Stavrakakis Politics and Religion.pdf

On the “Politicization” of Greek Church Discourse

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Politics and Religion:

On the “Politicization” of

Greek Church Discourse

Yannis Stavrakakis

Abstract

The recent exclusion of the reference to religion from Greek identity cards has

triggered an extraordinary reaction on behalf of the Orthodox Church. The

Church hierarchy and Archbishop Christodoulos have led a campaign to

oppose this decision, articulating a discourse that, by many accounts, was

marked by a clear political proﬁle. This reaction has polarized Greek society

and has been dominating political life and media coverage for most of 2000

and 2001. These developments have also become the object of numerous

analyses and academic discussions. Although a variety of dimensions are at

stake, there is no doubt that the ﬁrst crucial issue posed by the events is the

question of the “politicization” of religious discourse. Is contemporary Greek

Church discourse politicized? How can we account for this politicization

within current global trends and the Greek historical context? These are some

of the challenging questions explored in this paper.

In April 2000, after his second consecutive victory in the general

elections, Greek prime minister Costas Simitis appointed his new govern-

ment. In a move far from typical for Greek political life, he appointed as

minister of justice a non-parliamentarian, a university professor of law,

Michalis Stathopoulos. On 6 May 2000, the newly appointed minister

aired, in an interview, a series of reforms aimed at modernizing the

Greek legal apparatus in relation to issues of religious belief. He singled

out the abolition of religious oath in courts, the introduction of the

option for a secular funeral, and, most importantly, the deletion of the

category of religion from identity cards, 1 the document (issued by the

police) that Greek citizens are supposed to carry with them at all times

( Ethnos , 6 May 2000). 2 For Stathopoulos as well as for other academics

and commentators, the third reform was a necessary measure in order to

ensure respect for human rights and, in particular, prevent discrimina-

tion against non Orthodox Greek citizens. 3 Needless to say, this was a

Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 21, 2003.

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Yannis Stavrakakis

view not shared by Archbishop Christodoulos—the head of the Holy

Synod of the autocephalous Church of Greece and religious leader of

the Greek Orthodox majority of the population. 4 Setting the tone of

what was to follow, he responded that on this issue “only one factor exists

and this is the people , that cannot and should not be ignored” ( Eleftherotypia ,

9 May 2000).

At ﬁrst no one thought that this “dogﬁght” would have any serious

political consequences given that most attempts of the government to

intervene into issues related to religion, during the 1980s and 1990s,

ended in compromise for fear of alienating practicing Orthodox voters. 5

Indeed the ﬁrst responses both from the government spokesman and

the minister of education and religious affairs were pointing in this

direction. 6 Everything changed, however, when the newly instituted—

and up to that time generally unknown—independent Hellenic Data

Protection Authority convened on the 15 May to discuss the issue. Its

unanimous decision was that religious belief, among a set of other

sensitive personal data, should be excluded from identity cards. A few

days later, on 24 May, the prime minister conﬁrmed during the question

session in parliament that his government would stand by and imple-

ment the decision to exclude the category of religion from identity

cards. There is little doubt that the prime minister’s ﬁrm position, which

surprised many, reﬂected his personal views and, at the same time, could

enhance the left-wing proﬁle of his government that had been unable to

escape the policy limitations set by market globalization on, more or

less, all European center-to-left governments. On the other hand, many

PASOK politicians and supporters remained skeptical and even wary of

the so-called “political cost” that such a decision would entail in view of

the inﬂuence of the Church on certain sectors of the population.

In any case, this decision has triggered an extraordinary reaction

on behalf of the Greek Church, a reaction that has polarized Greek

society and has been dominating political life and media coverage for

most of 2000 and 2001. Archbishop Christodoulos 7 led a campaign to

oppose it, articulating a discourse that was marked by a clear political

proﬁle. Starting from the premise that an identity card is not a mere

administrative document, but also “a proof of my personality”

(Christodoulos 2000b:321), he characterized the exclusion as a coup

d’etat , and started a struggle to overturn it. This struggle included mass

rallies in Thessaloniki and Athens, rallies that were attended by hun-

dreds of thousands of people, interventions in the media—which started

following him day in and day out in order to transmit his latest attack on

the government—and a campaign to gather as many signatures as

possible calling for a referendum on the issue, even though such a

procedure was not provisioned in the constitution. The polarization was

On the “Politicization” of Greek Church Discourse

155

also reﬂected within the political and party systems: New Democracy , the

largest opposition center-to-right party, supported almost uncondition-

ally the Archbishop in what many journalists were quick to call his “holy

war”—with many of its MPs attending the rallies and most of them,

including its leader, Costas Karamanlis, signing the petition for a

referendum. 8

On 28 August 2001, it was announced that the Church had

managed to gather 3,008,901 signatures asking for a referendum on the

optional inclusion of the category of religion in Greek identity cards. 9

Although it seems that signing the petition or opposing the government

decision—a view shared by approximately 60% of the Athenians, accord-

ing to some polls ( Ta Nea , 2 July 2000)—did not entail alienation from

the government, given that most polls over the last period showed no

signiﬁcant effects on its overall electoral appeal, there is no doubt that,

by all standards, the number of signatures was impressive. At the same

time, however, it revealed that the Church hierarchy was unable to

mobilize the majority of its supposed following on such an (apparently)

crucial issue. At around the same time (27 June 2001) the appeal of a

group of theology professors and laymen against the exclusion of the

category of religion from identity cards was rejected by the constitu-

tional court ( State Council—Conceil d’Etat ), which decided that any

mention of religion (either obligatory or optional) is unconstitutional.

At any rate, a deep division was established in Greek public life and no

obvious solution was visible since both the government and the Church

were holding ﬁrm to their positions.

On 29 August, however, the Church received another, this time

unexpected and much more politically signiﬁcant blow, a blow that led

to a suspension of most politicized activities on its behalf. After receiving

the Archbishop and representatives from the Holy Synod who were

supposed to inform him on the number of signatures collected by the

Church, the President of the Republic, Constantine Stephanopoulos—a

former conservative politician—issued a statement that included the

following lines:

The conditions for the calling of a referendum on the issue of identity

cards have not been met, everybody is obliged to abide by the rules of the

current Law and the signatures which were collected with a procedure that

falls outside legally instituted procedures, cannot overturn the provisions

of the Constitution ( Kathimerini , 30 August 2001).

This was generally viewed as a clear prioritizing of the secular

model of a “neutral” rule of Law over the identiﬁcation of Hellenism and

Orthodoxy over and above the Law that the Church was putting forward. It

was even more damaging because it was coming from someone whose

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institutional position, popularity—that was rated to be higher than the

Archbishop’s—and conservative credentials left no obvious strategy for

the Church hierarchy to continue its struggle at the same level of

intensity without creating a national schism. 10

Following the President’s statement, which retroactively marked a

turning point in the entire issue, and the end of a whole cycle of

mobilizations and discursive articulations on behalf of the Church and

the Archbishop, it is time to reﬂect on the issue. My reﬂections will not

be articulated in a vacuum, 11 but will take into account the points

already made by many commentators and analysts. Although I am

suspicious of any pretensions to “neutrality,” I will try in what follows to

avoid the polemical style that has characterized most academic and non-

academic discussions so far. In this paper, I will limit myself to a

discussion of the central issue of the politicization of Church discourse in

Greece. In fact, I will examine the nature of this politicization against

the background of global developments and by taking into account its

theoretical and historical context. This exploration is designed to clear

the ground from certain ideas and stereotypes that have dominated

much of the debate but have failed to address crucial aspects of the

phenomenon under examination.

Politicization: Signs and Interpretations

One of the conclusions shared by most commentators is that all these

events marked a “politicization” of the discourse of the Church of

Greece. Indeed, this politicization is so obvious in the Archbishop’s

discourse that, by now, everyone in Greece is, more or less, used to it.

Take for example his most well-known book comprising a series of

articles published in the 1990s. The titles of some of the articles are

indicative: “Nation and Orthodoxy: The Unbreakable Bond”

(Christodoulos 1999:145), “The Volcano of Islamism—the Lava that

‘Burns’ the Balkans” (Christodoulos 1999:69), “Lost Chances for an

‘Orthodox Axis’ in the Balkans” (Christodoulos 1999:100), etc. Instead

of discussing strictly religious, theological or even moral issues in any of

the above, he debates what he calls the “great” national issues, especially

those “related to the great horizons of our race [g°now], our identity and

our survival” (Christodoulos 1999:13). He singles out the challenges

posed by globalization, the membership of Greece in the European

Union, Islamic fundamentalism, etc.

It is also clear that these texts are marked by a feeling of

eschatological urgency; they are written as a warning and propose a set

of measures to avoid “tragic consequences for Hellenism and Ortho-

doxy” (Christodoulos 1999:15)—two terms that are inextricably linked

On the “Politicization” of Greek Church Discourse

157

for the Archbishop. His aim is to address the “ﬁnal stage of a slippery

course” which has led to our current identity crisis (Christodoulos

1999:81), especially now that the Greek people are “feeling surrounded

by the vultures of misfortune with their deadly stench” (Christodoulos

1999:153). In the above articles, the Church is presented as the institu-

tion that can offer the leadership necessary to combat what threatens

Greece and Hellenism with “extinction” (Christodoulos 1999:219). 12

The Archbishop proposes that “If we all become clean and good

Orthodox Christians, then we will bring change to our homeland”

(Christodoulos 1999:83).

Moreover, although sometimes the Church denies vehemently that

its discourse is politicized, the Archbishop himself has actually conceded

this point. In the past, the Archbishop’s view was that if the Orthodox

Church were to become politicized, that “would entail its spiritual

alienation” (Christodoulos 1999:116). However, in a more recent rally in

Athens, the Archbishop also stated explicitly: “They accuse us that we

speak politically, that our discourse is political. We reply, yes our discourse

is political , only in the ancient Greek sense of the term; it was never

associated with party politics” (Christodoulos 2000a:66, my emphasis).

He reiterates this view in a lengthy interview given to the newspaper To

Vima on 11 February 2001, stating that “all of our actions are political”

(Christodoulos 2001a:17).

The Archbilshop’s “politicized” discourse is not in dispute. The

Archbishop does not deny it or downplay it. In fact, some of his speeches

reveal that not only are they political, but also that his discourse is

primarily a political discourse. This “politicization” seems to be premised

on a particular understanding of the role of the Church within Greek

society. The state is deemed by and large incompetent in performing its

duty vis-à-vis Hellenism. Therefore, the Church—which had previously

helped the state to fulﬁll a guardian’s role—is now left alone to

accomplish this task. As Tassos Pappas put it, “the discourse of

Christodoulos aims at administering national culture and reproducing

nationalist ideology—in other words, at substituting the uniting func-

tion of the state that is weakening, with the Church” (2001:53).

As we shall see, the Church of Greece has been invested from its

creation as an independent institution with a political role. Antonis

Manitakis has submitted several positions that are relevant here: “The

aims of the nation-state determined the position and the function of the

Church in Greek society.” As a public/state authority, the Church

endorsed all national aims and was transformed into a “national”

Church. “And now we live the following paradox: whereas the Polity is

gradually de-nationalized, the Orthodox Church of Greece, fearful and

defensive against the challenges, feeling that its ‘ethnocratic’ identity is

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