A worthless church and its worthless enemies

Under its present head the church of Greece has in the main been able to regain some of the dignity that it had forfeited under the leadership of its last primate (1998-2008). During those years it had been taken over by an extreme nationalist faction, which construed Orthodox Christianity, and Christianity in general, as the exclusive preserve of the Greek "race". As a result it placed itself at the vanguard of the nationalist explosion that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia, as the God-appointed savior of a national identity supposedly under assault from all points of the compass. Its discourse became a hate-filled rant against the Slav Macedonians, the Turks and, of course, the West, all of them in its eyes colluding in a vast conspiracy to wipe out the unique and chosen tribe of the modern Greeks.

I still cringe as I recall the sight of the previous archbishop verbally attacking the frail and terminally ill Pope Woytyla, who had gone to his headquarters for a courtesy call during his visit to the country in May, 2001. His lecture was mean-spirited and outright rude as he piled on the abuse concerning the perfidy of the Crusaders in 1204 (!), events moreover about which the Polish bishop of Rome had just apologized.

After that Prelate's death the Synod seemed to collect themselves by choosing the present archbishop, an honorable and spiritual person who pointedly eschewed the unsavory demagogy of his predecessor and concentrated on pastoral and humanitarian work. But, of course, the opposing faction had merely beaten a tactical retreat. It is now headed by the metropolitan of Thessalonica, who in his regular Sunday sermons (broadcast live to the nation) keeps on beating the drums of that well-honed intolerance, attacking the usual "enemies" with the same old vehemence and presuming to chide the government for their foreign policy.

Taking advantage of the present archbishop's mild disposition they also rammed through the Synod a "declaration to the people" bemoaning the current "subjugation" of the country to the foreigners, meaning the agreement with the IMF and the EU that led to the bail-out of the country in the face of its economic collapse. It is a cleverly crafted document meant to appeal to the broadest spectrum of political opinion from the extreme Stalinist left to the extreme nationalist right (the latter currently including the main opposition party under its present outrageously stupid and irresponsible leadership).

Another sign of the resurgence of these tendencies, obviously with an eye to the succession of the present primate who is very old, was also the recent anti-Semitic outburst of the bishop of Piraeus which made international headlines. That worthy priest provided extra theoretic depth to the inanities about "foreign occupation" by claiming that the real cause of the economic collapse of the country was the machinations of the Jewish bankers of New York acting at the behest of international Zionism which he equated to a satanic sect. He also opined that international Jewry were in cahoots with Hitler providing him with financial support in a conspiracy to force the Jews of Europe to migrate to Palestine and there to found their new "empire".

These despicable statements were, luckily, condemned by the government and other political leaders here, as well as by Orthodox hierarchs abroad, most notably the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America. But they were not condemned by the Athens Synod; and -if I am to venture a guess- a reliable public opinion survey would find that they do represent a sizable chunk of the population.

I am merely describing these events and I do not want to analyze them further, except for saying that they show the decayed spiritual and institutional condition of the Greek Church and by no means reflect upon the Orthodox Church in its world-wide expanse.

What I would like to discuss, however, at some greater length is the general political response to these ecclesiastical missteps. A time-honored feature of modern Greek public life is that as against one extreme position there crystallizes an antithetical extremism, which is equally denuded of good sense and democratic propriety. This deleterious reflex was also exhibited in this case. A clamor arose, especially from certain circles of the radical left, to the effect that the church is not a legitimate institution at all and that as a result it has no say whatsoever in matters of social significance. This was couched in terms of the separation of church and state, a demand that is undoubtedly justified and overdue. But underneath this constitutionalist talk (which is often insincere since its exponents are quite ready to flout the constitution outright in circumstances that they deem ideologically appropriate) there hides a dogmatism which is just as totalitarian in its thrust as the theocratic nationalism it claims to oppose.

The covert point is that religion as such is a redundant feature of public life, simply because a certain kind of "materialist" ideology is supposed to have "proven" that it is "false consciousness". The adjudicators, needless to say, of what is and what is not "true consciousness" are the self-appointed intellectual elites whose own ideology must be taken as self-evidently true on their say-so. This smugness is coupled with ignorance of the historical role of religion in western society, and the theoretical debates surrounding it, as well as ignorance of the role of the church in Greek society in particular.

One does not need to buy into the "Greco-Christian" cant of the ecclesiastical extremists to acknowledge the fact that through the centuries the social function of the church was to provide, for lack of others, a cultural and institutional frame for the very existence of the Greek-speaking community. This had good as well as bad consequences, but it cannot simply be ignored on the basis of some ideological absolutism. It is highly instructive to remember, for instance, that members of the church were at the forefront of the Greek enlightenment in the 18th century. No more can be said about that in this connection. But it bears repeating that whatever the misdeeds of the ecclesiastical hierarchy then and now, here and elsewhere, this fact (as the great Korais himself noted) is not enough cause to erase the significance of the religious sentiment in human life in general, or the social contribution of the historical churches in the life of various nations (such as the Greek, Polish or Irish to name but a few). What is needed first and foremost is conscientious immersion in the historical record freed, to the extent possible, from ideological blind-sights and prejudgments. But, as is usually the case, those most stridently invoking history for cheap populist gain, whether from the left or right, are those most criminally inept in historical awareness.

So, as much as one must oppose the asinine political interventions of racist priests, we still do need a religious institution with a voice in social matters and trends, even if we might not like what they have to say. It is up to the thoughtful members of the church themselves to steer their institution away from the ingrained tendencies of nationalist demagogy -and such voices have indeed been heard. But it is also up to the secular democrats to avoid the blind alley of an opposite, but equally repulsive, intolerance, which denies the right to speak to anyone who happens to diverge from the ideological obsessions of certain self-admiring factions.