfare at the national level. here i focus on developments at the local level to explore the extent to which church welfare activities may be considered as evidence of a new role being played by the church, a renewed role referring back to the church’s historical experience as a provider of welfare services, or indeed little more than a continuation of age-old patterns in church–state relations.

historical and Theological Points of Reference for many observers, in the byzantine era the Orthodox Church was the ultimate example of Christian welfare provision: demetrios Constantelos describes this fine expression of Orthodox welfare activity in numerous books and articles, most thoroughly in his Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare (Constantelos 1991). thus, when considering the relatively poor state of welfare provision in Greece today, scholars of religious welfare activities frequently ask the question: ‘What went wrong?’ as with many other questions that have to do with some form of decline in the Greek world the most common reply is: ‘the Ottoman occupation’. indeed, an impressive model of a welfare provision system had developed under the byzantine empire, administered jointly by church and state. and as with other gloomy descriptions of the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans, the fall is lamented passionately by those who experienced it and described it from a welfare perspective: Where are the hospitals, the hospices, the homes for the poor, the homes for the aged, the houses for poor girls, and the convents for which the city was very proud? With the sack of Constantinople all lost – the elderly lost those who looked after them; the poor lost a city which fed them; the prisoners of war lost their emancipator; the destitute lost a city which provided for them; the farmers lost their distributor of justice; the orphans were deprived of a mother and the widows lost their protector. (andronikos kallistos, cited in Constantelos 2003:105–6)

according to Constantelos, the church’s social philanthropy continued under Ottoman rule, but it was not manifested on a systematic or organized basis. rather, it was an everyday activity and expression of concern, mercy and compassion, a religious philanthropia rather than aim towards social welfare as such, that is, ‘an expression of Christian agape’, following the long-standing tradition inherited from the byzantine experience (Constantelos 2003: 109). indeed, a theology of diaconia (or social service) was deeply embedded in the Christological doctrine as such and reflected in the early Christian communities through meals of agape,

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which gradually became linked to liturgical eucharistic practice. there was thus both a theological and a liturgical context within which diaconia evolved.1 Certainly this tradition is firmly embedded in the Orthodox faith and acutely so in the lives and teachings of the ‘three hierarchs’, basil the Great (330?–379), Gregory the theologian (329–390) and John Chrysostom (354–407), who are most commonly seen as the ‘social’ fathers. the three saints were vocal on matters of human equality – arguing that all people are of equal value and hence entitled to equal privileges – and they spoke out especially against the greed, wealth and social injustice prevailing in their era and sanctioned by the morals and laws of the time. basil the Great exhorted that ‘if you exceed what is reasonable in wealth, you fall short to the same degree in love’ (cited in yannoulatos 2003: 158). his activities were, according to anastasios yannoulatos, ‘literally astonishing in their diversity and social impact’, including his organization of hospitals, orphanages, hospices and schools. in his funeral oration for st basil, Gregory the theologian described the latter’s work as true imitation of the ministry of Christ (yannoulatos 2003: 166). st John Chrysostom – the great orator called the ‘golden-mouthed’ – expressed his thoughts on welfare, wealth and poverty, especially in a series of seven sermons on the parable of lazarus and the rich man (roth 1984). his comparison of charity, of sharing with others, to the eucharist is an expression of the eucharistic nature of Orthodox ecclesiology. but as Paul evdokimov (2001: 70–71) notes, this way of thinking is also a result of the monastic way of life of Chrysostom (as well as that of basil and Gregory), ‘the fruit of the ascetic culture’: Here we find the very best perspective of the church on the world and society, but this tradition is enclosed within the shadows of monasteries and in the teachings of the great masters of the spiritual life. it would seem that the monastic solution by reason of its very ‘eschatological maximalism’ is marginal to the world.

indeed, whether one is right to refer to the three hierarchs as the ‘social fathers’ has been questioned, given that their actions and teachings were firmly rooted in a neptic way of life (see, for example, hierotheos 1988). this perspective is echoed in conceptions of Orthodoxy as mystical, ‘otherworldly’ and somehow removed from real (and modern) life relevance. and such conceptions are buttressed by a lack of an Orthodox ‘social doctrine’ or social theology comparable to that of the roman Catholic Church, for example following the second Vatican Council, or to that of the lutherans embodied in the augsburg Confession. according to Petros Vassiliadis (2003: 87), ‘the only authoritative sources [on social theology] that Orthodox Christianity possesses are in fact common to all Christians: the bible and the tradition’. still, these are not considered as ‘sources’ in a strict sense as applies in other Christian contexts. 1 I am grateful to Nikos Kokosalakis for these reflections on the theology of diaconia.

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rather, Orthodox Christianity’s distinction in its relatively little emphasis on texts is often explained with reference to Orthodoxy as, above all, a ‘way of life’ (a phrase also applied to islam and, in general, often serving to further mystify both faiths for external observers). in this sense Orthodoxy is described as primarily liturgical (a matter of practice, etymologically a ‘public work’). Vassiliadis (2003: 89) explains that the liturgy holds a central place in the Orthodox tradition, so that Orthodoxy as a worshipping community takes precedence over doctrine and discipline in terms of defining the faith: the Orthodox Church has consistently accepted the priority of the eucharistic experience over all theological views and convictions, the priority of communion over faith or belief, as a matter of fact that priority of ecclesiology over theology in its regular meaning.

theologians who have ‘a modernist bent’ tend to seek the essence of Christianity in the articulation of theological statements based on scripture and tradition, states Vassiliadis, but for the Orthodox, ‘who by the way have not yet undergone the process of modernization’, the core of Christian faith cannot be extracted from expressed theological views, or from scripture or tradition, or from the writings of the fathers, or canons or even the decisions of the ecumenical councils. instead, the criterion in defining the Orthodox Church’s response to all social issues is the Eucharistic approach (Vassiliadis 2003: 89).2 in addition to these theological considerations of the lack of an Orthodox ‘social doctrine’, fr michael Plekon (2003: 104) adds historical and practical considerations: there is no single Orthodox social and political theology because of the diverse character of Orthodox Christianity, ‘extending over so many centuries and localized in so many countries now including western europe and north america’. accordingly, in his text on ‘eastern Orthodox social and Political theology’, he chooses to explain the latter with reference to the lives and work of three Orthodox individuals (father sergius bulgakov, Paul evdokimov and the recently canonized mother maria skobtsova) who ‘embody some of the most However, there are two significant exceptions that must be taken into consideration. first, the document, or decision, entitled ‘the Contribution of the Orthodox Church in the establishment of Peace, Justice, freedom, fellowship and love among the Peoples, and the lifting of racial and Other discriminations’ (1986), which has binding canonical status following its adoption at the third Pan-Orthodox Preconciliar Conference in Chambésy in 1986; and second, the russian Orthodox Church’s introduction, in 2000, of the Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, which ‘sets forth the basic provisions of her teaching on church–state relations and a number of problems socially significant today. It also reflects the official position of Moscow Patriarchate on relations with state and secular society. In addition, it gives a number of guidelines to be applied in this field by the episcopate, clergy and laity.’ are these to be taken as examples of church ‘modernization’, if we follow Vassiliadis’ suggestion that a ‘modernist bent’ entails seeking the essence of Christianity in texts? 2

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basic and singular of eastern Orthodoxy’s understandings of the world and life in it’ (Plekon 2003: 103). at the same time, another important theological point to be taken into consideration is the principle of economy (oikonimia) and how it has been applied in the Orthodox world. according to nikos kokosalakis (1987: 41), this is an ancient practice in the Orthodox Church indicating a subtlety and flexibility in canonical procedures, as they would necessarily adapt to ‘popular faith’: ‘it meant that the institution [church] had to compromise in order to accommodate transgressions against established doctrine and practice on certain occasions’. in other words, even where there are texts setting out doctrine on specific issues, these may be subject to flexible interpretation under the principle of oikonomia. Kokosalakis (1987: 42) explains that in Greek Orthodox religiosity, the flexibility of the principle of oikonomia depends largely on the tenuous relationship between the individual and the church: ‘the church in general is not primarily concerned to impose rules of religious conduct and belief but to accommodate and guide the perceptions and the religious and psychological needs of the people in the context of the human condition’. and, kokosalakis explains, the strength of popular religion also serves to strengthen the church’s position in its dealings with the state. the principle of oikonomia offered the church flexibility on the ethics of a whole range of issues, but it may be significant also in the understanding of the role of religion in welfare and its link with church–state relations in Greece. here it is useful to return to the statement by antonis liakos, with which this chapter opened: following his contention that the church must communicate a ‘new message’, he explains that this necessary change concerns not only the community of the faithful but Greek society as a whole, and he expresses his hope that the content of the new message will speak to the aspirations and ambitions of the people. his statement is revealing on two points. first, it presents a conception of the church as a common, public good upon which one can place certain expectations. similar to what Grace davie (2006) has described as ‘vicarious religion’: regardless of whether one attends church or is even officially a member of a church, one does expect the majority church to act in certain ways and to do certain things on one’s behalf (including, for instance, setting the right example in terms of practising welfare provision). second, liakos’ statement suggests that the church should play a role in serving a common need in society. in other words, he expresses a wish for the church to adapt to present concerns. Could the church’s welfare activities today be interpreted as a flexible adaptation to society’s expectations and, simultaneously, a means of strengthening (or at least preserving) the church’s position in its dealings with the state?

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Political Dimensions: The Factor of Church–state Relations the development of close church–state relations in Greece is well documented in the literature and need not be repeated here. It should suffice to emphasize that throughout history (including the church’s experience under the Ottoman empire and the millet system, its supposed role during the national revolution against the Ottomans, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of autocephaly and its eventual acceptance by the ecumenical Patriarchate, and the activities of the church in relation to the junta and vice versa) and up until today, these close relations have been reinforced by the strong and persistently maintained links between Greek Orthodoxy and Greek national identity. Certainly this is a common theme in most Orthodox contexts – in some cases a strong historical overlap between religion and national identity, and, in others, an effort to maintain or create such an overlap – and this significantly influences religion–state relations. discussions on why this is the case tend to be dominated by heated debates regarding the ‘weight of the [byzantine] past’, the extent to which ‘caesaropapism’ is a term appropriately used to describe this past and, in some cases, present Orthodox contexts, and the nature of the ‘symphonia’ (byzantine symphony, harmony, between religion and state) as it continues to manifest itself in parts of the Orthodox world (see Danopoulos 2004; Confino 2005). Pedro Ramet (1988) suggests three themes that can be identified in the patterns emerging across the Orthodox world – nationalism, co-optation and opposition – noting, however, that in many cases these themes combine and mutate under particular circumstances. all three have been pertinent to the case of Greece, at different times and under different circumstances. But rather than focus on national historical specificities in each case that lead to such religion–nation and church–state links, in many cases generalizations are drawn about the faith in general. for example, in a volume on Religion in an Expanding Europe (edited by byrnes and katzenstein), sabrina ramet (2006: 148) writes: Orthodoxy, thus, is a religion which – to quote shakespeare – ‘looks on tempests and is never shaken’ – not even when it should be. Whatever changes may impact the world, the Orthodox Church refuses, for the most part, to accommodate itself to change, standing fixed in time, its bishops’ gaze riveted on an ‘idyllic past’ which serves as their beacon.

a far more nuanced approach, which recognizes the diversity of Orthodox expression, is needed. this is an important exercise in its own right, but particularly in relation to claims of ‘organic’ ties between religion and nation. first, distinctions should be drawn between Orthodoxy in the ‘heartlands’ (including russia, Greece, serbia, romania, bulgaria, the former yugoslav republic of macedonia and much of the former ussr) and Orthodoxy in the diaspora. even within europe, one must make further distinctions between contexts in which Orthodoxy is the historically

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dominant faith and where indeed ‘nation’ and ‘religion’ tend to overlap; Orthodoxy in Western europe, where communities of émigrés and converts often worship together in non-national or largely denationalized contexts; and Orthodoxy lived as a minority faith in places such as finland or albania, or even Poland. this diversity of environments in which Orthodoxy operates leads to vastly different constellations of the relationship between religion and nation, between church and state, and between majority and minority communities. in the Greek case, as noted above, the religion–nation links are indeed powerful, and they underlie the privileges enjoyed by the church vis-à-vis the state and, significantly, vis-à-vis other faiths represented in Greece. It is these privileges that lead – directly or indirectly – to most of the negative international attention received by the church, whether this has to do with cases against the state of Greece in the european Court of human rights related to violations of religious freedoms for minority faiths present in Greece or the controversial absence of a mosque in operation as a place of worship for muslims in athens (even during the time of the 2004 Olympic Games). Significantly, it is not necessarily legislation that is at issue here but rather the practices that derive from both the historical relationship between Orthodoxy and national identity and the constitutionally informed church–state link. it is not so much the formal constitutional establishment of the Orthodox Church of Greece as ‘prevailing’ that is problematic (although indeed, neither is it entirely unproblematic) but the advantages to the Orthodox Church that exist in practice. these privileges continue to exist due to the complex interaction between the religion–national identity link and historical trends in church–state relations – and the political impact of both factors. accordingly, the constitutional provisions in themselves are not as important as the reason why such church privileges remain in place: the privileges enjoyed by the church represent – well beyond articles of the Constitution – the traditionally prominent place of religion in Greek state and society. this place, as explained above, is based mainly on the relationship between religion and national identity, a relationship that affords the church a great deal of leverage in its dealings with – and conflicts with – the Greek state. The church’s interests in preserving both the links between religion and national identity and the status quo in church–state relations are unambiguous. At play here are not so much official and formal power, but informal influence that is observed at the level of individual relations and interplay between religious and political leaders. One poignant example is the ‘identity card crisis’ that erupted in 2000 and subsequent events in its aftermath. The Greek government at the time faced significant difficulty in introducing one reform that was perceived by the then church leadership as weakening church– state ties: its plans to remove religious identity from national identity cards, in line with european union directives on data protection (and also favoured by religious minorities in Greece), were met with staunch resistance on the part of church leadership. the church lost the battle in that the government’s decision was indeed implemented, but it may be said to have won the war in that the church’s influence

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over domestic politics remained considerable in its aftermath: intra- and inter-party conflict resulted from the identity card issue and, in its aftermath, the mainline political parties are reluctant to address any further religion-related policies (such as reforms to religious education in public schools) (for more on this issue, see stavrakakis 2003; roudometof 2005; fokas 2006; molokotos-liederman 2007). the identity card issue is the most illustrative example in contemporary Greek reality of the church’s intense efforts to play a role as protector of national identity and to maintain its strong position in relation to the state. the church’s stated interests were primarily to represent the Greek public and to maintain religion as a part of Greek national identity. In very simplified terms, it was able to mobilize people on the basis of the historical relationship between Orthodoxy and national identity and because of its relatively strong position vis-à-vis the state. the Orthodox Church of Greece was able to mobilize Greeks against unfavourable state policies through its appeals to the national sensitivities of Greeks. thus, what one sees is the ‘complex interaction’ between the religion and national identity link, and the church–state link, manifested especially in a vicious cycle that is played out in the political arena: that of church–state conflict, state exposure to the potential political consequences of a stand-off with the church and concessions being made to the church that serve to perpetuate its place in relation to the state. Within this context, it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which the church’s activities in the realm of welfare are part of this vicious cycle.

In Context: Religion and Welfare in Thiva and Livadeia an example of church welfare activity in a particular locale may help address the latter question and to deepen the approach to the subject at hand. the following assessments are based on extensive fieldwork conducted in the diocese of Thiva and livadeia, examining both church and state welfare provision processes.3 the material generated in this research cannot, of course, be generalized to describe religion and welfare in Greece overall, but the case study offers an opportunity to see how religion and welfare play out in practice and on the ground.4

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this research was conducted in 2004 under the auspices of the ‘Welfare and religion in a european Perspective’ research project (edgardh beckman 2004) coordinated by the uppsala institute for diaconal and social studies (dVi, now the ‘Centre for the study of religion and society’) and funded by the bank of sweden tercentenary foundation. the research is qualitative in nature and based on a sample of 25 in-depth interviews. the diocese of thiva and livadeia is located in the prefecture of Viotia, north-west of athens. 4 it should perhaps be noted that the then bishop of thiva and livadeia ieronymos was Christodoulos’ main rival for the archbishopric in 1998; the two had less than warm relations following the 1998 elections, and one actually sees in the research a tendency amongst respondents to compare the local church with the church at the national level (that

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examination of such research is also useful given the substantial decentralization of Orthodox Church of Greece welfare provision: most of the church welfare activity is administered in the individual dioceses, which oversee the activities of the individual parishes and monasteries within each diocese. at the national level there is a Synodical Committee for Social and Welfare Benefits, which deals mainly with research on social problems. in terms of actual and practical welfare activities based at the national church level, there are two: emergency aid offered in crises, such as earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, and a cash benefit offered to Christian families in Thrace if they have more than two children (notably, a highly controversial measure for its clear aim to bolster the Greek Orthodox community vis-à-vis the muslim community based in thrace and one that symbolizes a fusion between church and ‘national[ist]’ causes). also, based in the archbishopric of athens is the nGO ‘solidarity’. Given the paucity of church welfare activity at the national level, relative to that at the local level, it is fitting for the Greek case that this examination of religion and welfare include attention to practice at the local level.5 Whereas the church system of welfare provision is generally decentralized, state welfare is markedly centralized, and the system in thiva and livadeia may be described generally as as poor as in the rest of Greece. Within this context, it is not difficult for the church to ‘shine’ as an important provider of welfare in the locality. for example, in neither thiva nor livadeia, but also nowhere in the entire prefecture of Viotia, is there a state-run home for the elderly. meanwhile, the church runs one home for the elderly in thiva and one in livadeia.6 thus, the church fills tremendous gaps left by the state in welfare provision within the locality. Many of these gaps were, until recently, filled by the ‘safety net’ of the Greek family structure, but this is of course changing as a result of a number of interrelated factors, including the rapidly ageing population, increased levels of female employment (though they still lag behind most of europe) and related heightened needs for care for the elderly, children and so on. by examining the case of church welfare provision in thiva and livadeia, the goal is to get a sense of the extent to which church activities reflect a modernizing is, the church as led by archbishop Christodoulos). following the death of Christodoulos in early 2008, ieronymos of thiva and livadeia was elected to the archbishopric. 5 however, as anastassiadis has indicated in Chapter 2, this may be changing as the church at the national level has, since approximately 2000, been granted increased privileges by the state in favour of its welfare activities through which the church is able to justify greater interference in diocesan welfare activities. 6 in this and in other welfare domains, many activities are conducted by ‘churchrelated’ organizations – private institutions that are, however, still linked to the church in some way or to the Orthodox faith. these institutions have no formal or administrational relationship with the church, but their members and leaders often describe them as ‘the church’ – in other words, part of the body of believers that comprise the church and, hence, essentially indistinguishable from ‘the church’.

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church, adapting to new situations and changing needs of society; an ‘inheritor’ of the byzantine tradition, continuing or renewing its role in welfare; or a church acting as a part of, or representative of, the state, naturally ‘sharing’ in its welfare tasks. in other words, does one see a new, or renewed, role for the church in its welfare activities, or a perpetuation of the ‘old’ state of affairs in terms of close church–state relations? The church’s welfare activities in Thiva and Livadeia are diverse and difficult to summarize. they range from homes for the elderly to soup kitchens, from care for the mentally and physically disabled to operation of blood banks. more useful for the present purposes will be a focus on a few examples indicative of the breadth of church welfare activities. One particular parish church boasts a four-storey building in which a number of welfare-related activities take place. according to the parish priest, aesthetics is a form of welfare, as is the passing on of tradition: this building is home to a museum of church artefacts; it is also the setting of iconography classes, a library, and a youth centre with computers for the youth to work on. With state-of-the-art facilities and a clear aim to branch out into a broad range of activities to adapt to the needs of the faithful, this parish church does indeed seem to be innovative in its approach, and such developments have warranted its description by a number of locals as ‘a modernizing church’. Of course, modernization is not just about the means, such as state-of-the-art equipment and computer technology. is the church modernized in its approach and adapting to changing needs? Our response might be positive with reference to the local church’s activities in relation to the Detoxification and Rehabilitation Centre for Drug-Addicted Prisoners, established on the outskirts of thiva.7 according to the centre’s director, the church played an especially important role from the outset in sensitizing the local population so that the centre was well received in the area (significant resistance could have been expected from the local population). also, the church continued towards this aim by bringing groups of people in buses to listen to seminars at the centre and to ‘understand that drug addicts are human beings’. these efforts on the part of the church were important, claims the centre’s director, for the reintegration of these young men into society because of the stigma that normally follows them after release from prison. also, besides the usual priests’ 7 the background to this development is interesting. in the mid-1980s Jehovah’s Witnesses had purchased the plot of land where this centre now stands with plans to build their balkan headquarters there. however, the local population reacted strongly against this, protesting at a mass level against the operation of a centre for Jehovah’s Witnesses in the area. as part of the protest, an Orthodox Church was built on the edge of the land. by the mid-1990s, the plan was abandoned, and the land was sold to the ministry of Justice. the ministry of Justice subsequently used the land to establish a rehabilitation and Detoxification Centre (a project partially funded by the European Union). (For more information, see ministry of Justice, n.d.) Certainly this background may colour our perspective on the church’s relation to the Centre for Rehabilitation and Detoxification.

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visits to the prison, one particular priest with professional training in dealing with drug addictions makes more regular visits and has a good working relationship with the staff of the centre. In fact, in Thiva and Livadeia one finds a number of priests with high levels of education and professional backgrounds, particularly in the area of psychological health.8 One of the most noteworthy of activities in relation to the latter was the establishment in 1990 of the Centre for rehabilitation and deinstitutionalization, which was a joint venture between the church and the Centre for mental health of the ministry of health and social Welfare. the venture was initiated by a psychiatrist cleric (fr adamantios augoustidis), who suggested the establishment of a boarding house for patients from the asylum for the mentally ill of the island of leros (this leros asylum had become a national embarrassment after the international press began to expose its terrible conditions in the late 1980s). the church donated the building for the boarding house, and – as in the case of the Rehabilitation and Detoxification Centre – played a significant role in preparing the local population for its establishment. today, the building operates as a boarding house for the rehabilitation and deinstitutionalization of mentally ill patients from different parts of Greece, and it operates independently of the church (augoustidis 2000–2002). this project is one of many forms of cooperation between the church and state in the welfare domain; most other examples entail less formal relations established at the individual level but still critical for the effective operation of a particular welfare project. for example, in livadeia a new facility was established during the research period for care of the elderly and children with physical disabilities. the state and the local church jointly funded the project but the church solely administers it. the facility’s care for children with disabilities is the result of cooperation with the local public hospital’s disabilities wing and, more specifically, with the individual in charge of that wing, who has strong personal ties to the church. the latter is an employee of the state welfare system, but works on a volunteer basis to help administer the church programme. A similar example of significant cooperation is that between a church-administered soup kitchen in thiva and the local ‘help at home’ (eu funded) programme: the ‘help at home’ social workers are provided with a car by the programme, whereas the soup kitchen does not have

8

a number of related activities include the local church hosting a large international conference in 2003 on ‘Psychotherapy and Orthodox Christian theology’. there are discussion groups led by priests for psychological help for young couples and for groups of men and of women; there are seminars where clerics learn themes in psychology and psychoanalysis as may be applied to pastoral care; a psychological-help clinic is housed in the thiva diocesan building (rooms are provided by the church for use as counselling rooms for psychological therapy; the church simply facilitates peoples’ access to psychological help, but the professional psychologists are paid by the patients, not by the church); and there are regular meetings of one Thiva cleric with military officials.

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such facilities. accordingly, the social workers coordinate with the soup kitchen volunteers, collecting meals to deliver to the elderly on their home visits.9

Assessments of Religion and Welfare: From the Local to the National how can one assess the meaning of these and other local church welfare activities in relation to the consideration of whether welfare provision is, or can be, a new or renewed role for the church or, rather, whether it represents a mere continuation of an ‘old’ role of the church ‘supplementing’ and/or representing the state in certain functions? from these few examples of its welfare activities one certainly sees how critical the factor of individual initiative is. Perhaps less conspicuous – but impossible to underestimate – is the extent to which the church’s activities are shaped and framed by a reality of its relations with the state. first, all clergy are remunerated by the state, so their welfare activities are, in effect, paid for by the state. also, the vast land ownership that the church has managed to keep for use for welfare activity, and the tax exemptions the church enjoys, significantly increase its position in the welfare domain. most important, though, and most relevant is the fact that the church is typically considered as a ‘natural’ and ‘logical’ partner to the state in the welfare domain. this, together with the generally weak civil society presence in Greece, means that the church is the first place that local authorities in Thiva and Livadeia look to find collaborators in welfare activities and, meanwhile, the church tends to find a sympathetic response when making requests of the state for its work in the welfare domain. indeed, church–state collaboration in welfare transpires quite naturally in the examples noted above, whether this is in joint state funding or administration of particular projects. does this suggest a perpetuation of a particularly close relationship between church and state in Greece, but here at the local level? realistically, the state of affairs in church welfare provision in thiva and livadeia (and, presumably in many other dioceses) entails – at least by default – maintenance of close church–state links. however, some consideration should be given to the explanations that the actors (clerical and lay) involved in church welfare provide for their own activities. these individuals claim two main motivating factors: first, Christ’s example (that is, welfare is fundamental to the nature of Christianity and thus to the church’s mission) and, second, the tremendous welfare needs in thiva and livadeia and gaps in the welfare provision 9 One further area of welfare activity that could be indicative of the church’s propensity for adapting to new and especially pressing social problems is that of work with immigrants in thiva and livadeia. initial research showed several ad hoc church activities in relation to immigrants (for example hiring immigrants for garden work) but, given the transitional state of immigration in the area, further research was necessary for conclusive results. this research was furthered under the auspices of the european Commission fP6 project on Welfare and Values in europe (WaVe, 2006–2009).

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there (that is, the church, and everyone, must do their part). in reality and on the ground, there are indeed little to no traces of reflection on church–state relations in the welfare domain on the part of those who actually administer the welfare provision, and it is clear that the situation of welfare need in thiva and livadeia is such that the church would certainly receive harsh critique if it were to play a lesser role in welfare (all 25 respondents, including church representatives, feel that the church can and should do more, and approximately 20 per cent do criticize the church for doing little in relation to its capabilities in terms of financial and social capital).10 the local population expects the church to play a significant role in welfare provision, but the reasons cited are diverse: because it can (again, social and financial capital), because of its claim to emulate and serve Christ and because it is the church’s duty to serve the social whole (that is, as a public institution). It is also worth considering specifically the views of actors in local state welfare provision. for example, one argument is that the state can and will offer services in an organized way and without expecting something in return. Conversely, it is said, when the church offers something, it ‘wants you on its side’, trying to win over your soul. in other words, state institutions are deemed philosophically neutral spaces whereas churches are not. some interviewees argue that church volunteer work is not stable enough; that volunteers cannot be relied upon for matters of such importance as social care and that payment for work (as is the norm in public institutions) leads to greater reliability. furthermore, it is claimed the alleged ‘facelessness’ in public welfare structures is necessary: proper therapy requires a professional patient–client relationship and in small communities people may be too ashamed to take their problems to the local church or churchrelated institutions. further, one social worker feels that the church’s role helps to perpetuate a sense in Greece that ‘love conquers all’ and is sufficient to deal with problems that often require professional attention. importantly, a priest who fears that the type of activities in which the church gets involved perpetuates a sense that the church is ‘a department of the ministry of health and social Welfare’ expresses a similarly negative feeling about church welfare activity in the locality. for both the social worker and the priest, the local church’s particular activities in welfare provision are an ‘unfortunate necessity’, but a necessity nonetheless, and discussions of what they mean in terms of new or old roles is a luxury that academics can afford but with little relevance for them. Considering both the activities of the church in the welfare domain and the perspectives on the latter of local interviewees, there is evidence of all three of the possibilities under question: the development of a new role for the church in welfare provision, a renewal of its historic role, and a continuation of close church–state relations through the domain of welfare.

10 interviews were conducted with individuals working in church welfare activities (clerical and lay), individuals working in state or private welfare institutions, local authorities and members of the general public.

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most conspicuously, though, the research questions bear little relevance for the local population: new, renewed or same old role? What does it matter? the reality on the ground of tremendous welfare needs that go unmet takes precedence over these questions. this is, it seems, an important point to take into consideration, suggesting that discussion of the church’s modernization, or not, in the domain of welfare must try to grasp both developments at the national level and the realities at the local level where most of the welfare activity is played out and where one may find sharp disconnect with the concerns and trends in the church at the national level.

By Way of Conclusion returning to the question with which this chapter started – what does church modernization mean in terms of church–state relations – church–state relations have been, and remain, a recurrent theme of discussion and debate in Greece (for an elaboration of the following points, see fokas 2008). this discussion saw a renewed impetus with the election of a new archbishop in early 2008. academic and media-based discussions in the aftermath of the archbishopric elections focused on the need for church–state separation once and for all. for antonis karkagiannis (editor of the Kathimerini newspaper), this public conversation is misguided. instead, the critical question is ‘who should separate from whom?’ One mistakes power with influence; he suggests: ‘the influence of the ecclesiastical reality on the social body proceeds from the historic life, the spiritual lives and deeper culture of the people’. thus, by extension, decisions regarding religion’s public place must resonate with the ‘age-old conscience and the cultural foundations of the majority population’ (karkagiannis 2006). and the role of the church in welfare provision is one aspect of this age-old conscience. a related question concerns one’s conceptions of ‘public’ and ‘private’, which of course has implications for the place of the church in relation to the state or nation. Pantelis kalaitzidis (kalaitzidis 2007) guides one adeptly through debates on this question. making reference to a number of writings on the subject by Greek scholars (theologians and sociologists), and also drawing on insights from philosophical discussions beyond the Greek context, kalaitzidis notes that ‘the private is not antithetical to the social and the communal, and does not necessarily mean individual, but rather non governmental, and not related to state power’; meanwhile, the ‘public’ should not be confused with the ‘state’ (kalaitzidis 2007: 137). in fact, kalaitzidis argues, one ought to maintain a perspective of three clear dimensions: the state, the public and the private. accordingly, he and other scholars he cites argue that beyond its place in the private sphere, religion and the church can and should have a public presence, given that their natural space is society and specifically civil society. following from karkagiannis then, the argument is that it is a matter of fact that the church, in the Greek case, rightfully occupies a place in the public sphere by

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virtue of the will of its majority population, in that religion is a public and not only a private issue. however, this can only be rightfully the case when: 1. the ‘public’ is distinguished from the state and the government (public being broader than both the latter); 2. the church’s right to interference in the public sphere is subject to the terms and limits of that public sphere, including human rights, religious freedoms, tolerance of difference and distinctive roles of church and state; 3. the church’s role in the public sphere does not also mean power in that sphere; nor does it mean the right to a voice on all issues before the public (for example foreign policy, national issues, national identity, demographic problems and so on); 4. the church must understand its sphere of influence as not over ‘the Greeks’ in general, and its reference must not be to the national and patriotic community of the faithful but towards the eschatological, eucharistic and hyperethnic community of the faithful (and the list goes on). but kalaitzidis, echoing of course many other observers of the Orthodox Church of Greece, notes that this has not been the case in the Greek context. One cannot, in fact, have an intelligent discussion about the role of religion in the Greek public sphere, kalaitzidis argues: all this discussion cannot relate in a meaningful way to our church, as much as it will remain stubbornly and fearfully trapped in the form and the model of the Constantinian period, to its state character and its nationalist–patriotic role [and] as long as it will stay … fixed to the model of the ‘Christian society’, of which it imagines it is spiritual ruler and sole representative, even in today’s circumstances of pluralistic democracy. the dialogue on the place of the church in the public sphere concerns churches that have accepted modernity, pluralism, criticism, and self criticism and the principles of an open society, churches that perceive in a productive way the challenges, the gaps and the incontinences of post-modernity. Ours must finally decide in what world, in what society and in what era it lives! (kalaitzidis 2007: 161)

indeed, modernization of the church in terms of church–state relations, as in terms of its role in welfare provision, must be considered within the broader context of the church’s functioning in an increasingly pluralist context and a drastically changing Greek society. Clearly from this perspective church–state separation, in and of itself, is not a panacea for the difficulties facing the church in terms of adapting to a new situation of more religious heterogeneity and to a reality of a more secularized society. Certainly formally removing the constitutional privileges enjoyed by the Orthodox Church of Greece is a healthy starting point, one that could have a trickle-down effect into society in general. but such measures would have

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to be accompanied by other efforts that will bring a long-term but steady and coherent process of change – efforts focused on the aforementioned operative and combatable factors that lead to limitations on religious freedoms and equality. examples include alteration of the way history is taught in schools and the place of religion and the church occupies in school textbooks and curricula, thus helping lead to a better educated public less accepting of exploitations of church–state links; support for politicians risking political losses by resisting inappropriate interferences from the church, if and as they arise and, by the same token, some system of reprimand for those politicians who instead manipulate church–state links to their political benefit; and support for ‘progressive’ clergy who resist the banal and clichéd links between religion and nation, church and state and, rather, seek to cultivate the church’s spiritual mission. such developments would encourage church welfare activity along the lines of that described in ideal terms at the local level – relatively free of the expectations, and connotations, of a particular church–state link.

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karkagiannis, antonis. 2006. ‘ekklisia kai kratos (alla ekklisia kai ethnos?) (Church and state (but also Church and ethnos?)). Kathimerini 15 January. retrieved 7 October 2008 at http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_ columns_1_15/01/2006_170080 Kokosalakis, Nikos. 1987. ‘The Political Significance of Popular Religion in Greece’, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 67(1): 37–52. liakos, antonis. 2006. ‘to allo Prosopo tis ekklisias’ (the Other face of the Church), To Vima, 26 november, p. b59. ministry of Justice. n.d. ‘Prevention and Control of Crime’. retrieved 7 October 2008 at http://www.ministryofjustice.gr/eu2003/prevention.php molokotos-liederman, l. 2007. ‘the Greek id Cards Controversy: a Case study on religion and national identity in a Changing european union’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 22(2): 187–203. Plekon, michael. 2003. ‘eastern Orthodox social and Political theology’. in The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology, ed. P. scott and W. t. Cavanaugh. Oxford: blackwell, pp. 93–106. ramet, Pedro. 1988. ‘autocephaly and national identity in Church–state relations in eastern Christianity: an introduction’. in Eastern Christianity and Politics in the 20th Century, ed. P. ramet. durham, nC: duke university Press, pp. 3–19. ramet, sabrina. 2006. ‘the Way We Were – and should be again? european Orthodox Churches and the “idyllic Past”’. in Religion in an Expanding Europe, ed. t. byrnes and P. katzenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, pp. 148–75. roth, Catharine. 1984. ‘introduction’. in St. John Chrysostom: On Wealth and Poverty, ed. C. roth. Crestwood, ny: st. Vladimir’s seminary Press, pp. 7–18. roudometof, Victor. 2005. ‘Orthodoxy as Public religion in Post-1989 Greece’. in Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twenty-First Century, ed. V. roudometof, a. agadjanian and J. Pankhurst. Walnut Creek, Calif.: alta mira Press, pp. 84–108. stavrakakis, yannis. 2003. ‘Politics and religion: On the “Politicization” of Greek Church discourse’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 21: 153–81. Vassiliadis, Petros. 2003. ‘Orthodox Christianity’. in God’s Rule, ed. J. neusner. Washington, dC: Georgetown university Press, pp. 85–106. yannoulatos, anastasios. 2003. Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns. Geneva: World Council of Churches Press.

Chapter 9

faith and trust: tracking Patterns of religious and Civic Commitment in Greece and europe. an empirical approach 1

theoni stathopoulou

Over the last few decades there has been a resurgence of scholarly and public debate about the role of religion as a political force, a defining factor of social values and a marker of social identity. the developments following the fall of the Berlin Wall have led to a redefinition of the significance of religion in shaping the new European landscape. These changes are reflected in increased religiosity, apparent particularly among young adults in former socialist countries, and the consequent strong influence of the churches in those countries (Lambert 2004; tomka 2006, tomka and yurash 2006; révay and tomka 2007). by way of contrast, the unpopularity of the established churches in the West has been accompanied by an increase in indicators of private religiosity to such an extent that one can speak of an unchurched rather than a secular europe (halman and draulans 2006). indeed, the idea of europe’s exceptionalism in terms of secularity (davie 1999, 2002; berger, davie and fokas 2008) has been critically questioned by the empirical findings of the third wave of the European Values Study (1999; draulans and halman 2005; halman and draulans 2006) and the successive rounds of the european social survey from 2002 onwards (billet 2003; billet and Welkenhuysen-Gybels 2004). According to these surveys there are no fixed patterns of religiosity across europe nor are religious changes occurring at the same pace and in the same direction. the diversity of the religious landscape and the fluid nature of the existing forms of religiosity, on both the collective and the individual level, have led to a redefinition of the key paradigms of secularization and modernity. as berger has pointed out in The Desecularization of the World (1999), although modernity is a prerequisite of the secularizing process, it is not necessarily accompanied by the secular components that denote this very process. moreover secularization at the societal or institutional level is not always positively related to secularization at the individual level, in terms of either thinking about

1 an earlier version of this paper was presented at the 28th issr conference, Zagreb, Croatia, 18–22 July 2005. I would like to thank the editors of this volume and Effie Fokas for their comments.

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Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

religion or behaving according to it (dobbelaere 2002; ester, braun and mohler 2006). there is, thus, a growing number of people – 27 per cent of europeans according to halman and draulans (2006) – who are indifferent to the dogmatic contents of faith but who declare themselves to be religious. in its most extreme form the tendency towards ‘religion without church’ and ‘faith without dogma’ may manifest complete lack of faith as a religious stance.2 even in a more moderate form it is still an expression of personal taste rather than a manifestation of collective identity and belonging. In the first sense faith lacks the proper tools to forge the associational bonds so as to develop the commitment required for the creation of social and interpersonal trust. although faith and trust share the same value domain, they differ in terms of their orientation: the first pertains to an individual universe and the latter, as a relational value by definition, leads to the public space, the sphere of civitas. the interplay between the two and the way they operationalize in social reality is a highly debated issue. moreover the interaction between the two aforementioned forms of engagement and their impact on social transformation cannot be interpreted outside the context of globalization (beyer 1994; featherstone, lash and robertson 1995; inglehart 1997; agadjanian and roudometof 2005) and the pluralism it entails. there are various reactions to the forces of pluralism ‘from complete adaptation to outright rejection’ (ester, mohler and Vinken 2006: 5). individual and collective, national and global identities are redefined in various ways and at different paces, constructing a mosaic of cultural and socio-economic trajectories. as eisenstadt (2000: 24) has argued: ‘the trends of globalisation show nothing so clearly as the continual reinterpretation of the cultural program of modernity; the construction of multiple modernities … beyond the premises of the nation–state but within all societies.’ Within this frame of reference this chapter will focus on the case of Greece and its particular socio-religious identity. the role of Greece, in explaining the variation that exists in the religious landscape, is of increased importance, given that it offers a more coherent view of the european situation.

The Case of Greece if europe has been described as an ‘exceptional’ case in the modern world with respect to its religious profile, Greece has repeatedly been characterized as ‘the exception to the exception’. and there are indeed a number of features that differentiate Greece from the other european countries. Greece is the only Orthodox country in southern europe (italy, Portugal and spain are Catholic) and the only one of the Orthodox countries of eastern europe that did not belong to the eastern communist bloc. its Orthodox identity was 2 this might apply as well to robert bellah’s ‘non-belief’ ([1970] 1991) (see also Zoumboulakis 2002).

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one of the main reasons that it did not take part in the major historical changes (Renaissance, Reformation) that occurred in Western and Central Europe (Μakrides and molokotos-liederman 2004) and, thus, it has not been part of the Christian trajectory that has elaborated within Western Christendom. Greece is, therefore, a distinct case rather than an exception deviating from a general rule with which it ought to comply. The idea of Greece as an unclassified outsider – circulated widely among the international public thanks to huntington’s description of Greece in his The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1998) – preserves a perception that instrumentalizes Orthodoxy for ‘building a regional Other europe’ incompatible with democracy and modernity (Prodromou 1996: 129). in other words, a second-tier europe exists that cannot equally participate in the formation of europe per se as a cultural entity. in essence, this perception does not differ greatly from the ‘spirit of semi-Orientalism [and backwardness] with which the Enlightenment identified Eastern Europe’ (Wolff 2001: 22). This particular model of exceptionalism has often been used to support the cultural dualism thesis (diamandouros 2000), which considers Greek society as captive to a dualism between tradition and modernity. according to this view eastern Orthodoxy and the Orthodox Church of Greece have operated as an impediment to the modernization of the country and, in addition, have maintained an outdated interplay between religion and politics. according to the classical model of modernization, Greece’s transition to modernity was never completely achieved. in contrast to the rigid model of exceptionalism, which excludes communication between the two poles of tradition and modernity (stavrakakis 2002), the notion of distinctiveness takes into account historical specificities in order to explain the controversies of Greece’s modernizing trajectory (see Prodromou 2004b). One of the key issues raised by this trajectory is the position and role of Orthodoxy in Greek society and, consequently, the relations between church and state, between church and nation. the historical starting point for these relations was the recognition of the Orthodox Church by the Ottoman authorities as an ethnic institution or millet, an act that identified the church with the nation and defined its social and political role. the terms on which the Greek state was established in the nineteenth century, and the recognition of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Greece by the Patriarchate in 1850, led the two institutions into opposition. essentially what was involved was a symbolic conflict, an attempt by the new state to find legitimizing support for its role as the ‘rightful heir of the nation’ (stathopoulou 1991: 260). Prior to the emergence of the state on the historical scene, it was the church that functioned as the nation’s primary identifier. Nevertheless the nationalization of the church, although incorrect in ecclesiastical terms (meyendorff 1990), went along with the overall nationalist tendencies3 of the period and the irredentist visions of the newly established state (skopetea 1988; stathopoulou 1991). 3 the ecumenical character of eastern Orthodoxy was based on the notion of an Orthodox Commonwealth, which rejected the idea of ethnophyletism (meyendorff 1990:

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Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

regent Georg von maurer (one of the three regents who administered the newly formed kingdom of Greece until king Otto’s coming of age) was responsible for the original foundation of the Orthodox Church of Greece and he conceived it, along the lines of the bavarian Protestant Church’s constitution, as a branch of public administration. this enabled the institution to handle all aspects of religious life – official/state and popular – instrumentally as a means towards political ends and in due time led to its conversion into a national safeguard, a role that reached its peak in the seven-year dictatorship (1967–1974) (see also Georgiadou 1996; roudometof 2008). ‘religion overwhelmingly spread throughout the institutions, rituals and ethos of Greek society’ (demertzis 1995: 15). accordingly, church–state relations have been of decisive importance in framing religiosity in several domains: first, both on the collective and individual levels; second, in the way that religiosity is diffused throughout the community; and, finally, in the way that religiosity is exploited for political ends. yet the ‘pendulum of tension’ and the layers of mutual interest between the two institutional schemata make it hard to distinguish between the church as an institution and the church as a body of believers. the transcendental nature of the latter definition of the church implies that the corpus of the faithful remains unattached to the mundane orientation and the historical fluctuations of the institution (makrides 2005). the church’s ‘dual character’ not only preserves the tensions in its dealings with the state but also creates a kind of ambiguity with respect to the pluralist challenges of modernity (Prodromou 2004a; roudometof 2008). in the social realm this ambivalence is expressed as a swinging behaviour between modern and traditional ways (stavrakakis 2002: 41). in the religious space it enhances the church’s ability to ‘absorb’ the most extreme tendencies among its followers and use them occasionally as a means of pressure.4 On the other hand, the state ‘virtually ignores the eschatological and transcendental dimension of the church and treats it as any other institution that falls within its range of power and authority’ (makrides 2005: 172). the state’s posture was manifested in the controversy over identity cards (molokotosliederman 2003) and in the ecclesiastical crisis of 2005,5 which raised once again the question of the separation of church and state. although the constitutional arrangements of church–state relations in Greece, even the special privileges given to the church, are not very different from those in the rest of europe6 (robbers 2005), the visibility of the church in the public space is high – mainly due to the way religion is diffused in everyday life. 303). On the use of nationalism as a secular religion, see stathopoulou’s chapter ‘the secular and religious Great idea’ (1991); see also lekkas (1996). 4 See Μakrides (2004) on the possibility of the rallying of these tendencies, mainly in periods of crisis. 5 The crisis involved the implication of members of the church hierarchy in financial and moral scandals. see markrides’ Chapter 3 in this volume. 6 For an interesting definitional account of church–state relations, see Barker (1999).

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to sum up, if religiosity is a threefold phenomenon about what people do (church attendance), what they believe and what they experience, diffusion refers to this third dimension, which is in any case difficult to be measured. The way religious symbols and practices permeate social reality may have an implicit impact on the shaping of religious attitudes and practices. the importance Greeks attach to religion is indicative of the ways religious identity is actually experienced. the high scores in the subjective indicators of religiosity for Greece compared to those of other countries may attest to this – an issue that will be addressed later.

Trust in Institutions One of the most valuable contributions of the european social survey is its systematic recording of changes on the institutional level and people’s perceptions of and attitudes towards those institutions. the european social survey allows one to follow changes in a wide range of political orientations – including people’s trust in institutions. from a sociological point of view the notion of trust is important because it counterbalances the risks one has to face in contemporary society and reflects the ability of individuals to rely on ‘abstract systems’ to help them confront the risks this society entails (beck 1992; beck, Giddens and lash 1994). trust in institutions is an aspect of social capital (Putnam 1995; mishler and Rose 2001; Νοrris and Davis 2007) and serves as an indicator of general trust in the political system. the concept of social capital concerns the ideas of interpersonal trust and public trust in society and its institutions. as Putnam (1995: 2) puts it, ‘by analogy with notions of physical capital and human capital “social capital” refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.’ The individual-centred version of social capital (mishler and rose 2001; yang 2007) asserts that trust in institutions is derived from the internalized values of each individual, in contrast to the institutional perspective, which sees this trust as the product of the effective functioning of institutions. the important role religious convictions and practices may play in the forming of social capital is evident insofar as religion is a system of values that strengthens moral consciousness, social commitment and collective solidarity. empirical analyses of the european Values survey (1999/2000) data have shown that social capital is correlated to religious convictions: Catholics tend to show less trust in institutions (lower social capital) than Protestants do (van Oorshot, Αrts and Gelissen 2006).7 Catholics also tend to have more trust in supranational institutions than in national institutions due to a hostile tendency towards the nation-state inherent in Catholicism (nelsen and Guth 2003). measurements of social capital in Greece (lyberaki and Paraskevopoulos 2002; Panagiotopoulou 7 the variation of social capital in europe is small. even in countries like Greece, which have the lowest values, there is no great divergence from the average level (see van Oorshot, Αrts and Gelissen 2006, pp. 149–167).

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and Papliakou 2007; sotiropoulos 2007) have also indicated high levels of trust in the institution of the church. although there has been a lack of systematic studies concerning religion per se in Greece,8 a series of surveys regarding political culture and behaviour (mavrogordatos and nikolakopoulos 1988; kafetzis 1997, 1998) have indicated that in Greek society the church seems to enjoy relatively stable levels of public confidence when compared with other institutions like political parties or parliament. The social influence of the church has remained strong over the years, and the same holds for its visibility in the public space (Georgiadou and nikolakopoulos 2001, 2007; Varouxi 2004; fokas 2008). this visibility is, moreover, one of the central issues in the controversy over the separation of church and state and the role of religion in Greek society.

Data and Methodology the empirical data used in this chapter to highlight trends in religious and civic commitment come from the european social survey, which is conducted in biannual successive rounds in more than 20 european countries, including Greece.9 Greece stands out in the survey for two reasons: it is the only Orthodox Christian country to have been included, and its levels of religious practice (including church attendance and more subjective indices of religiosity) were shown to be relatively high in comparison to the other countries surveyed. the european social survey is a large-scale empirical survey that was designed and conducted in line with the specifications of other recurring surveys like the eurobarometer and the european Values survey. the european social survey has a much larger sample of interviews than does the european Values survey (halman 2001). the aim of the european social survey is to record and interpret the perceptions, attitudes and behaviour patterns of european citizens in relation to a series of major political and social issues. although not a survey purely about the religious convictions and practices of the citizens of each country involved, it does contain important questions on religiosity and the role of religion in each country. The adoption of highly rigorous methodological specifications has given the survey in question a very high level of reliability and validity (norris 2004). nevertheless, it is still subjected to the limitations of any survey attempting to 8 from around 1998 onwards, with the consecration of archbishop Christodoulos, a wave of opinion polls concerning the church were commissioned mainly by newspapers and television channels, but these were rather fragmentary in nature. 9 The countries participating in the first round were Austria, Belgium, the Czech republic, denmark, finland, france, Germany, Greece, hungary, ireland, israel, italy, luxembourg, the netherlands, norway, Poland, Portugal, spain, sweden, switzerland and the united kingdom. in the second round iceland, estonia, slovakia, turkey and ukraine were added.

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record multi-dimensional phenomena – especially over such a large geographical area (harkness 1999). as responses to questions can be affected by timing and context,10 a close monitoring of the events that have taken place in every participating country before and during the fieldwork is necessary (Stathopoulou 2007a, forthcoming). the usefulness of the event database becomes clear when one considers the impact of the 2005 ecclesiastical crisis on the religious variables in round 2 of the survey. While no such crisis was seen in the Orthodox Church of Greece during round 1, one could consider the iraq war and its aftermath to be an equally influential factor affecting attitudes and beliefs regarding religion and the church. the climate of uncertainty this event has caused across europe could be seen as a factor capable of activating more spiritual concerns. furthermore, the method of measuring the indicators of religiosity is subjected to specific theoretical assumptions and does not allow for the delineation of all the denominational differentiations. these assumptions were developed by sociologists of religion to interpret phenomena in Western europe and of Western Christianity (Davie 2004; Τomka 2006). For example, in an Eastern Orthodox context the position of the individual in society is defined by different ontological assumptions, and therefore ‘religiosity is less a distinct individual choice than it is a matter of being part of a social and symbolic universe. in this universe there is much space for individual variation, but not for religious individualism’ (tomka 2006: 260). despite the different contexts of the religiosity indicators, the existence of empirical data is important in identifying the trends making up the overall picture of the religious phenomenon. for the purposes of the analysis some questions from the core survey questionnaire, which indicate two basic dimensions of religiosity, are used. The first dimension, the objective dimension, refers to collective or public religious practice and behaviour, namely church attendance and belonging.11 the second dimension, the subjective dimension, which refers to individual religious practice and behaviour, has two parts: (a) the self-definition of religiosity and (b) attitudes regarding the importance of religion in life and the Christian background as a qualification for immigration. this second dimension was examined with the following questions: a. C 15: ‘how often do you pray, when not actually attending religious services?’ b. C 13: ‘how religious are you?’ c. e 18: ‘important in life: religion’ d. D 13: ‘Qualification for immigration: Christian background’

10 A scandal, a change of government, significant international events – these can all affect responses to the survey’s questions (see stathopoulou 2007a, forthcoming). 11 C 9: ‘belonging to particular religion or denomination’; C 14: ‘how often religious services are attended, apart from special occasions’.

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Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

The last two questions appeared only in the first round of the survey. Religiosity indicators (Β7–Β12 in the first round; B4–B10 in the second round) were then analysed in relation to variables that concern trust in institutions: (1) country’s parliament, (2) legal system, (3) police, (4) politicians, (5) european Parliament and (6) united nations. the analysis was performed in two stages. The first stage was the descriptive analysis of religiosity for the European union and Greece on the two dimensions mentioned (objective and subjective religiosity), the first dimension concerning religious practice and the second dimension concerning beliefs and attitudes towards religion. the second stage was the application of multivariate analysis (including factor and cluster analysis) of the selected variables for the detection of possible patterns between different countries and denominations across europe. using multivariate techniques, the survey’s participating countries were grouped together by combining their responses on issues of religiosity with variables concerning trust in institutions at a national and european level. the common principle of multivariate techniques (lebart, Piron and morineau 1997; Johnson and Wichern 1998) is that each one of the two dimensions of a rectangular table of numeric data can be used to define proximities (distances) among the elements of the other dimensions. Classification methods that create groupings of rows or columns into clusters were the main reduction method used for the analysis of the survey’s results. because of the particularly large volume of data, factor analysis was used for the reduction of dimensionality and then cluster analysis was used for combining the observations into groups. this kind of analysis provided the opportunity to identify primarily the latent factors and their indicators, and then to classify the observations (responses). the variables of religiosity that were used to create the factors and then compose the main framework of cluster analysis are the active variables. the supplementary or illustrative variables, related to social capital and trust in politics, were projected a posteriori on the two-dimensional display.

Results the religious composition of the Greek population differs from that of the european union. the majority of european Orthodox Christians (87.7 per cent) in the european union are found in Greece; this means that eastern Orthodoxy is represented in europe only by Greece. nearly 93 per cent of Greeks are Orthodox Christians. this powerful relationship between religion and nationality is paralleled only in israel. in addition, 66.73 per cent of europeans are roman Catholics, 22.1 per cent are Protestants and only 3.86 per cent are Orthodox. When asked, ‘how often do you attend religious services apart from special occasions?’ the largest percentage of europeans indicated never attending religious services. for european Christians, the percentages concerning weekly church

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attendance and attendance on special occasions is roughly the same (table 9.1). as shown in table 9.2, roman Catholics attend religious services more regularly (with 28.6 per cent going once a week), while Greeks go to church more rarely, only on special occasions (32.2 per cent) or once a month (27.2 per cent). low percentages of church attendance, also indicated by other surveys (Georgiadou and nikolakopoulos 2001), stand in contrast to the high scores seen in the subjective indicators of religiosity. Protestants show the lowest attendance figure (27.3 per cent go to church on special occasions, 27.3 per cent less often and 20 per cent never). Church attendance in the eastern Orthodox context has a completely different context than in Catholicism, which holds a more legalistic orientation towards religious life.

table 9.1

frequency of church attendance First round

Frequency of attendance

Europe

Only Christian denominations

second round Greece

Europe

Only Christian denominations

Greece

every day

0.86

1.02

1.08

0.67

1.02

0.63

more than once a week

3.06

4.05

5.56

2.86

4.67

3.67

Once a week

14.90

23.30

19.38

13.17

22.12

18.59

at least once a month

10.36

15.60

28.37

10.90

16.94

29.85

Only on special holy days

18.68

23.43

29.93

19.92

23.98

32.68

less often

18.50

18.37

11.41

19.29

17.75

10.92

never

33.27

14.03

4.03

32.79

13.28

3.50

refused to answer

0.08

0.04

0.05

0.07

0.01

0.01

don’t know

0.23

0.14

0.16

0.29

0.20

0.16

not applicable

0.05

0.02

0.02

Source: european social survey 2002–2003, 2004–2005.

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table 9.2

Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

frequency of church attendance by denomination First round

Frequency of attendance

Roman Catholic

Protestant

second round Orthodox

Roman Catholic

Protestant

Orthodox

every day

1.3

0.2

0.7

1.4

0.2

0.6

more than once a week

4.1

3.7

5.4

4.6

3.7

3.8

Once a week

28.6

8.3

18.5

27.7

8.9

18.9

at least once a month

15.8

13

27.2

16.4

13.4

30.4

Only on special holy days

21.6

27.3

32.2

21.3

27.9

33.2

less often

15.8

27.3

11.8

15.8

26.3

10.2

never

12.6

20

0.4

12.6

19.5

2.8

note: 7-point labelled scale ranging from every day = 1 to never = 7. Source: european social survey, 2002–2003/2004–2005.

to the question ‘how often do you pray?’ Greeks answered much like the rest of europe; there is a slight variation in the number who pray every day as compared to the rest of europe’s Christians – 45.6 per cent of Greeks pray every day as opposed to 32.7 per cent of other European Christians (Table 9.3). A significant percentage of all europeans, including Christians, state that they pray ‘less often’ or ‘never’. In response to the question concerning the self-definition of religiosity (‘How religious are you?’) Greeks demonstrate significant differences to Europeans as a whole and to Christian europe; in fact, they have the highest values on the scale (table 9.4). there is also a difference when comparing the two rounds: in the second round 17.1 per cent of Greeks declared themselves very religious, compared to 23.5 per cent in the first round. This decline may be related to the ecclesiastical crisis of 2005. At the same time, however, one sees a significant increase in those who placed themselves at 7 on the scale. As for the variables concerning attitudes to religion, measured only in the first round, with respect to the importance of religion in life 18.48 per cent of european Christians thought that religion is extremely important in life (a 10 on the 11point scale), but this percentage more than doubles in Greece, to 46.19 per cent. furthermore, 16.2 per cent of all europeans declared that religion is unimportant, but only 1.31 per cent of Greeks made the same declaration. the second variable concerning attitudes is examined by the questions on people’s views on the importance of religion as a precondition for immigration. for the majority of Christian europe, this is a matter of no or moderate importance. in Greece, however, this issue is of extreme importance (with 18.06 per cent placing themselves at 10 on the scale). this is linked to the fact that immigration in Greece is a fairly new phenomenon (triandafyllidou 2005).

Faith and Trust

table 9.3

203

frequency of praying Europe

First round Only Christian denominations

Greece

Europe

second round Only Christian denominations

Greece

every day

22.9

32.7

45.6

21.54

32.20

43.89

more than once a week Once a week

9.4

13.3

17.5

8.86

13.13

18.04

6.2

8.5

10.0

6.52

9.52

9.58

5.8

7.5

8.2

5.76

7.16

7.11

3.2

3.9

3.1

3.76

4.72

2.16

17.1

17.3

10.3

16.97

16.73

12.99

33.7 0.4

15.3 0.4

4.1 0.1

35.22 0.23

15.11 0.16

5.15

1.2

1.2

1.1

1.02

1.12

1.08

Frequency of praying

at least once a month Only on special holy days less often never refused to answer don’t know/no answer

Note: 7-point labelled scale ranging from every day = 1 to never = 7. Source: european social survey 2002–2003, 2004–2005.

table 9.4

degree of religiosity Europe

First round Only Christian denominations

Greece

Europe

0 1

11.3 5.0

2.0 1.9

1.0 0.8

13.1 5.8

2.2 2.2

0.2 0.6

2 3 4

7.0 8.1 6.3

4.1 6.5 6.3

1.5 2.0 1.9

7.0 8.0 6.7

4.1 6.6 7.1

0.9 1.7 2.4

5 6

17.7 10.1

19.9 12.6

9.5 8.4

17.2 9.8

19.8 12.4

11.3 8.8

7

11.9

15.7

13.0

11.5

15.8

19.4

8 9

10.7 5.0

14.7 7.0

19.6 18.5

10.3 4.6

14.7 6.8

20.4 16.8

10 refused to answer don’t know no answer

6.4 0.1 0.4 0.2

8.8 0.1 0.2 0.1

23.5 0.1 0.1 0.1

5.3 0.1 0.5 0.1

7.7

17.1

0.4 0.2

0.3

Degree of religiosity

second round Only Christian Greece denominations

note: 11-point scale ranging from 0 = not at all to 10 = very religious. Source: european social survey 2002–2003, 2004–2005.

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Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

Patterns of Religious and Civic Commitment across Europe in order to examine the relationship between religiosity and trust in institutions, multivariate methods (factor and cluster analysis) were performed on the responses to questions about religious practices and convictions. In the first round, 9 groups were established on the basis of the analysis, and in the second round 12 groups were established. A significant difference in terms of the results is that in the second round the questions ‘how important is religion in life?’ and ‘how important for immigration is a Christian background?’ were not included. the latter was part of the rotating module concerning immigration. thus two questions of importance for attitude measurement were omitted. also, data for italy were not available. For the first round of the survey the analysis created nine clusters. Each cluster contains groups of respondents who share common response patterns concerning religiosity. not surprisingly, the same country may appear in more than one group, as different trends co-exist within each country. each group contains groups of respondents who share common traits with respect to both objective and subjective indicators of religiosity. The findings follow. First Round Extreme values are not characteristic of a single country or a specific denomination. it appears that polarized groups of respondents belong to a variety of religions in a number of countries. for example, in cluster 3, respondents from italy, Greece and Poland have been grouped together as they have similar response patterns concerning the importance of a Christian background for immigration and the frequency of prayer and church attendance (see figure 9.1). the respondents in these countries declare that they pray and attend church frequently. they also consider the Christian background as an important criterion in deciding whether immigrants should be allowed to settle in the country. The fifth cluster includes Catholics and Protestants who take a neutral stance on religious matters. they present that neutral stance on all the indicators of religiosity and show no differentiation in terms of their trust in institutions (5 – mid-point on the scale). in particular, the mediterranean countries of italy, spain and Portugal, along with hungary and france, group together in this cluster. Respondents who state that they do not belong to a specific religion and never attend church or pray also seem to have no trust in political institutions, as can be seen in clusters 8 and 9. these respondents are found in the Czech republic, the united kingdom, france and the netherlands. the countries in cluster 9, namely france, Germany, the Czech republic, the united kingdom and the netherlands, are in complete agreement with regard to trust in institutions – they do not trust them at all. Likewise in cluster 9 one finds respondents with the same religious profile and zero trust in institutions (France, Germany, the Czech Republic, the united kingdom and the netherlands).

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it is interesting to note that the netherlands, france and belgium, along with the united kingdom and spain, form a separate cluster, which may correspond to the ‘région laïque’ hypothesis put forward by Jean stoetzel (1983). Greece appears again in cluster 2 and shares common characteristics concerning religiosity and on trust in parliamentary institutions at a national and european level with Germany, Portugal and the netherlands.12 Second Round the analysis of the variables selected created 12 clusters for the second round of the survey (see figure 9.2). there is further evidence for the correlation of religious indifference with low trust in institutions. in cluster 12 the lowest scores for religious indicators are accompanied by equally low trust in institutions (the Czech republic, hungary, france, the netherlands, belgium, sweden and Germany). in cluster 11, scandinavian countries (sweden, norway and denmark) along with the united kingdom, belgium, the netherlands, france and two excommunist countries, the Czech republic and hungary, show a neutral stance (up to 5 on the scale). the same is true of cluster 10, with a slight variation. in this round Greece is grouped together with Poland and ireland, two countries that score high in religious involvement, as already indicated in the first round analysis, along with the roman Catholics of switzerland, austria and finland. trust in institutions varies from ‘complete trust’ to ‘don’t know’. as regards to Greece, the answer ‘don’t know’ might be explained by the unwillingness of respondents to express an opinion about institutions that were under attack at the time of the fieldwork.13 The fact that Greece finds itself in its own cluster may be attributed to the absence of data from italy and the omission of the two questions cited earlier – on the importance of religion in life and the importance of religion as a precondition for immigration – which form the attitudinal aspect of the subjective dimension of religiosity (the other being the self-definition of religiosity). In cluster 3 we find traditionally Catholic countries such as Portugal, Poland and ireland grouped together.

12 As Effie Fokas (2000: 9) points out, high levels of trust in European institutions do not support the view that ‘the Orthodox Church leads public opinion to anti-europeanism’. 13 In 2005, during the fieldwork period, economic and corruption scandals rocked the legal system and the Church of Greece (see stathopoulou 2005).

figure 9.1

Countries sharing common response patterns in relation to religiosity and trust in institutions

figure 9.2

Countries sharing common response patterns in relation to religiosity and trust in institutions

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Conclusions it is evident from the analyses above that there are different types of religiosity that seem to cut across european society regardless of religious denomination. these religious variations are shared by sections of populations in several countries, and religious indifference appears to be correlated to a declining social capital. similar analyses performed by draulans and halman (2005: 190) show that there is no fixed pattern of ‘Europe’s variety in pluralism’, thus heterogeneity and religious diversity are observed both within and across different countries. in some cases there are identical behaviour patterns and attitudes to religious issues associated with corresponding levels of trust in institutions. religious neutrality or indifference seems to be related to lower levels of social capital. This finding agrees with the finding of the European Values Survey that higher levels of church attendance correlate with higher levels of social capital (van Oorshot, arts and Gelissen 2006). the european path is marked by ‘cultural milieus in different religious traditions that might share as much in common as opposing milieus within the same tradition’ (riesebrodt 2000: 286). indeed, parts of the population within the traditionally more ‘religious’ countries, like Greece, italy and Portugal, show trends that can also be detected in countries with a much more pronounced secular profile, like Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. As far as the results of the first round of the European Social Services Survey are concerned, Greece differs from the rest of europe only in the high scores with regard to the subjective indicators of religiosity, mainly that of self-definition in relation to religion. Greeks also show a high degree of trust in supranational institutions like the european Parliament (7 and 8 on the 11-point scale)14 in contrast to most of their european counterparts. the appearance of Greece in a cluster of its own in the second round of the european social services survey is due to the lack of the additional first round questions on attitudes to religion and views on immigration. however, the trends tracked above are purely indicative of the religious tendencies and changes in europe and are by no means exhaustive. they should rather be considered as highlights of the changing religious, social and political european landscape. the empirical documentation of the religious and civic commitment cross-nationally raises new questions about the role of religion in the modern world. accordingly the case of Greece offers some interpretative clues towards the deeper understanding of the modernizing path.

14

first published in stathopoulou 2007b.

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Chapter 10

sacred Words in a secular beat: the free monks Phenomenon at the intersection of religion, youth and Popular Culture lina molokotos-liederman

the free monks (Eleftheroi) is a Greek rock band of black-robed Orthodox monks from the brotherhood of saint augustine and seraphim of sarov. through their music and social activities, they aim to interact and engage actively with Greek youth. This is the second part of an earlier work outlining the general significance of the free monks for Greek Orthodoxy that was published in Sociology of Religion (molokotos-liederman 2004). subsequently i had the opportunity to visit the monks in their monastery in Greece later in 2004. the visit was part of a national Public radio documentary on local cultures and globalization that was broadcast in august 2004 on national Public radio in the usa (Worlds of Difference 2004). this visit provided an opportunity for a close-up view of the music and social work of the brotherhood, including the chance to interview some of the monks, particularly father Christodoulos who joined the brotherhood from australia.1 i will consider the social work of the brotherhood and its progression into the domain of contemporary pop and rock music within the context of the church’s efforts to rejuvenate Greek Orthodoxy and reach out to Greek youth. i will then look at the social meaning behind their work, more particularly their religious beliefs and social outlook in the context of globalization. Finally, I will briefly situate the free monks within the international world of faith-based music, including Christian contemporary music and music inspired by other faiths.

A Brotherhood dedicated to Greek youth in Greece they are commonly called paparokades (rocking priests or literally, priest-rockers), but in english they call themselves the free monks. Wearing beards and long black robes, the young monks of the brotherhood of saint augustine and 1

many thanks to father Christodoulos for kindly taking us around the monastery in July 2004 and to Jon miller, executive producer of the Worlds of Difference radio documentaries, for giving me the opportunity to visit the brotherhood and meet the free monks.

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seraphim of sarov look like any other traditional Greek Orthodox monks. but their aim is to break the rigid stereotype of Orthodox clergy and instead develop a monasticism according to which monks interact with young people and work within society. the monastery, named after saint augustine (venerated as the saint protector of youth) and seraphim of sarov (a russian saint of healing), is located on the top of a mountain in central Greece (near nafpaktos). father nektarios moulatsiotis, who is referred to by monks as the elder, is the spiritual father of the brotherhood and built the monastery between 1984 and 1994 through private donations in Greece and from the Greek diaspora, with no support from the Orthodox Church of Greece. the signs on the road leading up to the main gate suggest that the monastery receives many visitors and pilgrims on a regular basis. the monastery has two sections clearly designated with gates and signs. the ‘religious’ complex constitutes the face and showcase of the monastery. there is a lush garden with a small fountain and exotic plants and birds. it is a symbolic place of paradise for relaxation and reflection; hence its name, Eden. the main building includes the actual monastery comprising the monks’ living quarters, with an elaborate dining area decorated with Orthodox iconography of various saints on the walls. There is an office area, equipped with a library and computer terminals, where the monks work. adjacent to this, the main church boasts a large bell house with 60 bells and 400 chimes (inspired by the aghia sophia), which the monks promote as one of the largest bell towers in the world. the church is made of stone and marble and features a large swinging chandelier, four stone pillars and byzantine-inspired iconography. in the garden beside the church stands a large white cross and a small water tank from which pilgrims and visitors can take ‘holy’ (blessed) water. across from the church there is a reception area and a gift shop where visitors can purchase religious books, videotapes, Cds, icons and other religious items. the large gardens surrounding the monastery feature a reconstruction of religious scenes (scenes from the life of Jesus and the crucifixion). There are also painted wooden figurines of the saints honoured by the monastery depicting scenes from their lives and the miracles they performed. nearby, there is also a large space where farm and exotic animals (ostriches, peacocks and so on) are kept. the summer camp section, symbolically called Galilee, includes athletic courts, dormitories and recreation and dining areas. every summer the brotherhood hosts free of charge approximately 400 boys and girls from Greece and other parts of the world in weekly summer camps. this space is restricted to visitors in order to protect the privacy and safety of the camp participants. music is an important feature of the summer camps; loudspeakers play a selection of international and Greek rock music most of the day. the music, along with announcements from the counsellors to the children, can be heard regularly in the summer camp complex. the camps are at the core of the social work of the brotherhood. the monks and women counsellors at the monastery run the camps every summer. the camp participants take part in a variety of sports and other leisure activities including

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video games and music as well as dancing and singing. they also participate in group discussions on social and theological issues and prayer sessions. With the exception of the older age group (18- to 25-year-olds), which is mixed, the summer camp sessions are single sex, divided between boys and girls according to age. in the boys’ sessions, the monks interact with the boys throughout the various camp activities. in the girls’ sessions, women counsellors take a more active part in daily activities and, thus, the interaction between the monks and the girls is rather limited, primarily involving prayer sessions, and group discussions. beyond the enjoyment of music, dancing, games and sports, there is a strong theological and psychological dimension to the brotherhood’s summer camp. According to some of the camp participants I interviewed briefly, the camps seem to fulfil their need to talk about their problems with people who understand, rather than judge, them; some told us about being able to ‘unload’ their problems during their stay at the camp. the camp experience seems to increase their religious awareness and encourage them to think about specific social issues, such as globalization, drugs, sex and violence, directly through discussions with the counsellors and monks, but also indirectly through the music of the free monks (see below). at the end of the summer camps, the participants write comments about their experience in a notebook entitled Galilee – Forever Here. i read through many pages of handwritten comments from the young camp participants. in most of their writings they talk about finding meaning and purpose in their life – finding love, friendship, joy and faith and getting closer to God. in addition to the summer camps, father nektarios and some of the monks host various radio and television talk shows, to which they invite a variety of personalities and also take calls from listeners. it is primarily because of such regular appearances in the media that the free monks have retained some public visibility in Greece, despite the novelty of the group having subsided following its first breakthrough in 2000. The Free Monks website (www.freemonks.gr) is a tool of communication with young fans, promoting the brotherhood’s philosophy and activities, and selling online music albums and books. the brotherhood also publishes two magazines for young people published both in hard copy and online. the publications are free of charge and cover a variety of topics, such as recent national and international events, social issues, music, film and the activities of the brotherhood. the brotherhood also organizes regular trips to holy sites, such as Jerusalem and st Catherine’s monastery, mount sinai. the brotherhood’s involvement with Greek youth is not unique. the Orthodox Church of Greece and other Orthodox organizations have made numerous efforts to appeal to young people in Greece. since the early 1990s an important and historic social contribution of the Orthodox Church of Greece has been its summer youth camps, which are an essential component in its social mission in Greek society (diellas n.d.b). the church summer youth camps pre-existed the ones created subsequently by the state, which has officially recognized and acknowledged the contribution of the church and its significant social role in Greece. Legislation from 1977 (law 590/1977) makes a direct reference to the church as an official

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state partner in the provision of social protection and to the creation of a synodical Committee for social Welfare (diellas n.d.a). the summer youth camps, operated by the Orthodox Church of Greece, are organized locally upon the initiatives of metropolises and local volunteers (diellas n.d.b). these camps bring together Greek Orthodox youth with young people from neighbouring countries. beyond the summer camps, the Orthodox Church of Greece has developed a variety of social programmes to offer to young people, including employment search centres, cultural and leisure centres, scholarship programmes, youth and student boarding houses, drug rehabilitation and counselling centres, and various training schools (for education in computer science, music, accounting, iconography and so on) (Church of Greece 2001). these social activities and programmes are generally implemented nationally by church organizations (under the supervision of the holy synod), regionally (notably by the archdiocese of athens but also by the other 80 metropolises, or dioceses), but also locally by many parishes in small towns (fokas and molokotos-liederman 2004). they indicate the Orthodox Church of Greece’s intention to provide social support to young people with the ultimate goal of bringing them closer to the church. there is also syndesmOs, a Greek-based federation of Orthodox youth movements and theological schools worldwide. its activities in Greece and internationally include youth festivals, summer programmes, pilgrimages and training courses, and encounters for youth workers, summer camp leaders and social workers (syndesmOs 2008). Within this context and in comparison to the church’s youth outreach efforts and programmes, the activities of the brotherhood are different in terms of the format they use and the visibility with which they promote themselves, but they share common goals that they wish to achieve. father nektarios sees a need for the Orthodox Church of Greece to bring back its young flock through new means of communication, including contemporary music and youth culture. his aim is to save young people from the temptations of modern life, bring them closer to God and encourage them to attend church by ‘using the same tools as the devil’ (free monks 2008). according to father Christodoulos, As the gospel said, ‘we will go and find the sheep which has run away’. And the gospel says that there are 100 sheep, and 99 of them are in the church and one has run away, but in our days things have changed, and one is in the church and 99 have run away. (interview, July 2004)

in their social work the monks use bold and ‘unorthodox’ means, which play a very important role in the brotherhood’s overall success. the list includes their distinctive summer camps and musical albums (see below), as well as their presence in unlikely places, including on radio and tV shows, in concerts and in bars and nightclubs, where they meet and talk with young people. as father Christodoulos says,

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a lot of young people are afraid of walking up to a priest, they see him as somebody who is higher. by going to cafés and bars, that changes inside them, and it makes them feel that the monk or the priest who goes there is one of them. (interview, July 2004)

From summer youth Camps to Rock Music Some of the monks first came to the monastery as teenagers to attend the youth camps and joined the brotherhood later on. father Panteleimon, the group’s lead singer, joined the brotherhood as a monk but used to sing and play the guitar during the summer camps. at the end of the camps, the participants asked for tapes of his music and songs in order to preserve their happy memories of the summer camps. this is when the monks decided to produce Cds commercially featuring father Panteleimon’s songs accompanied by professional musicians under the name ‘eleftheroi’ (literally meaning ‘the free’ in modern Greek). In 2000 the Free Monks successfully put out their first musical album, I Learned to Live Free. a year later they produced a second album (SOS) and a third, By Your Side, which included the guest appearances of other Greek musicians and singers, followed in 2002. By Your Side contained, for the first time, some English language songs designed to broaden the international appeal of the group. the group released their fourth album, The World is Changing, in 2003; it contains only Greek songs but a greater variety of musical styles, including Greek rap, traditional Greek music and ballads. the songs in this album revolve around the themes of change and the eternal power of love in dealing with a world that evolves constantly. in a break from their last four rock albums, their most recent album contains traditional byzantine hymns sung by the monks and recorded at the monastery. the free monks’ albums include rock ballads with many styles in a given album that are difficult to place in one genre. The monks sing to a modern rock beat along with other traditional music elements, for example a chorus, the sound of church bells and traditional Greek musical instruments. their music usually has a faster beat from the slow and evenly paced rhythm of sacred music and traditional Orthodox hymns. the free monks have performed all over Greece with proceeds usually donated to charities with social causes. during the concerts father Panteleimon and father david (the lead singers) wear their traditional black robes and are accompanied by a chorus of young people dressed in contemporary but modest dress. they sing and follow the music with subtle body movements. the lyrics accompanying the music are written by father Panteleimon, father david and father nektarios, and contain traditional Christian themes from the bible as well as social topics and patriotic ideals, including warnings against the negative consequences of globalization, the loss of national identity and one’s own culture, drugs, violence, materialism and technology. according to father

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Christodoulos, through their music the free monks present the gospel in a different way and glorify God through singing and upbeat music in order to speak to the heart and appeal to young people. the main theological argument behind the free monks songs is that Christ and God is the way by which young people can face life’s challenges. the group’s name, ‘free monks’, conveys a message of freedom through God and faith, more specifically through an Orthodox spirituality that is not necessarily attached to the official church as an institution. ‘We have no religion, we have faith’, says father Christodoulos. the songs offer a profoundly religious message of hope and inner strength through God’s love and the message of Christ to help young people deal with social problems such as loneliness, depression, anger and drug and alcohol addiction (fur further details on free monks lyrics, including excerpts, see molokotos-liederman 2004). the struggle for love and personal freedom, through God and the Orthodox faith, against the threats of globalization, technology and materialism is a theme that comes up again and again. the free monks songs convey anti-globalization themes with strong anti-Western undertones and words of caution on the risks of globalization to Greek identity. furthermore, religion and patriotism have joined forces in the songs to promote the historic links between Greece and Orthodoxy as the road to safeguarding the Greek nation. they endorse Orthodoxy as the glue holding together the national unity of Greece. there is also nostalgia for the past glory of byzantium, symbolized by images of the aghia sophia Church on the Cd covers and in the video clips. in fact, father moulatsiotis has expressed scepticism towards what he calls the ‘new World Order’ that ‘wants to eradicate our history and culture by tampering with our minds’; he ‘respects all cultures but feels they should retain their distinct characteristics whatever these may be’ (‘rocking monks’ 2001). similar ideas were expressed in the discourse of the late archbishop Christodoulos, who often identified globalization and modernization with European culture and the process of Westernization (see, for example, roudometof 2005). in this context, there are probably numerous voices among various Orthodox circles (the church and clergy as well as other Orthodox academic and intellectual elites) arguing that the construction of a common european culture is synonymous with the destruction of Greek culture and helleno-Orthodoxy. this growing insecurity is reinforced by the fact that, although the European Union has no official denomination, the Orthodox still remain a minority in the european union, even after romania and bulgaria became european union member states.

The Free Monks viewed from the Outside: Monks and/or Musicians? until the free monks emerged in 2000, Christian rock did not exist in Greece. the free monks remain the only Orthodox rock musical group of its kind in Greece, mixing pop and rock music with youth culture. When the Free Monks’ first album

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was released in 2000 it was considered a novel musical and social event that received extensive Greek and international media coverage; the albums reached gold and platinum sales in the Greek pop charts. the media hype and novelty of the free monks have faded away since their first breakthrough; they now retain a specific and narrow audience of young people, including their music fans and those who attend the summer camps. it is estimated that the fans of the free monks and the brotherhood’s activities are primarily young Greeks who are spiritual but who, at the same time, are not happy with the Orthodox Church of Greece’s conservatism. but, according to father augoustinos, the majority of the group’s fans are not religious or practising, in terms of church attendance, including among them young people who consider themselves atheists (telephone interview, October 2002). the free monks present themselves as both Orthodox monks and rock singers, and as such this has become a source of criticism. some Greek newspapers have published stories doubting the holy status of the brotherhood and the monastery and alleging financial and other scandals (‘Apologithikan gia’ 2002; ‘Symvivasmos me’ 2002; Vossou 2002). Possibly to offset these accusations, sophia Vossou, a female musician and guest singer on the group’s third album, published a book on the group under the title ‘Rocking Priests’: Fake Stories and Reality in 2002. it provides a very positive personal account of her three-year working relationship with the group, praising their work with Greek youth. to what extent the Orthodox Church of Greece has viewed the free monks as beneficial and supportive of its own goals is unclear. There are voices both within and outside the church that believe that the free monks are not authentic Orthodox monks primarily because of the strong media coverage they seek to attract. many view these methods as crossing over the accepted limits and boundaries of the monks’ involvement in non-religious activities and, thus, as incompatible with the Orthodox monastic tradition and priesthood. some critics reject the Western influence on their music or question the overall quality of their songs (‘The rock star monks’ 2001; ‘singing monks’ 2002; ‘apologithikan gia’ 2002). the Orthodox establishment has adopted an attitude of silent toleration. the clergy has abstained from making any explicit official statements on the Free Monks and father nektarios. however, it seems that many bishops have been upset by the free monks’ claim to fame (‘Chart-storming Greek monks’ 2002). While working on the national Public radio documentary on the free monks in 2004, i was unable to find anyone from the Orthodox Church of Greece willing to comment on the free monks; many clergymen declined requests to be interviewed about the free monks, indicating that this was a sensitive and awkward topic. however, in various informal conversations i had with Greek Orthodox priests and other religious persons, they were mostly negative and critical, viewing the group as neither devoted monks nor authentic musicians.

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The Free Monks and Contemporary Faith-based Music in the Orthodox world, Christian-themed popular music, such as that of the free monks, is a new phenomenon. besides the coverage of the free monks by Greek and international media, there is little scholarly research on the relations between Greek Orthodoxy, pop and rock music and contemporary youth culture. there are studies on popular religion in Greece that are ethnographic approaches on popular religiosity in Greek Orthodoxy (see, for example, dubisch 1995 on popular religion in the life of Greek traditional communities). in serbia, although there is no Christian rock today, the serbian Orthodox Church did venture into the world of popular music when it helped produce a Cd entitled Songs Above East and West between 1999 and 2000. the Cd consists of a rock ’n’ roll version of religious poetry by Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović, a controversial figure canonized by the serbian Orthodox Church and known mostly for his nationalist writings and poetry (Songs Above East and West n.d.). i have not yet come across any other significant productions of rock or other forms of contemporary popular faithbased music in other parts of the Orthodox world. Looking beyond the Orthodox world, contemporary Christian music first emerged and flourished in the USA. It is typically played by bands whose members are openly Christian, most commonly expressing their religious beliefs and using religious imagery in their lyrics through different musical styles (Christian punk, Christian rock, Christian metal). the aims of contemporary faith-based music can vary, thus the need to distinguish two types: ‘contemporary Christian music’, which is meant to be played in secular spaces (in the car or at home, for example) and is typically trying to spread a religious message to Christian or non-Christian audiences, and ‘modern worship music’ with explicit worship lyrics, which is usually played in churches. there is also ‘secular Christian music’, namely musical groups whose members are openly Christian but whose music does not necessarily have a Christian content and would not normally be considered part of the Christian music industry, u2 being the most notable example (howard and streck 1996: 49; Powell 2002). Contemporary Christian music first developed in the USA in the late 1960s and was initially influenced by country and gospel music. It evolved through the 1970s and 1980s to become especially popular in the american music scene in the 1990s; the sales of contemporary Christian-themed music albums have grown 15 per cent each year, more than jazz and classical sales, to become the sixth most popular music genre (‘young Crusaders’ 2005). ‘mainstream rock and Christian rock have grown closer since the 1980s’ (‘divine inspiration’ 2006), as illustrated by groups and individual artists such as lifehouse, stryper, mercyme, tooth & nail (see Tooth & Nail 2007), amy Grant and so on. the bulk of contemporary Christian music is concentrated in the usa with a few contemporary Christian musical groups in europe and elsewhere. across the atlantic, in the united kingdom and ukraine, and in australia, hillsong is part of a growing number of independent evangelical Christian organizations with the goal to ‘reach and influence the world by building

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a large bible-based church, changing mindsets and empowering people to lead and impact in every sphere of life’ (hillsong 2008). they appeal to young (under 30) audiences using rock music and video clips. hillsong music produces live praise and worship albums with songs that are sung in the hillsong churches around the world. hillsong’s worship pastor, darlene Zschech, and other members of the worship team became known for their songwriting and worship leading. Other variations in the contemporary Christian music movement are the benedictine monks of santo domingo de silos in spain who in 1994 and 2004 successfully revived Gregorian chants through their album Chant (Monasterio Benedictino de Santo Domingo de Silos n.d.; ‘hits 1,000 years in the making’ 1994). more recently, in 2008, the Cisterian monks of stift heiligenkreuz in austria put out the album Chant: A Music for Paradise, the latest example of how Gregorian chants have been repackaged lucratively in a secular society and have sold millions of copies worldwide (Chant Music for Paradise 2008; ‘the sound of eternity’ 2008; Stift Heiligenkreuz n.d.). Contemporary Christian music has received considerable public attention and media coverage, primarily in the usa. however, there is room for more scholarly research on the sociology of religion, specifically on the role of music in contemporary religious communities, on the audience’s actual experiences, reception and integration of music in everyday life, and in their construction of alternative spiritual identities (Lynch 2006; Schofield Clark 2006). One useful approach to contemporary Christian music, which focuses more on the artists and their music than on their fans and audiences, is to distinguish between three different orientations and genres using assumptions on the ‘relationship between Christ and Culture’ (howard and streck 1996: 50): (a) ‘separational’ contemporary Christian music, which as a tool for evangelism and for the evangelization of nonbelievers is a form of ministry, a means to a religious end, in opposition to secular society; (b) ‘integrational’ contemporary Christian music, which is designed to integrate into the mainstream music industry, but presents itself as an alternative form of pop music using a Christian perspective without explicit theology or evangelism while recognizing the positive values of secular society; and (c) ‘transformational’ contemporary Christian music, which is music for art’s sake according to the belief that Christian art has a value in itself while also offering a critique to both religious and secular society (howard and streck 1999). as the free monks example indicates, being at the intersection of more than one genre of contemporary Christian music, many musical groups and artists do not neatly correspond to only one of these genres but, rather, seem to exist, evolve or cross over into more than one orientation. beyond contemporary Christian music, the work of matisyahu is one recent example of Jewish-themed pop music. since the debut album, Live at the Stubbs, in 2005 and Light in 2009 this dynamic fusion of Orthodox Judaism and reggae music has been widely successful in the usa with well known hits, such as ‘king Without a Crown’ (Matisyahu World n.d.). mathew miller (whose matisyahu is the hebrew equivalent) uses primarily reggae music often mixed up with rap and hip-

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hop sounds to convey ‘lyrical celebrations of his faith and the Jewish condition’ (‘Young Crusaders’ 2005). His new hit ‘Light’ has been selected as the official souindtrack of the 2010 Winter Olympics since the song is based on the theme of unity and coming together. in the muslim world, faith-based or faith-inspired music has not been absent, as illustrated by a few examples among many others: feridun Özdemir and his islamic pop music in turkey (‘islamic Pop music in turkey’ 2007), ahmad dhani and his rock group, dewa 19, in indonesia (see Dewa 19 2008) and Junoon, a Pakistani Sufi rock group that has been widely popular. Through his music, Ahmad Dhani considers himself an ambassador for peace as he aims to use his Sufiinspired music to lead indonesia’s youth away from radical islam, as illustrated by the lyrics of his song ‘Warriors of love’, which include references to the Quran (‘rock star rattles’ 2006). salman ahmad, Junoon’s lead guitarist, started the group in 1990 and is a Sufi who turns lyrics from the Quran and Sufi poets into Sufi rock music; it is a distinctive fusion of traditional Sufi and Pakistani folk music and classic rock that is also inspired by social and political events (Junoon n.d.; ‘rock star’s activism’ 2006; ISufiRock 2008). notably, the group released ‘No More’, a politically influenced song based on a poem by Polar Levine after the 11 september 2001 terrorist attacks in the usa (‘Cover versions: Junoon’ 2004). many muslims do not approve of ahmad’s music, viewing it as un-islamic, and his group was banned from performing in many areas of Pakistan. nevertheless he has benefited from international success among the South Asian diaspora, including in the usa and the uk (‘a rock star’s struggle’ 2003). Given this broad range of international faith-based music how do the free monks compare? the theme of a personal struggle for freedom through love and faith in God that dominates most of contemporary Christian music lyrics can also be found in the free monks and other types of Christian-inspired music. for example, mercyme (MercyMe n.d.) sings about ‘i just need to break these chains’, just as the free monks sing: ‘in the name of God, in the name of heaven, let’s break the chains and set us free’ (By Your Side album). Just like the songs of the free monks, the lyrics of matisyahu also try to convey inspiring themes on freedom and youth: ‘Take a stand, fan the fire for the flame of youth. Got the freedom to chose, you better make the right move. young man – the power’s in your hand … youth is the engine of the world’ (‘youth’ from the Youth album). singing about the search and struggle to strengthen one’s own identity, linked to the symbolic power of a specific religious site or place, can be found in the music of both matisyahu and the free monks. matisyahu sings about Jerusalem: ‘3,000 years with no place to be. and they want me to give up my milk and honey. don’t you see, it’s not about the land or the sea. not the country but the dwelling of his majesty’ (‘Jerusalem’ from the Youth album); in the same way the free monks evoke nostalgically the byzantine glory of Constantinople in a song dedicated to aghia sophia with lyrics such as ‘Come, come to aghia sophia, come so that the liturgy may continue’ (I Learned to Live Free album).

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religious and national identities, as well as freedom through faith and belief in God, are two key themes that emerge in this brief comparison between the free monks and other types of faith-based contemporary music. but what is the purpose behind the issues that faith-based music tries to deal with? bringing together religion and contemporary pop and rock music seems to be part of a broad attempt, both within and outside official churches and other religious institutions, to infuse religious faith in popular youth culture in order to appeal specifically to younger audiences and ‘bring back the young flock’. Christian and other types of faith-based music are part of a wider effort (often highly contested) to revitalize a religious faith and make it more relevant to contemporary society, especially young people. thus, music is a cultural resource and practice for religious communities that can more specifically reinforce religious (and national/ethnic) identity, act as a theological expression or serve as a stimulus strengthening religious sentiment, among other functions (Lynch 2006; Schofield Clark 2006). but does using a contemporary presentation and format to ‘wrap up’ a conservative Orthodox message in rock music have an impact on the original religious message? some critics argue that contemporary Christian music as ministry that uses generic theological themes in catchy musical slogans can be a banal and cliché-ridden type of music (howard and streck 1996). Others say that contemporary Christian music, as entertainment that equates commercial and spiritual success, has an effect on the content by diluting or watering down the religious message (howard and streck 1996). On the contrary, others argue that any effort to make a religious message more ‘modern’ can help to attract younger people and, thus, help revitalize a religious faith. through the decline of traditional religious institutions and the mediatization of religion via music, TV, film, the internet and so on, contemporary Christian music can even inspire the creation of alternative or new forms of religious and spiritual identities (lynch 2006). furthermore, what makes these religiously oriented musical groups successful? the appeal of the musical style or form (the melody and rhythm) is equally as important as the lyrics (the social or theological message) to the success of a group. striking a balance between catchy religiously themed lyrics and appealing music can lead, at least initially, to success and eventual fame in a niche genre and market; later on, success can also cross over to both Christian and secular music markets and audiences, with, for example, artists and musical groups arranging for their albums to be distributed by secular rather than Christian music record labels. These key questions underlying the field of contemporary faith-based music have been addressed only briefly here given the space limitations of this chapter on the free monks. however, they provide some basic reference points and also open up opportunities for further research on the intersection of religion, contemporary music and popular youth culture, especially in parts of the world where faith-based music is a relatively new phenomenon (for example in the muslim and eastern Orthodox worlds). Contemporary Christian Orthodox faith-based music can be a window into how religion is lived and practised, into collective and personal

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processes outside accepted norms and into established sets of religious beliefs (Schofield Clark 2006).

Concluding Remarks the free monks have been successful in evolving into both a musical phenomenon and a social interest group with a special interest audience. they are less interested in producing music for its own sake and more concerned with its ability to save young souls and bring them closer to God. they have materialized a novel idea in Greece: a new ‘breed’ of monks as youth counsellors who are socially approachable and more involved with young people and their problems. through their music and summer camps, the free monks have cultivated a religious and social conscience among a small group of young Greeks by raising religious awareness and infusing it with an Orthodox spirituality and a dedication to Greek identity.2 but within the Greek Orthodox context what are the social, theological, cultural and political implications of their work? by putting a spin on the idea of being both a young Greek and an Orthodox believer, the free monks have highlighted the church’s current challenge and future potential in attracting young people. Greek society is becoming less homogeneous,3 and the Orthodox Church of Greece may be gradually losing its ability to exclusively represent the entire Greek population. in that context, the church seems to represent more of a point of reference, a historical and cultural reservoir, for preserving the memory of Greek identity and traditions and much less the current ways of life in Greece, particularly among young people and non-Orthodox populations. therefore, the Orthodox Church of Greece is faced with the inevitable question about its identity and role in Greek society. this new reality has resulted in a tension within the church hierarchy, between conservative and more progressive milieux and several other smaller strands in between. in this context, the free monks promote a relatively conservative and traditionalist Orthodox agenda by using progressive and contemporary means – such as pop and rock music, youth culture and technology – to make their message appear more ‘modern’ and more appealing to

2

for more information on the free monks, see Carassava (2003), ‘Greece is the Word for Pop monks’ (2002), ‘Greece’s rocking monks’ (2002), ‘knock, knock, knocking’ (2002), ‘When the rock star met the mullah’ (2003). 3 Recent migration flows into Greece have contributed to the diversification of Greek society and the composition of the country in both ethnic and religious terms. data on the religious demography of Greece according to religious groups can only be based on estimations given that the Greek national statistical service has not included questions based on religious criteria in its national census and surveys since 1951. the largest nonOrthodox religious groups include primarily muslims, followed by Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Protestant groups and Jews.

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young audiences. two key points emerge on the relationship between what they say and how they say it (or sing it). first, the word ‘eleftheroi’, according to the brotherhood, conveys the ‘freedom to think, speak, decide and act according to one’s will’ and the ‘freedom from passions and sins and every type of fascism, which may attempt to dictate or impose their opinion on the individual’ (free monks 2008). therefore, the free monks promote a message of personal freedom and autonomy through religious faith in order to resist materialism, consumerism and spiritual corruption associated with globalization and Westernization. their view is somewhat paradoxical, as illustrated by an internal contradiction in their choice to call themselves free monks. On the one hand, being free implies a liberty of choice for someone to be who he or she wants to be; on the other hand, being a monk suggests submission to God and conservatism of rules and hierarchy imposed by an established religion. how can religion or the church denote freedom when there are restrictions to be observed? the free monks reconcile this idea by arguing that Orthodoxy is freedom because ‘you follow those restrictions by [your] own free will’. as father Christodoulos says, ‘the traditions of the church are like road signs on a highway; you are free to ignore them but you do so at your own risk’ (interview, July 2004). in fact, on the free monks website father nektarios explains the role of the brotherhood’s website as ‘a road sign that can point to the kingdom of the heavens, to God and only him, during the whole of our life on earth’ (free monks 2008). the free monks advocate a relative form of freedom in which the individual is free but within the limits of religion. second, the free monks phenomenon also reveals an initially contradictory form of Orthodox modernity: an anti-globalization message transmitted by global means. according to father Christodoulos, globalization, as a theoretical way of thinking, is good, but in practice it puts pressure on people to be the same and leads to conformity, thus, providing less freedom of choice. the free monks’ view of globalization is identified with and reduced to Westernization and related phenomena, including secularization and Western rationalism and individualism. to deal with this challenge, father Christodoulos advocates that Orthodox Christianity provides the freedom against pressures to submit to the conformity imposed by globalization. this perspective raises broader questions on religious or social movements (many different forms of fundamentalism, for example) that embrace modern technology to spread a sometimes ‘anti-modern’ message on a global scale. the free monks use key components of Western modernity and globalization, which they criticize (for example rock music, mtV-style video clips and active self-promotion and communication through the media and the internet). they do this in order to transmit a religious discourse and a version of Orthodox Christianity that is centred on the Greek nation and that seems to be contrary to many facets of this type of modernity, including individualism, Westernization and secularization. the translation and production of some of their albums into english is one example of this contradiction. by taking advantage of global communication they use the english language and international music

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distributors and the media to overcome geographic and linguistic borders. the free monks do not see this as a paradox; they argue that their message of Christian freedom is universal, reminding their fans (and maybe their critics) that the bible has been translated into thousands of languages around the world. ‘translating our verse and through the universal language of music we can reach Greeks and Christians worldwide’ says father nektarios (‘rocking monks’ 2001). according to father Christodoulos, the church can offer solutions that are comparable to a medicine that should be distributed and spread using the best possible means to cure a specific disease or condition. the free monks are facing the new challenges of Greek society and adapting themselves accordingly to the needs of young people. their example illustrates that in the Orthodox world individuals or groups can pick, choose and mix specific aspects of their religion in both their daily life and their outlook on the world. this choice is an indication of an attempt towards a ‘selective or do-it-yourself modernity’ that takes on tradition and modernity, rather than a rigid choice between tradition or modernity.

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Stift Heiligenkreuz n.d. retrieved 10 november 2009 at www.stift-heiligenkreuz. org ‘symvivasmos me tin dimiourgia ysychastiriou’. 2002. Apogevmatini, 5 april. syndesmOs. 2008. retrieved 10 november 2009 at http://www.syndesmos. org/ Tooth & Nail. 2007. retrieved 10 november 2009 at http://www.toothandnail. com/ Vossou, sophia. 2002. ‘Paparokades’: Plastes istories kai pragmatikotita (‘Rocking Priests’: Fake Stories and Reality). athens: ekdoseis livani. ‘When the rock star met the mullah’. 2003. BBC News, 15 december. retrieved 1 July at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3322539.stm ‘Worlds of difference’: the free monks rock band – Orthodox Christian monks have hit Cds in Greece’. 2004. nPr. retrieved 1 July 2008 at http://www. npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=3853427 ‘young Crusaders’. 2005. Independent on Sunday, 15 may, pp. 22–7.

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abbesses 141, 146 abortion 143, 144–5, 146 abused women 140 academics 29, 35, 72, 73, 139, 187 academy for theological studies 81, 138 accommodation 68, 91, 94, 104, 105 accountability 79, 80 actions 40, 45, 78, 140, 159 activism 35, 51, 171 actors 42, 45, 47, 53, 66, 69, 99, 100, 103, 105, 186, 187 addiction 222 administration 5, 54, 55, 76, 77, 91, 95, 102, 114 adventists 49 adversaries 57 aesthetics 184 affirmative action 124 agadjanian, alexander and roudometof, Victor 1, 194 see also roudometof, Victor, agadjanian, alexander, and Pankhurst, Jerry agape 176 Agathangelos 167 agathangellos, agios 163–7, 170 agathonikos, bishop of mesogaia and lavreotiki 100, 163 agents 44, 132, 145, 148, 149 Agga v. Greece 123 aghia sophia Church 161, 218, 222, 226 agourides, savvas 141 ahmad, salman 226 albania 1, 23, 93, 94, 181 albanians 92, 93, 95n. albrow, martin 35 alexiou, margaret 171 alivizatos, nicos C. 5, 33, 66, 78, 113, 114, 116 alterity 56, 132

alternative identities 132, 147, 225, 227 amor, abdelfattah 113, 117 anagnostou, dia 12, 121 anagnostou, dia and Psychogiopoulou, evangelina 95 anastassiadis, anastassios 10, 33, 35, 42, 46, 48, 53, 176 anderson, John 11, 23 andrianopoulos, andreas 5, 81 angelou, alkis 28 anglicans 47, 48 Annan, Kofi 76 anthimos, bishop of thessaloniki 161, 170 anthropology 171 anti-catholicism 57 anti-clericalism 41 anti-globalization 222, 229 anti-modernity 195, 222 anti-pluralism 11 anti-religious policies 3, 69 anti-semitism 120 anti-Western attitudes 10, 14, 139, 222, 229 antoniou, dimitris 7, 28, 93, 155 aquinas, thomas 135 arab immigrants 92, 93 see also muslims arab states 97 architects 160 areios Pagos 50 arslan, a. y. 156 art 147 articles 40, 56, 71, 72, 81, 84n., 90, 134, 138, 157, 161, 166, 176 artists 225, 227 arts, Wil see van Oorshot, Wim, arts, Wil and Gelissen, John asceticism 177 askouni, nelli 121, 122 associations 22, 29, 95, 101, 105, 122, 162, 194

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assumptionists 49 asylum seekers 89 asymmetry 43 atessis, Vassilios 42 atheists 92, 93, 171, 223 athens 46, 47, 48, 52, 65, 115, 118, 140, 141, 160 immigrant population 92 muslim immigrants in 92, 93, 101, 155, 158 Olympic Games 76, 97, 99 parish taxation 54 social welfare in 183 youth services 220 see also athens mosque athens mosque 5, 7, 12, 181 and church-state relations 89, 90, 91, 92–3, 101, 104–5 and collective memory 161 failure to build 99, 155–6 governments and 97, 98, 99 history of 97 institutional aspects 89, 101, 102 and law 91, 97, 98, 100–101, 103 location of 91, 98–9, 100, 159–60 management of 101, 102 and martyrdom 165, 166 multicultural context 91 need for 93, 97 objections to 98, 99, 100, 167ff. political debates about 100–101, 155 and security 91 and state 91, 101–2, 105 athos, mount 8, 147, 163, 165, 167 chapel on 162 women’s exclusion from 131–2, 147–8 protest against 148 attitudes 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 206 measurement of 204 audiences 223, 225 augoustidis, fr adamantios 185 augoustinos, father 223 augustine, st 218 australia 133, 136, 217, 225 austria 206, 225 authority 22, 23, 26, 53, 76, 80, 196 autocephaly 25, 180, 195

bainbridge, William see stark, rodney and bainbridge, William balkan enlightenment 23–4, 34 balkans 22, 40, 70, 111 national churches 25–6 national identity 25 national narratives 24–5 national revival in 33 nation-states 25 religious-political unity in 23 ballads 221 bartholomew, Patriarch archbishop 76, 166 basdekis, athanasios 68 basil the Great 135, 177 basketball 66 beck, ulrich 30 behaviour 15, 50, 64, 78, 196, 198, 199, 210 public 199 behr-sigel, elisabeth 136 belgium 206 beliefs 199, 200, 227 see also religious belief believers 196 belonging 22, 194, 199 benedict, Pope 52 berger, Peter 96 berger, Peter, davie, Grace and fokas, Effie 193 berger, Peter and luckmann, thomas 43 betrayal 163, 165 beyer, Peter 30, 194 bible 33, 34, 55, 75, 117, 177, 222, 225, 230 bifurcation 10, 11 billet, Jaak 193 billet, Jaak and Welkenhuysen-Gybels, Jerry 193 bioethics 8, 79, 143–4 birth control 48 bishops 26, 53, 55, 95, 97, 100, 103, 136, 138, 142, 223 blessings 65, 83, 144 books 71, 72, 146, 218, 219 borowik, irena 1 borowik, irena and tomka, miklós 1 bosnians 23

Index bourdieu, Pierre 39, 43–4 boys 219 braude, benjamin and lewis, bernard 22 braun, michael see ester, Peter, braun, michael and mohler, Peter bribery 62, 63 brotherhood of saint augustine and seraphim of sarov 217–18, 223 social activities 218–19 summer camps 218, 219, 221 see also free monks brown, Peter 43 buddhists 119 bulgakov, father sergius 178 bulgaria 1, 2, 21, 24, 25, 180, 222 national church 26 bulgarians 92 bureau of democracy, human rights and labour 119, 120, 121 bureaucracy 6, 27, 53, 54 burials 119 buss, andreas 9 By Your Side 221, 226 byrnes, timothy a. and katzenstein, Peter J. 1 byzantine era xiii, 41, 176, 180, 221, 222, 226 calendar 50, 56, 167 capitalism 45 Casanova, José 4, 30, 66 , 67 Castellan, Georges 25 catechism 5, 31 Catholic missionaries 47, 49, 50, 51, 56 Catholics 22, 23, 44, 49, 53, 92, 113, 118, 134, 200 church attendance 201, 202 religiosity 204 and trust in institutions 197–8, 206 see also roman Catholicism Catholics of byzantine rite 50, 51, 56 Cds 218, 220, 221, 222, 224, 225 centralization 53, 54, 55, 183 centre-right parties 75 Chalkidiki 147, 148, 165 change 1–2, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 23, 31, 39, 44, 91, 103, 210, 221 post-1974 68

237

post-1998 64–72, 76, 79–83, 97 religious 193, 210 socio-cultural 10, 21 structural 21 in welfare 179 and women 140 see also innovations; reform; transformation Chania 133 Charisis, apostolis 72 charisma 44, 74 charitable institutions 48, 49, 55, 177 charity 10, 33, 34, 40, 43, 46, 50, 53, 57, 221 competition in 47 networks 48, 53–4 children 144, 183 physically disabled 185 choice 229, 230 ‘chosen ones’ 44, 45 Christ 137, 138, 159, 164, 165, 171, 186, 187, 222 Christian art 225 Christian background 199, 200, 204 Christian Orthodox population 92, 200 Christian pop/rock music 223, 224–5, 226, 227; see also faith-based music Christianity 1, 8, 9, 10, 43, 48, 57, 137, 138 and education 28 ‘hellenic’ 27 Christians 22, 92, 113, 164, 167, 177 and church attendance 201, 202 and frequency of prayer 202, 203 religiosity of 202, 203 see also Christian background Christodoulos, archbishop xiii, 2, 4, 5–6, 13, 141, 142, 159, 222 and athens mosque 99–100, 157–8, 167, 168–9, 170 attacks on 55–6, 62, 64, 66, 71, 72ff., 75, 76, 78, 166 and centralised funding 55 and church-state relations 69–72 and corruption 62–4, 71, 72–3 defensive stance of 32–3, 35 discourse of 56, 57, 70–71, 78, 158 and european union 53 and Greek football victory 65–6

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and modernity 78, 79 nationalism of 5, 33, 70 political reactions to 5, 75–6 political role of 76, 77 popularity of 62, 71 and public role of church 64–72 and reforms 8, 66, 75, 78–9 Christodoulos, father 217, 220, 221, 222, 229, 230; see also free monks Christology 43 Chrysoloras, nikos 158 Chrysostomos, metropolitan of Chalkis 142 Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, archbishop 47, 50, 56 church affiliation 25, 26 church attendance 198, 199, 201, 202, 204, 223 Church of Greece 7 church organization 11, 77, 78, 80 church property 69 church reformers 31, 39, 45, 47, 48, 50, 52, 55 and competition 47 historical 44 intolerance of 50–51 see also militant reformers church revenues 53 centralization of 54–5 church weddings 5 churches 224 evolution of 43 legal status of 114 church-nation link 5, 10, 28–9, 32, 195, 196 church-state relations 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 29, 195, 196 and athens mosque 89, 90, 91, 92–3, 101, 104–5, 158 legislation and 83 and politics 61, 65, 70, 71, 74ff. post-1974 67–9 post-1998 69–72 problem of 79 reform of 30–31, 75, 81 and 2005 crisis 61–4, 72–83 and welfare 175, 179, 180–82, 185, 186, 187, 190

church-state separation 41, 52, 57, 62, 104, 113, 189, 196, 198 demand for 73, 74, 77, 81–2 and welfare 175, 188 citizenship 50, 90, 112, 121 discourse 111 civic ceremonies 26, 30, 31 Civil Code 95, 114 civil funerals 82 civil society 11, 26, 71, 72, 105 Clark, Victoria 131, 132 clergy 26, 28, 29, 35, 51, 55, 72, 100, 118, 140 and corruption 62–3, 80 education of 115 payment of 114 and pop music 217–18, 223 progressive 190 and reform 43, 44 salaries 53, 186 and women 136, 141 Clogg, richard 68 cluster analysis 200, 204, 205 Coalition of the left and Progress 98, 99 coercion 117 collective memory 27, 28, 29, 161 commemorative acts 29 see also religious commemoration commitment 194, 197, 198, 204ff., 210 communication technologies 72, 229 communism 1, 2, 30, 31, 46, 67, 68, 69, 75 communists 51 communitarianism 136 comparative framework xiii, xiv, 11, 15, 40, 66–7 data 14 competition, religious 47–8, 51 12, 45 Confino, Michael 180 conflict 43, 44–5, 46, 91, 104, 117, 122, 182 symbolic 195 conscientious objectors 119 consensus 83, 96, 99, 101, 105, 106 conservatism 7, 10, 33, 71, 78, 131, 132, 138, 222, 223, 228, 229 militant 45 and modernization 45, 46 Constantelos, demetrios 176

Index Constantinople 161, 176 Constitution 68, 81, 83, 90, 181 article 3 113 article 13 94, 101, 114, 116, 118 contemporary Christian music 224, 225 see also faith-based music; free monks context 2, 9, 10, 40, 78, 91, 122, 132, 155, 175, 180, 199 and church attendance 201 contraception 143, 144, 145 control 26, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 57, 61, 67, 70, 79, 80, 101, 102, 105 controversies see religious controversies Convention Concerning the exchange of Greek-turkish Populations (1923) 123 convents 141, 146–7, 176 cooperation 52, 57, 66, 74, 147, 185, 197 co-optation 180 corruption 62–4, 71, 73, 80, 83 Council of state 95, 118 counsellors 219 Counter-reformation 45 courts 114, 122 cremation 5, 12, 82, 119, 124 crime 31, 62, 63 critical approaches 137–9 Crucifixion 164, 165 cultural differences 22 cultural heritage 116 culture 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 13, 30, 31, 32, 33, 194, 195, 210, 222 and nationalism 25 transformations 21, 24–5, 26 curriculum 115–16 customs 29 Cyprus 2, 70, 76, 120 Czech republic 204, 205, 210 danopoulos, Constantine P. 11, 180 data 14, 69, 92, 193, 200, 205 data protection 181 david, father 221 davie, Grace 4, 67, 179, 193 day of the three hierarchs 28, 29 deaconesses 133, 138, 148 duties of 141, 142

239

personal status of 142 revival of 141–2 debates xiii, 3, 6, 7, 13, 14, 35, 39, 40ff., 57, 66 decentralization 53, 54, 183 decision-making process 78, 79, 133 demertzis, nicolas 72, 196; see also lipowatz, thanos, demertzis, nikos and Georgiadou, Vassiliki democracy xiii, 11, 53, 55, 68, 73, 80, 81, 97, 98, 102, 104, 105, 106, 111, 118, 122, 123 theory of 112 demographic change 91–2, 113, 122 denmark 206 dépret, isabelle 69 de-privatization 4, 5 de-secularization 4, 10 development theory 41 dewa 226 diakonia 135, 136, 140, 176–7 dialogue 104, 138, 149 diamandouros, nikiforos 40, 41, 195 diaspora 24, 94, 136, 180, 218, 226 dictatorship of the colonels (1967–74) 41, 159, 196 diellas, yiorgos 220 difference-affirming logic 112, 119, 120, 121 difference-denying logic 112, 115, 116, 117, 118 differences 12, 22, 67, 93, 101, 105, 106, 111, 202 theories of 112 differentiation 105, 175 diffusion 29, 196, 197 dimaras, konstantinos 41 dimensions 200 dimitropoulos, P. 117, 118 dioceses 183, 220 diplomacy 170 disabled people 184 disciplinary measures 80 discourse analysis 42, 111 discourses 3, 5, 10, 11, 33, 34, 35, 39, 42, 44, 45, 56, 70, 75, 82, 104, 105, 122, 132, 134, 158, 159, 170, 229 of citizenship 111

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limitations of 40–41 of nationhood 111 populist 41 and women 140, 144 discrimination 92, 93, 111, 118, 121 laws against 123 discussion groups 219 diversity 7, 89, 90, 92, 96, 103, 104, 105, 106, 159, 169, 178, 180–81, 193, 210 divine liturgy 8 divorce 30–31, 68 dobbelaere, karel 194 doctrine 177, 178 donations 114 draulans, Veerle and halman, Voek 193, 210 drug addicts 184, 185, 219, 220, 222 drug dealing 63 du boulay, Juliet 140 dual recognition 114 dualities 132, 137, 139, 195, 196 dubisch, Jill 224 early church 138, 141 early modern era 21 east 135, 141 easter 29 eastern europe 12, 46, 132, 180, 181, 194–5 political changes in 1, 31, 69 public role of church in 67 ebaugh, helen see yang, fenggang and ebaugh, helen Ecclisia 169 ecclesiastical crisis (2005) 62, 196, 199, 202 ecclesiastical education 78–9, 82 see also religious education ecclesiastical institutions 24, 45 ecclesiastical justice 26, 80 economic changes 22, 23, 31, 155 economic policy 71 ecumenical decade of solidarity with Women 133 ecumenical movement 47–8, 50, 81, 133, 166

ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople 13, 22, 23, 26, 76, 80, 158, 180, 195 research on 40 education 10, 24, 43, 90, 124, 190, 220 bilingual 121 and national myths 27–8 public system 50 and religion 28, 29, 31, 115 and women 139, 140 see also religious education egypt 92, 93 eighteenth century 23, 24, 25, 26, 34, 111 eisenstadt, shmuel 21, 194 elderly people 183, 184, 185 Eleftheroi 217, 221, 229 see also free monks Eleftherotypia 62, 79, 82, 83, 122 elites 42, 50, 56, 91, 99, 100, 104, 124, 222 elm, susanna, rebillard, eric, and romano, antonella 43 embezzlement 63 emergency aid 183 Emin and Others v. Greece 122 empirical data 193, 198, 199ff. employment 31, 117, 183 encyclicals 5, 6 endogenous factors 104 english language 229 enlightenment 9, 21, 24, 32, 41, 195 see also balkan enlightenment environment 147 equality 12, 70, 112, 121, 122, 138, 177 Greek concept of 135 esphigmenos monastery 163, 165, 167 ester, Peter, braun, michael, and mohler, Peter 194 ester, Peter, mohler, Peter and Vinken, henk 194 ‘ethnic community’ 22 ethnic differences 22, 24 ethnic Greeks 5 ethnic identification 122 ethnic identity 13, 22, 23, 24, 195 ethnic minorities 92, 111, 121, 122–3 see also religious minorities ethnic nationalism 26

Index ethnography 7, 139, 140, 159, 160, 171, 224 eucharist 135, 136, 138, 177, 178 eurobarometer surveys 92, 96, 198 europe 1, 3, 4, 24, 31, 33, 53, 90, 104, 113, 115, 148, 225 culture 222 and immigration 89 and islam 94, 103 Orthodox Christians in 200, 201 pluralism in 210 public role of church in 66–7 religiosity in 193–4, 204–5, 210 religious changes 210 religious practices 14 surveys 14–15 trust in institutions 197–8ff., 210 women in 134–5 see also european social survey; european union european Commissioner 157, 158 european Convention on human rights 94, 122, 123 european Court of human rights 12, 95, 101, 102, 105, 112, 114, 117, 118, 122–3, 181 european Parliament 200, 210 european Popular Party (ePP) 53 european social survey 14, 15, 193, 197, 198–206 aim of 198 methodology 199, 200 european social services survey 210 european union (eu) xiv, 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 31, 33, 41, 42, 52–3, 76, 96, 112, 121, 131, 134, 140, 155, 181 attitudes to religion 202, 210 church attendance in 201, 202 frequency of prayer 202, 203 and Orthodoxy 222 religiosity in 200–201ff., 204–5 see also europe; european Court of human rights european Values study (1999) 193 european Values survey (1999–2000) 14, 197–8, 199–200, 210 europeanization 96, 112 europeans 200, 201, 202, 203

241

evangelia, dourida 104 evangelical groups 225 evangelism 225 evdokimov, Paul 177, 178 everyday life 4, 33, 46, 67, 82, 96, 176, 197, 225 exceptionalism 4, 15, 67, 90, 113, 193, 194, 195 exogenous factors 104, 136 experience 159, 167, 178, 197, 225 expressive individualism 132 expressive interventionism 65, 66, 69, 71, 72, 74, 76 factor analysis 200, 204 faith 178, 179, 194, 219, 222, 226, 227 faith-based music 223, 224–8 genres 225 in Greece 223, 224ff. see also free monks Jewish 225–6 muslim 226 religious messages 224, 227–8 research on 224, 225 in serbia 224 themes 226–9 types of 224, 225 in usa 224–5, 226 family 46, 136, 144, 145, 162, 170, 183 family planning 54, 122 fantasy 155, 160, 169 farming 147 fashions 45, 69 fatherhood 143 faubion, James d. 139 featherstone, mike, lash, scott, and robertson, roland 194 female body 143, 145 feminism 14, 132, 133, 136, 139 fetishism 136, 137 fieldwork 199 finances 53, 54–5, 63, 64, 169 financial scandals 80 finland 181, 206 first World War 46 Fokas, Effie 8–9, 11, 15, 71, 113, 182, 198 see also berger, Peter, davie, Grace and Fokas, Effie; Fokas, Effie and

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molokotos-liederman, lina Fokas, Effie and Molokotos-Liederman, lina 220 folk culture, decline of 30 folk songs 27, 221 folklore 25, 27, 29 football team, Greek 65 forbidden practices 146 foreign missionaries 47, 49, 50 foreign policy 70, 71, 78 foreign schools 48–9, 50 framework Convention for the Protection of national minorities 121–2 france 49, 103, 115, 204, 205 free monks 7, 8, 11, 14, 33 aims of 217–18, 220, 222, 227, 228, 229 anti-globalization of 222, 229 conservatism of 222, 229 contradictions of 229–30 criticism of 223, 227 dress 221 fans 223 and internet 219, 229 music of 219, 221, 227 and nationalism 222, 228 origins of 221 radio and tv shows 219, 220 recordings 221 religious message of 222, 227, 228 and social work 217, 218, 220 songs 221–22, 226, 227 themes of 222, 226–7 youth activities of 218–19 see also brotherhood of saint augustine and seraphim of sarov free trade 33 freedom 221, 222, 226, 230 meanings of 229 freedom of conscience 95, 115, 118 freedom of worship 94 freemasons 51 function 71, 105, 135 fundamental rights 118, 124 fundamentalism 34, 79, 229 fundraising 54, 160 funerals 119

Gazi 98–9 Gazi, Efi 28, 29, 30 Geertz, Clifford 160 Gelissen, John see van Oorshot, Wim, arts, Wil and Gelissen, John gender 132, 136, 138, 139, 145, 147 equality 135, 138, 140 General Poor fund 54, 55 generalizations 180 Georgiadou, Vassiliki 68, 72, 196; see also Georgiadou, Vassiliki and nikolakopoulos, ilias; lipowatz, thanos, demertzis, nikos and Georgiadou, Vassiliki Georgiadou, Vassiliki and nikolakopoulos, ilias 198, 201 Germany 94, 103, 204, 205, 210 Giannakou, marietta 28, 73, 102–3 Giddens, anthony 30 Gil-robles, alvaro 157 girls 48, 176, 219 globalization 2, 5, 10, 11, 21, 22, 64, 162, 166, 194, 217, 219 negative effects of 31–2, 33, 222 Orthodox Church and 31–4 reaction to 33, 35 see also anti-globalization God 27, 51, 65, 134, 143, 219, 220, 222, 226, 229 Gospel 55 gospel music 224 governments, Greek 155, 181 and athens mosque 97, 98, 99 and church 70, 71, 73ff. and 2005 crisis 77, 79, 82 Grant, amy 224 Grecophones 24 Greece 24 anti-pluralism in 11 changes in 3, 4, 5, 6, 12 church-nation link 195, 196 and communist legacy 1–2, 31, 46 cultural transformation in 25 and defensive worldviews 32 exceptionalism of 194–5 feminism in 139 foreign influence in 49–50 government of 70, 71

Index and human rights 111–12, 123–4 multiculturalism in 112 muslims in 90ff., 99, 105, 112 national church, origin of 26 nation-building 25 polarization in 3 political culture of 41 post-1974 modernization 30, 31 religion in xiii, 15 religiosity in 198, 210 religious composition of 200 role of church in 67–9, 195 secularization 67, 210 specificities 67, 113 sport in 65–6 see also governments, Greek; Greek state; Greeks; kingdom of Greece; Orthodox Church of Greece Greek as a second language 121 Greek Civil War (1946–49) 41 Greek Communist Party (kke) 81, 98, 99, 101, 102 Greek Council of social Welfare 53 Greek enlightenment 41 Greek letters 28 Greek music 221 Greek Orthodox Church see Orthodox Church of Greece Greek state 166, 182 and athens mosque 91, 101–2, 105 budgets 53 and education 78–9, 11516 and election of muftis 123 and islam 91 and muslims of thrace 96 and nation 195 and non-Orthodox religions 114 and Orthodox Church 67–8, 69, 70, 74, 77, 78–9, 82–3, 96, 196 legal status of 94–5, 114 privileges of 79–80, 196 and religious toleration 68 summer camps 219, 220 and welfare 175, 176, 183, 186, 187 see also neutrality Greek-turkish War (1919–22) 45 Greek War of independence 25, 27 Greekness 27, 132, 139, 148

243

Greeks attitudes to religion 202 church attendance 201, 202 frequency of prayer 202, 203 national identity 21, 24, 95 population 92 religiosity of 197, 200, 201, 202, 203, 210 trust in institutions 206, 207, 210 ‘Greeks’ 22, 23, 24 Gregorian chants 225 Gregory the theologian 177 Groen, bert 11 Gropas, ruby 12 Gropas, ruby and triandafyllidou, anna 92, 100, 105 groups 24, 44, 49, 50, 68, 111, 112, 117, 185n., 200, 204, 224, 228, 230 see also religious groups Guth, James see nelson, brent and Guth, James halbwachs, maurice 43, 44, 158 halkias, alexandra 145 halman, loek 198 halman, loek and draulans, Veerle 193, 194 hanes, Jeff 4, 30 hann, Chris 1, 2 harkness, Janet 199 harrison, n. V. 134 hastings, adrian 27 hellenic league for human rights 57, 81, 82 hellenism 24, 27, 30, 32 heraclion of Crete 115 heresy 43 herzfeld, m. 171 heteroglossoi 95n. hieratic institution 44 hierotheos, metropolitan of nafpaktos 177 higher education 115, 121 hillsong 225 himmel-agisburg, antonia 136 hip-hop 226 hirschon, renée 140, 162, 171 historians 28, 41, 43 historical narratives 24, 29

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historiography 41, 42 history xiii, 2, 9, 10, 15, 21, 22, 23, 27–8, 34, 39ff., 67, 83, 90, 137, 165, 170, 196 teaching of 190 of welfare provision 176–9, 180 history textbooks 28 hobsbawm, eric 25 holocaust 119–20 holocaust remembrance day 120, 124 holy Communion 141, 142 holy Convent of the annunciation, Ormylia 147 holy metropolis of demetrias 81, 138 holy synod 8, 51, 54, 26, 28, 33, 51, 53, 54, 62, 64, 159 and athens mosque 100, 158 and women 140 and deaconesses 142 and youth services 220 hope 32, 71, 179, 222 hopko, thomas 133, 134 hospices 176, 177 hospitals 176, 177, 185 host countries 94 hostels for girls 48, 176 howard, Jay r. and streck, John m. 224, 225, 227 human rights 11, 14, 57, 78, 94, 95, 96, 111–12, 116, 117, 120, 132 humanity 23 hungary 204, 205 huntington, samuel 40, 195 hybridity 6, 11 hymns 133, 164, 221 I Learned To Live Free 221, 223, 226 iannaccone, lawrence 68 icons 30, 62, 82, 146, 162, 218 identity 3, 13, 24, 26, 27, 32, 34, 41, 42, 49, 112, 194, 195 personal 226 redefinition of 90 spiritual 225, 227 and women 132 see also national identity; religious identity

identity (id) cards 2, 4, 9, 12, 13, 15, 31, 34, 35, 41, 69, 70, 74, 75, 76, 117–19, 124, 181–2, 196 ideology 23, 24, 28, 30, 32, 55, 70, 78, 135 ieronymos, archbishop 15 ignatios, metropolitan 81 iliou, Ph. 41 illness 146 imam 101 imitation 164 immigrant organizations 93, 97, 101 immigrants 89 numbers of 91–2 religious identity 92, 94, 96 see also muslim immigrants immigration xiv, 4, 12, 13, 31, 89, 101, 122 attitudes to 92, 202, 204 literature on 90, 91–4 problems of 90 religiosity and 199, 200, 202, 204, 206 see also immigrants; muslim immigrants immorality 63 immunity 79 impurity 137 in vitro fertilization 143–4, 145 inalcik, halil 22 incarnation 137 inclusion 90 independence 70, 71 individualism 132, 134, 135, 136, 197, 229 individualization 30 individuals 30, 43, 44, 102, 105, 111, 118, 132, 136, 159, 181, 185, 186, 187n., 197, 230 religiosity, surveys of 199 and secularization 193–4 indoctrination 116 indonesia 226 informal influence 181 inglehart, ronald 194 innovations 6, 8, 10, 14, 33, 35, 39, 51, 55 institutions 2, 5, 6, 10, 11, 15, 24, 27, 30, 33, 42, 45, 74, 90, 94, 105, 106, 159 and athens mosque 89, 101, 102 and corruption 64 and nation-building 25

Index and religion 196 religious 25 and religious freedom 95 research on 39 state-supported 79 trust in 197–8, 200, 204, 205, 206, 207, 210, 209 integration 90, 93, 124 intellectuals 24, 25, 28, 32, 56, 57, 64, 66, 81, 118, 138 interdisciplinary studies 1, 2 interest groups 43 interfaith dialogue 104 ‘international convents’ 147 international Orthodox dialogue 136 international symposium of Orthodox Women 133 international youth organizations 220 internet 219, 227, 229 inter-Orthodox symposium, rhodes 133 interpersonal relations 30, 194, 197 interpretation 15, 27, 29, 32, 42, 45, 83, 179 intervention 65, 71, 91, 102 see also expressive interventionism intolerance 42, 50 ioannis, metropolitan of Pergamon see Zizioulas, John iraq war 199 ireland 206 irenaios, Patriarch of jerusalem 63 irredentism 67, 76, 196 islam 12, 13, 22, 71, 89, 91, 99, 100, 102, 105, 178, 226, 227 in curriculum 115 european 94, 103 legal status 114 and turkey 158 see also muslims; muslim immigrants islamic cultural centre 98, 100 israel 200 istanbul 161 see also aghia sophia Church italy 49, 63, 204, 204, 205, 210 Jehovah’s Witnesses 12, 49, 50, 51, 56, 95, 113, 114, 117, 119 Jelavich, barbara 22

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Jerusalem 47, 63, 78, 219, 226 Jesuits 44, 49 Jews 22, 49, 95n., 113, 118, 119–20 and contemporary music 225–6 John Chrysostom 177 John Paul ii, Pope 42, 52, 55 Johnson, richard a. and Wichern, dean W. 200 journalists 28, 73, 118, 157 journals 136 Judaism 114, 226; see also Jews judicial duties 123 judicial system 83, 117 and corruption 64, 78 Junoon 226 jurisdiction 71 kafetsis, Panagiotis 198 kalaitzidis, Pantelis 8, 14, 81, 116, 188, 189 kalaitzidis, Pantelis and ntontos, nikos 81, 138 kallis, anastasios 136 kallistos (Ware), bishop of diokleia 136, 161, 167, 176 kalokerinos, Grigoris 158 karagatsis 46 karagiannis, evangelos 3 karamanlis, Costas 65, 73 karamanlis, Constantine 97 karatzaferis, George 120, 161 karidoyanes fitzgerald, k. 141 karkagiannis, antonis 188 karras, Valerie 136 kastoryano, riva 90, 94, 103 katzenstein, Peter J. 89, 94 kiel, machiel 25 kingdom of Greece 25, 26, 28, 196 kiss, elizabeth 112, 122 kitromilides, Paschalis 24 kitromilides, Paschalis and Veremis, thanos 40 kitsikis, dimitri 166 kleidara, abbess evgenia 146 ‘known religions’ 114 Kokkinakis v. Greece (1993) 117 kokosalakis, nicos 30, 179 koliopoulos, John and Veremis, thanos 95

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kollontai, Pauline 136 kolokotronis, theodoros 159 konidaris, ioannis m. 15, 95, 123 konortas, P. 23 kontakion of agathangelos 164 kontoyiorgis, G. d. 72 korais, adamantios 24 kostis, dr 159–63, 165, 167–9, 170, 171 koukoura, dimitra a. 134, 139 Kryfo Scholio (‘secret school’) 27 ktistakis, yannis 95 kyriatzi, antonia 135 kythera 62 laity 6, 43, 44, 51, 55, 159 women in 140, 146 language 8, 23, 33–4, 55, 95, 121, 229, 230 larentzakis, Grigorios 134 lash, scott see featherstone, mike, lash, scott, and robertson, roland ‘latins’ 23 latsis, yiannis 160 lausanne treaty (1923) 91, 96, 101, 120 law 5, 6, 12, 50, 53, 64, 73, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 94, 113, 141 and athens mosque 91, 97, 98, 99, 100–101, 103 and education 115 and proselytism 116, 117 and religious freedom 95, 114 see also legislation lebart, ludovic, Piron, marie, and morineau, alain 200 left 5, 32, 33, 34, 56, 68–9, 72, 74, 75, 81, 98, 99, 101, 102, 118 legal system 200 legislation 68, 75, 78, 83, 99, 100ff., 114, 119, 123, 124, 181, 219 see also law leisure 46, 218, 220 leros 185 levitt, Peggy 93, 94 lewis, bernard see braude, benjamin and lewis, bernard liakos, antonis 175, 179 liberalism 11, 50, 111, 112, 118, 132 lifehouse 224 lifestyle 46, 69

limouris, G. 133, 134, 140, 141 lipowatz, thanos 41 lipowatz, thanos, demertzis, nikos, and Georgiadou, Vassiliki 72 literature 29, 46, 71, 72 and immigration 90, 91–4 and nationalism 24–5 liturgical reforms 8, 33 liturgy 177, 178 livadeia 133, 185; see also thiva and livadeia, diocese of local authorities 168, 186 localism 9, 32, 33, 34, 53, 54 and welfare 176, 183, 186, 188, 190 loizos, Peter and Papataxiarchis, evthymios 139 loss 139, 160, 161–2, 163, 222 love 219, 221, 226 luckmann, thomas see berger, Peter and luckmann, thomas lutherans 177 lyberaki, antigone and Paraskevopoulos, Christos 198 lynch, Gordon 225, 227 lyrics 221–22, 224, 226, 227 macedonia 49, 70, 180 machacek, david W. 68, 105, 106 magazines 69, 163, 167, 168, 169 for youth 219 majority rights 118 makrides, Vasilios n. 4, 9, 78, 79, 196 makrides, Vasilios n. and molokotosliederman, lina 2, 40, 79, 195 makrides, Vasilios n. and uffelmann, dirk 14 male hierarchy 8, 11,137, 139, 140, 142 see also men manos, stephanos 81 Manoussakis v. Greece (1996) 114 mantas, m. 100 maravakis, athanasios, Parsanoglou, dimitrios, and Psaroudakis, stavros 92, 93 marechal, b. 92 margaritis, yiorgos 68 marriage 48, 138, 143 civil 30, 31, 69

Index martyrs 133, 135, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166 mary, Virgin 136, 145, 159, 162 MaryMartha 136 mass media 5, 62, 63, 65 mass rallies 118 matalas, Paraskevas 22n. materialism 134, 222, 229 matisyahu 225–6 mavrogordatos, George t. 113, 158 mavrogordatos, George t. and nikolakopoulos, ilias 198 meaning 219 media 5, 28, 29, 118, 156, 223, 227 medical centres 48 megalinarion 164 meinardus, ronald 120 memory 158, 160, 165, 228 see also collective memory men 134, 138, 140, 142, 143, 147 mentally disabled people 184 mentally ill people 185 merchants 23, 24 mercyme 224, 226 metaphors 159 methodology 40, 199, 200 metropolitan sees 54 metropolitans 54, 62, 63, 81, 115, 142 meyendorff, John 195 middle east 92, 97, 98 militant reformers 44, 45, 46, 50, 57 military service 12, 119, 124 miller, mathew 226 millets 22, 24, 180, 195 mimesis 164 ministry of foreign affairs 155, 169 ministry of health and social Welfare 185, 187 ministry of national education and religious affairs 78–9, 80, 93, 95, 101, 115, 121, 123 minorities 42, 68, 122, 123, 124 see also religious minorities mishler, William and rose, richard 197 mission 44 missionary work 34, 133 see also foreign missionaries mitsotakis, Constantine 97 mobilization 12, 28, 35, 89, 105, 118, 182

247

modern Greek language 8, 55 national identity 29, 68, 113 state 41 ‘modern synthesis’ 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34 modernity xiii-xiv, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 21, 29, 41, 47, 78, 79, 195, 220 description of 30 process of 44 and secularism 193, 194 and tradition 132, 137, 142, 146ff., 196, 228, 230 women and 11 see also modernization; multiple modernities modernization 6, 10, 15, 39, 66, 69, 91, 96, 104, 111, 122, 189, 222 comparative 40 conservative 45, 46 failure of 41 forms of 11 global 21, 30, 31 meaning of 75 political 41 social effects of 46–7 and 2005 crisis 78–80 and welfare 184, 188 ‘modernization thesis’ 41 mohler, Peter see ester, Peter, braun, michael and mohler, Peter; see also ester, Peter, mohler, Peter, and Vinken, henk moisiodax, i. 24 molokotos- liederman, lina 4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 33, 118, 182, 196, 217, 222 see also makrides, Vasilios n. and molokotos-liederman, lina monasteries 54, 69, 142, 146, 147–8, 177, 183, 218 monasticism 177, 223 female 139, 141, 142, 146–7 and youth 218 monks 7, 11, 22n., 147, 148, 165, 223, 225 see also free monks moral consciousness 197 moral crisis 51, 53, 71 morality 30, 32, 33, 46, 94, 144, 179 mosques 90

248

Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

see also athens mosque motherhood 136, 143, 144, 145, 162, 170 moulatsiotis, father nektarios 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 229, 230 mourning 161 mouzelis, n. 41 muftis 101, 102, 112, 123 multiculturalism 12, 13, 91, 92, 98, 100, 104, 105, 111, 112, 124, 155 multiple modernities 11, 21, 148, 194 multivariate analysis 200, 204 museums 184 music as cultural resource 227 styles 221, 227 see also faith-based music music industry 225, 227 musical styles 221, 227 muslim immigrants 89, 90, 91, 98, 101, 155, 158 population 92, 113 see also muslims muslims 5, 12, 23, 105 autochthonous 89, 90, 91, 96, 101, 102, 113, 118, 121 faith-based music 226 and id cards 118 identification as 122, 123 youth 124 see also islam; muslim immigrants, thrace mysticism 177 mythology 27–8 nagy, Gregory 164 narratives 24, 25 national affiliation 25 national churches 13, 25–6, 31 national culture 113 national flag 82 national holidays 27, 28, 29 national identity 10, 13, 21, 24, 33, 158, 222, 227, 228 Orthodox Church and 27, 32, 83, 113, 180, 195 and religion 27–9, 68, 95, 181, 182, 200 national minorities 121–2

national myths 27–8 national narratives 24, 25, 41 national security 91, 120, 121 nationalism xiv, 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 24, 28, 33, 65, 67, 70, 71, 81, 99, 112, 120, 148, 165, 180, 181, 195, 229 in literature 24–5 in music 222 nationality 50, 200 nationalization, economic 69 nationalization, religious 13, 25, 27, 195 nation-building 25, 32, 94, 111 nations 10, 23, 81, 159 discourses 111 see also national identity; nationalism nation-states 13, 24, 25, 26, 27, 32, 50, 70, 94 naumescu, Vlad 1 necessity acts 114, 117 negotiation 7, 79 nektarios, bishop 141 nektarios, father see moulatsiotis, father nektarios nelsen, brent and Guth, James 198 neo-martyrs 162, 164, 170 netherlands 204, 205, 210 networks 48, 51, 53–4 neutrality 12, 13, 77, 79, 83, 103, 187, 204, 206, 210 new democratic (nd) Party 72, 73, 75–6, 77, 82 and athens mosque 97, 98, 99, 101, 102 ‘new islam’ 90, 102, 105 new World Order 33 nikolakopoulos, ilias see Georgiadou, Vassiliki and nikolakopoulos, ilias; see also mavrogordatos, George t. and nikolakopoulos, ilias nikolopoulos, Panagiotis 6 1920s 10, 33, 39, 40, 45, 46ff., 50, 54, 56, 57 1990s see post-Cold War era nineteenth century 10, 13, 24, 25, 27ff., 34, 41, 44, 47, 48, 50 non-Christian religions 10, 12 see also muslims

Index non-governmental organizations (nGOs) 40, 53, 55, 81, 112, 140, 155, 157, 183 nora, Pierre 155 norms 2, 83, 90, 228 norris, Pippa 199 norris, Pippa and davis, James 197 northern Greece 13 norway 206 nostalgia 222, 226 ntontos, nikos see kalaitzidis, Pantelis and ntontos, nikos nuns 136, 141, 146–7 Ohrid 23 ‘oikonomia’ 141, 145–6, 179 Oikonomou, archimandrite epifanios 63 Old Calendarists 7, 50, 113, 161, 167, 170 Old Catholics 136 Olympic Games 76, 97, 98, 99, 155 Olympic village 98 oppositions 170 see also dualities oral tradition 27 organizations 39, 93 Ormylia art diagnosis Centre 147 Ormylia foundation 147 orphanages 48, 49, 177 Orthodox Christianity 9, 195 anti-pluralism of 11–12 church attendance in 201 culture of 222 diversity of 178, 180–81 and globalization 31 liturgy 177, 178 and nationalism 25 new thinking in 14 in Ottoman empire 23, 24 and political change 1–2, 31 research into 1, 3–4 schism in 26 social doctrine 177–8 and socio-cultural change 10 statistical surveys of 14–15 teaching of 116 theology 177–8 tradition and change in 8 transformation of 13, 24–5

249

and West 13–14, 222 see also Orthodox Church of Greece Orthodox Christians 22, 23, 113, 167, 200 Orthodox Church of Greece ambiguities of 31, 33–4, 35, 40, 42, 100, 169, 170 and anglicans 48 and athens mosque 97, 99–100, 104, 156ff., 169, 170 and Catholic Church 40, 42, 47, 48, 51, 55–6 and charity 48, 50, 53–4 conflicts in 46 controversies 2–3, 4, 5, 10, 12 and corruption 62–4, 72–3, 80 criticism of 80–81 defensive attitude of 80, 99 deficiencies of 11 diversity of 7, 159, 169–70 ecclesiastical crisis (2005) 61–4ff., 72–83, 196, 199 and education 28, 48–9, 50, 78–9, 82, 115–16 curriculum 115, 116 higher education 115 establishment of 26, 196 and european union 52–3 and foreign religions 47–8, 51 and free monks 223–4 and globalization 31–4, 35 and Greek public 4 history of 21, 22ff. and hybridization 6, 11 and id cards 117–18, 124, 196 images of 4 as institution 196 and islam 91 land ownership 186 legal status of 94–5, 113, 114 and modern synthesis 30ff., 34 and modernity 9, 33–4, 148–9, 196, 228 and modernization 11, 15, 45, 51, 79, 96, 188, 189 as moral saviour 71, 134 and national identity 27, 32, 83, 113, 180, 195 and national myths 27–8

250

Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

nationalism of 5–6, 13, 81, 99 and pluralism 11–12 and political change 45–6, 69 political role of 70 popularity of 62, 69, 74 positive role of 74 and privatization of religion 31 privileges of 13, 26, 68, 69, 73, 79–80, 82–3, 94, 96, 113, 114, 115, 181, 189, 196 public role of 5, 64–72, 74, 76 purification of 64, 72 and reform 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 31, 42, 45–6, 51ff., 79, 80–82 and religious minorities 112 research on 40–43, 72 and society 5, 10, 46, 71 and state 2, 4, 5, 6, 26–7 statistical surveys of 14–15 structural transformation of 26–7 summer camps 219, 220 tax exemptions 114, 186 and tradition 8, 10 transformation of 2, 3, 4 trust in 198 and universalism 22, 26 and welfare 5, 9, 10, 34, 53, 55 new role 175, 176, 179, 184, 186, 188 public views of 187–8 traditional role 179, 184, 186, 188 and West 14, 134, 135, 138 and women 134–40ff. and young people 217, 219, 220 see also Church of Greece; holy synod Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople 46, 52, 71; see also ecumenical Patriarch- ate of Constantinople Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem 47, 63, 78 Orthodox Patriarchate of moscow 46 Orthodox zealots 56 Otto, king 26, 196 Ottoman empire 10, 22–7, 40, 41, 90, 94, 111, 195 Greek resistance to 27, 180 non-muslims in 22 occupation by 157, 158, 176

see also turkey outsiders xiii, 7, 39, 45, 48, 132, 148, 195 Pakistan 93, 94, 226 Pakistanis 92, 93 Palestine 92, 93, 120 Panagiotopoulou, roy and Papliakou, Vassiliki 198 Panayiotopoulos, G. 83 Pankhurst, Jerry see roudometof, Victor, agadjanian, alexander and Pankhurst, Jerry Panteleimon, father 221 Panteleimon, metropolitan of attica 63, 80 Papadopoulou, despoina 159 Papadopoulou, lina 118, 119 Papageorgiou, niki 5–6 Papahristou, nikos 155 papal visits 14, 34, 42, 52, 55 Papandreou, George 97n., 98 Papastathis, C. k. and Papathomas, G. d. 82 Papathemelis, stelios 161 Papliakou, Vassiliki see Panagiotopoulou, roy and Papliakou, Vassiliki Papoulias, karolos 73 para-ecclesiastical organizations 51 Paraskevaidis; see also Christodoulos, archbishop 134 Paraskevopoulos, Christos see lyberaki, antigone and Paraskevopoulos, Christos parishes 183, 220 taxation of 54 Parliament 28, 73, 91, 98, 99, 100–101, 102, 103, 113, 117, 155 trust in 200, 206 particularism 13, 27, 34 PasOk 68, 82, 97, 98, 99, 101 patriarchy 145 patriotism 222; see also nationalism Pattakos, stylianos 159 Paul, st 135, 138 Paxson, heather 143, 144, 145, 148 peace 226 Peania 99, 100, 155, 156, 157, 167, 169 peasantry 25, 30, 81, 82 Peć 23

Index perceptions 28, 62, 89, 91, 92, 158, 179, 195, 197, 198 Permanent holy synod 140; see also holy synod Perselis, emmanuel 28, 48 personal data 2, 117 personal freedom 222, 229 petitions 49, 96, 118 Petrou, ioannis 26, 27 philanthropy, social 176 philosophy 112, 137, 187, 188 piety 146 pilgrimages 146, 162, 220 places of worship 12, 90, 93, 95, 103 legal status 114 Plekon, fr michael 178, 179 pluralism xiv, 5, 10, 12, 14, 68, 79, 90, 91, 101, 104, 105, 189, 194 religious 94, 102, 106, 210 poetry 5, 224, 226 Poland 181, 204, 206 police 200 police identity cards 96 political culture 41, 74 political institutions, trust in 204 political parties 69, 70, 182 and athens mosque 97, 98–9, 101, 102, 103 and church-state relations 74, 75, 81, 82 and 2005 crisis 61, 74, 75, 76ff., 83 political science see political theory political system 64, 67, 71 political theory 112, 158, 159 politicians 13, 28, 44, 69, 81, 138, 190 and id cards 118, 181 trust in 200 and 2005 crisis 64, 74, 76 politics 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34, 49, 53, 61, 65, 69, 73, 76–7, 104, 161, 182, 195, 196 and islam 89, 226 religious 96, 99, 158, 169, 170 Pollis, adamantia 11 Pomak 113 Pontic Greeks 92, 122 Poor funds 54, 55 popular music 5, 33, 218, 223ff.

251

see also faith-based music Popular Orthodox herald Party (laOs) 120, 161 popular religion 224 population 91–2, 113, 122 Portugal 204, 205, 210 post-Cold War era 1, 3, 40ff., 45, 52ff., 69, 97, 155ff. postmodernism 41 postmodernity 7, 11 poverty 48, 54, 177 Powell, mark allan 224 power 22, 44, 49, 74, 80, 135, 189, 196 power games 41, 42, 43 practices 44, 82, 83, 90, 91, 144, 147, 171, 177, 178, 181, 182, 228 pragmatism 102, 103, 104, 105 prayer 28, 115, 146, 219 frequency of 199, 202, 203, 204 press 28, 35, 46n., 90, 99, 155, 161 prestige 46, 49 priesthood 137 priests 48, 55, 100, 133, 142 and rock/pop music 217–18ff. and welfare 184–5 primary schools 115, 121 Printzipas, yiorgos th. 71, 76 prisoners 9, 184 privatization, economic 53 privatization, religious 30, 31, 66 private law 95, 114 private sphere 90, 188, 189, 193 process 44 Prodromou, elizabeth h. 104, 158, 195, 196 professional relationships 187 progressive ideas 66, 79, 102, 144, 190, 228 propaganda 49 proselytism 12, 49, 50, 68, 94, 116–17 definition of 116 Protestantism 1, 8, 9, 12, 31, 44, 45, 47, 50, 79, 115, 136, 196, 229 Protestants 113, 134, 200 church attendance 201, 202 religiosity 204 and trust in institutions 197

252

Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

Psychogiopoulou, evangelina see anagnostou, dia and Psychogiopoulou, evangelina psychoanalysis 157, 158, 161, 162 psychology 219 public law 113, 114 public opinion 62, 92, 96, 98, 99, 187, 188, 189, 198, 206 public order 94 public religious practice 199 public role 64–72, 76 past and present 67 public sphere 31, 34, 64ff., 90, 91, 96, 188, 189, 194, 198 and welfare 187ff. women in 139 Puritans 44, 45 Putnam, robert d. 198 radio 217, 219, 220, 223 raftopoulos, dimitris 160 ramet, Pedro 180 ramet, sabrina 8, 180 rap music 221, 226 rationalism 134, 136, 229 reason 24 recognition 94, 112, 114, 120, 122, 195 recordings 218, 221, 225, 226 redistribution 53, 54, 112 re-enactment 164 referendum 118 reform 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 30–31, 44, 51 critics of 39 educational 116, 182 and minority rights 123–4 post-1991 52–7, 79, 80–82 and women 132 see also change; innovations reformers see church reformers refugees 47, 89 reggae music 226 reinhard, Wolfgang 45 relics 146 religion xiii, 65, 66, 162, 165, 170, 196, 225, 227 attitudes to 202 conflicts in 43, 44, 45 and culture 25

and education 28, 29 and immigration 91–4 importance of 96, 193, 202, 204, 206 and law 113, 114 and national identity 27–9, 32, 95, 180, 181, 182, 200 and nation-state 26–7 and politics 22, 23, 104, 195 privatization of 30, 31 public role of 188, 189 reform of 43, 44 revival of 1, 4 role of 198, 210 surveys 199–200 and secularism 105–6 studies of 41 see also religiosity ‘religionization’ 137 religiosity 1, 15, 30, 31, 41, 67, 179, 224 and church-state relations 196 degree of 203 description of 197 in europe 193–4 in Greece 198 and immigration 199, 200, 202, 204, 206 measurement of 199–200, 204 objective 199, 200, 204 private 193 self-definition of 199, 202, 206, 210 subjective 199, 200, 204, 206, 210 surveys of 198 see also church attendance; prayer; trust religious affiliation 2, 4, 25, 26, 69, 96 and id cards 117–18 of immigrants 92 and military service 119 statistics 113 religious awareness 219, 228 religious belief 27, 171, 178, 197 and social capital 197–8 surveys 204 religious commemoration 25, 27, 28 religious communities 95, 102, 225, 227 religious controversies 3, 4, 5, 10 dialectics of 39

Index religious education 12, 34, 47, 48, 78–9, 82, 115–16, 124, 182 content 115–16 mandatory 28, 115, 116 and non-Orthodox faiths 115 women in 133 religious freedom 72, 78, 79, 81, 82, 181 absence of 155 and id cards 118 institutions and 95 legal framework 94, 114 religious groups 44, 68, 112, 117, 228n. religious holidays 27, 28, 29 religious identity 22, 24, 90, 92, 181, 194, 197, 227 religious indifference 206, 210 religious institutions 25, 29 religious intolerance 11, 12 religious leaders 96, 123 religious messages 5, 7 religious metaphors 30 religious minorities 5, 12, 42, 48, 49, 56, 68, 72, 91, 181 and education 115–16, 121, 122 human rights of 95, 96 issues 112 legal status of 82, 95, 96 see also muslim immigrants religious organizations and welfare 53 religious practice 14, 15, 138, 146, 197 individual 199 of ‘known religions’ 114 privatization of 30 public 199 reform of 45 and social capital 197 survey of 200, 204 religious revival 30, 35 religious sites 226 religious studies 115, 116 religious symbolism 24, 25, 30 religious texts 27 repressive measures 68 reproduction 136, 143 assisted 143–4, 146 research 1, 2, 3, 4, 14–15, 39, 40ff., 93, 122, 160, 171

253

on contemporary religious music 224, 225, 227 methods 3, 14 on welfare 183, 187, 188 women in 133 resistance 146, 147, 149, 157, 180, 184 restrictive framework 95, 96 révay, edit and tomka, miklós 1, 193 rhodes 133 riesebrodt, martin 210 right 74 5, 7, 32, 33, 75, 76, 161 rights 135, 148 see also human rights 148 risk 145 ritual 26, 29, 162 ritual impurity 133 robbers, Gerhard 197 robinson, b. a. 96 rock music 218, 221, 223, 224 see also faith-based music 223 rodopi 122 roma 113 roman Catholicism 1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 40, 44, 45, 55–6, 79, 115, 134, 166, 177, 229 see also Catholics romania 1, 2, 24, 92, 133, 180, 222 romanticism 25, 41 rome 52, 56 roth, Carharine 177 roudometof, Victor 4, 5, 10, 13, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 32, 35, 49, 66, 76, 111, 113, 118, 158, 182, 196 roudometof, Victor, agadjanian, alexander, and Pankhurst, Jerry 1 rozakis, Christos 120 rules 145, 146, 179 Rum millet 22, 23, 24, 26 rums of istanbul 120, 122 rums of smyrna 165 russia 45, 46, 180 sacraments 138 sacrifice 136, 164, 170, 171 see also self-sacrifice st Catherine’s monastery 219 st raphael, convent of 146 st sophia church, istanbul 161

254

Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

see also aghia sophia Church st spyridon, convent of 141 saints 30, 146, 164, 218 sakalak, dimitrios 84n. sarris, neoklis 22 scandals 62, 63, 64, 71, 77, 78, 80, 83, 84n., 223 Schofield Clark, Lynn 225, 227, 228 scholars 2, 11, 14, 41, 48, 72, 81, 116, 138, 159, 176, 188 schools 5, 27, 28, 29, 31, 34, 47, 115, 120, 122, 177, 182, 190 ecclesiastical 78–9, 82, 115 Scientific Council 115 scientific methodology 14 scientific research 147 Scourge of God, The 72 script languages 23 secondary schools 115, 121, 139 secular Christian music 224 see also faith-based music secularization 9, 10, 12, 13, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 45, 49, 51, 72, 90, 91, 96, 105–6, 175 and contemporary Christian music 224, 225 debate 40 and modernity 193, 194 thesis 41 in Western europe 67 security 91, 120, 121, 167 seferis, G. 46 self 149 self-determination 122 self-sacrifice 164, 165 seraphim, archbishop 66 seraphim of sarov 218 serbia 15, 21, 24, 180 Christan pop music in 224 cultural transformation 25 national church 26, 224 Serif v. Greece 123 sex 219 sexual discrimination 138 sexual misconduct 63 sexuality, female 136–7 simitis, Costas 70, 71, 78, 117 simmel, Georg 43, 44

sin 143, 144, 146 singing 219, 223 skobtsova, mother maria 178 skopetea, elli 196 skylitis, aristeidis 159 smith, anthony d. 22 smith, helen 98 social action 10, 46, 48, 50, 51, 53 see also charity social activists 51 social activities 218–19 social anthropology 2, 7 social capital 187, 197–8, 210 social change 10, 23, 31, 46, 91 social commitment 197 Social Compass 3 social geography 160 social harms 112, 116, 121, 122, 123 social injustice 177 social issues 219, 221, 222, 228 social organization 24, 41 social persuasion 43 social problems 31, 35, 46, 90, 183 social protection 220 social sciences 1, 2 social services 133, 176 social space 93, 165, 171, 198 social surveys 197, 198ff. social theory 40 social values 193 social work 217, 218, 220 social workers 185, 220 socialists 69, 74–5, 81, 82, 98, 99 see also left; PasOk socialization 43 society 3, 5, 6, 12, 23, 25, 31, 46, 50, 54, 67–8, 91, 96, 177, 179, 189, 196, 199, 218, 228 and immigration 92 moral crisis of 51, 71 reform of 44, 45, 69, 140 role of women 140 socio-cultural changes 10, 12, 15 sociologists 41 sociology 1, 10, 14, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 197, 199, 217, 225, 227 solidarities 132, 197 solidarity 53, 183

Index songs 219, 221, 225, 226 sotirelis, George C. 116 sotiriu, eleni 7, 8, 11, 14, 132, 148 sotiropoulos, dimitris 198 soup kitchens 184, 185–6 south east asia 92, 98 south eastern europe 1, 13, 30, 35, 69 soviet union, former 1, 92, 122, 180 spain 204, 206, 225 special synodical Committee for bioethics 79, 143–4 specificities 9, 11, 12, 15, 67, 79, 139, 180, 195 speeches 27, 29 sperm 143, 144 spirituality 146–7, 222, 223 sport 65–6, 218 stamoulas, aristotelis 116, 117 stark, rodney and bainbridge, William sims 68 stark, rodney and finke, roger 68 state 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 26, 27, 49, 50, 68, 103 authority of 74 and modern synthesis 29 and public/private spheres 188, 189 and recognition 122 reforms 30–31 religious neutrality of 12, 13 see also church-state relations; Greek state state control 50, 67, 70, 79, 102 ‘state, Para-state, and Church: the unluckily Communicating vessels’ 81–2 stathopoulos, michalis 117 stathopoulou, theoni 15, 195, 196, 199, 210n. statism 102, 105 statistics 1, 14–15, 30, 113, 122 status quo 71, 78, 161, 181 stavrakakis, yannis 4, 5, 33, 104, 118, 158, 182, 195, 196 stavrianos, lefteris 22 stavros, stephanos 95, 113 stephanopoulos, Costis 118 sterility 143 stewart, Charles 171

255

stoetzel, Jean 206 stokes, Gale 22 stragkas, theoklitos 42 streck, John m. see howard, Jay r. and streck, John m. structural transformation 13, 21, 24, 25–7 structures 53, 54, 71, 74, 78, 80, 89, 102, 105 stryper 224 students 121, 122, 139, 220 subjectivity 41, 42, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, 206, 210 subsidiarity 53 suffering 165 Sufi music 226 sugar, Peter 22 summer camps, 218, 219, 221 sunday schools 48 superiority 71, 132 supranational institutions 5, 15, 197, 210 supreme Court see areios Pagos surveys 14, 15, 92, 93 svoronos, nicolas 24 sweden 206 switzerland 206 symbiosis 12, 83, 90, 94 symbolic equations 145 symbolism 148, 161, 167, 170, 199 national 25, 111, 195 religious 24, 25, 111, 197, 226 ‘symphonia’ 180 synchronicity 24, 26 syndesmOs 220 synodical Committee for social and Welfare Benefits 183, 220 synthesis 10 syria 92, 93 syriZa 98, 101, 102 Tama tou Ethnous 160, 162 tax evasion 80 taxation 53, 54, 75, 114, 186 taylor, Charles 132 teachers 28, 190 training of 120, 121 teaching methods 121 technical knowledge 147 technological education institutes 121

256

Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

technology 222, 228, 229 television 161, 169, 219, 220, 227 temporality 23 territories 32, 76 textbooks 28, 115, 121 theodorakis, mikis 120 theodorou, evangelos 142 theoklitos, metropolitan of karditsa 63 theologians 28, 29, 31, 35, 72, 81, 118, 124, 132, 188 female 139, 149 and women 133, 136, 139, 141, 142 theological schools 115 and women 139 theology 3, 10, 14, 28, 32, 81, 135, 219, 222, 227 feminist 14, 133, 138 social 177–8 teaching 138 and welfare 176–7 and women’s ordination 136, 137, 138 theory, and practice 171 therborn, G. 21 thessalonika 46, 47, 49, 54, 115, 118 thiva and livadeia, diocese of 8, 175 welfare in 182–6, 187 thrace 54, 98, 101 church welfare in 183 demography 122 muslims of 90, 91, 96, 102, 113, 118, 120–23, 183 and discrimination 12–21 in education 120 and turkey 121 see also muftis threat 91 three hierarchs 29, 51, 177 de tocqueville, alexis 44 toleration 12, 14, 68, 106 tomka, miklós 14, 193, 199 see also borowik, irena and tomka, miklós; révay, edit and tomka, miklós; tomka, miklós and yurash, andrij tomka, miklós and yurash, andrij 12, 193 tooth and nail 224 tradition 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 32, 39, 42, 73, 79, 167, 210, 228, 230

decline of 46 defiance of 43 fetishization of 137 and modernity 10, 11, 132, 137, 142, 146ff., 196 women and 132, 142, 146, 147, 148 traditionalists 40, 42 training courses 220 traitors 166, 167 transcendentalism 196 transformation 2, 3, 4, 10, 13, 29, 34, 45, 56, 96, 137, 194, 225 cultural 13, 21, 24–5, 26 structural 13, 21, 24, 25–7 see also change translation 229, 230 transnational institutions 30 transnational ties 94 triandafyllidou, anna 202; see also Gropas, ruby and triandafyllidou, anna; triandafyllidou, anna and Gropas, ruby triandafyllidou, anna and Gropas, ruby 89, 91 tritsis, a. 31 troeltsch, ernst 44 troiannos, spyros n. 140 true-false paradox 40 2005 crisis 61–4, 77–84 positive effects of 78–80, 84 trust 194 in institutions 197–8, 200, 204, 204, 205, 206, 210 in Orthodox church 198 tsatsis, thomas 100, 157 tsitselikis, k. 92, 93, 96, 123 turkey 45, 76, 91, 120, 122, 157, 158, 159, 161, 164, 170 popular music in 226 turks 21, 23, 95n., 96, 100, 113, 121, 122 twentieth century xiv, 3, 29, 30, 33, 50, 67 twenty-first century xiii, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 15, 33, 35, 52, 74, 132, 134 tzanetakos, yiannis 75 ukraine 225 un Commission on human rights 117 united kingdom 204, 205, 225, 226

Index united nations 200 united states 62, 68, 98, 155, 217 faith-based music in 224–5, 226 unity 22, 23, 26, 135 universalism 13, 22, 23, 26, 27, 34 universities 115, 121, 140 university of athens 28, 115, 121, 142 urbanization 10, 30, 47, 122 Valakou-theodoroudi, m. 71 values 162, 170, 197 see also social values van Oorshot, Wim, arts, Wil and Gelissen, John 197, 210 variables 199, 200, 202, 206 Varouxi, Christina 198 Varvitsiotis, ioannis 73 Vasilakis, manolis 72, 78 Vasiliou, mr 101 Vassiliadis, Petros 177, 178 Vavylis, apostolos 63 Vekkos, ioannes 165, 166, 170 Velestinlis, rigas 24 Velimirović, Bishop Nikolaj 224 Vella of ioannina 115 Venizelos, evangelos 82, 101 Veremis, thanos see kitromilides, Paschalis and Veremis, thanos; see also koliopoulos, John and Veremis, thanos vernacular 33, 34, 55 video games 219 video tapes 218, 222 village life 46 Vinken, henk see ester, Peter, mohler, Peter, and Vinken, henk violence 165, 219, 222 virginity 136, 141 Volos 133 von maurer, Georg 196 volunteers 185, 186, 187, 220 Vossou, sophia 223 wealth 177 Weber, max 43, 44, 45 weddings 5 welfare 5, 9, 10, 34, 50, 53, 55, 74

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and church-state relations 175, 179, 180–82, 185, 186ff., 190 context of 175 history of 175, 176–9, 180 local 176, 183, 184, 186, 188, 190 meaning of 175 state and 175, 176, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188 in thiva and livadeia 175, 182–6 Welkenhuysen-Gybels, Jerry see billet, Jaak and Welkenhuysen-Gybels, Jerry West 132, 134, 135, 138, 139, 147, 199 Western churches 11, 12, 135, 141 Western europe 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 13–14, 68, 79, 195 negative view of 14, 134 Orthodoxy in 181 public role of church in 66–7 religiosity in 199 Wichern, dean W. see Johnson, richard and Wichern, dean W. Wolff, larry 195 women 5, 7, 8, 14, 46, 183 and europe 134–5 and feminism 133, 136, 139 martyrs 133 and mount athos ban 131–2, 147–8 and oikonomia 145–6 ordination of 133, 134, 136–8, 141, 142 and Orthodox Church 14, 133–40ff. Orthodox identity of 132, 145, 148 participation of 133 and religious education 139–40 and religious practices 146 sacred role of 162 sexuality of 136–7 and spirituality 146–7 and theology 135 and tradition/modernity 11, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149 as wives of priests 133, 141 see also abbesses; convents words 40 world 177, 179 World Council of Churches 133 world historical process 21

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Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece

World Is Changing, The 221 worldviews 21, 23, 31–2, 46 worship 26 worship music, modern 224, 225 xanthi 122 xenophobia 101 yang, fenggang and ebaugh, helen rose 93 yang, keming 197 yannaras, Christos 11, 78, 32, 137 yannas, Prodromos 12 yannoulatos, anastasios 177 yiokarinis, konstantinos 133, 137 yiossakis, archimandrite iakovos 62, 63

young people 7, 124, 184, 217, 228 and Christian pop music 225 church provision for 220 counselling for 219, 220 social activities for 218–19 summer camps 218, 219, 221 youth culture 220, 223, 224, 227 yugoslavia, former 1, 71 Zaman 156 Zambeta, evi 115 Zizioulas, John 135–6 Zoe 48, 51 Zoumboulakis, stavros 72 Zschech, darlene 225