Saints, Heroes, and the ‘Other’: Value Orientations of Contemporary Greek Orthodoxy

Abstract

This article examines contemporary public discourses and practices of clerical and lay actors who are mainly members of the Orthodox Church of Greece. First, it explains the ubiquitous presence of the Church in the Greek public sphere with reference to its religious functions and to its close association with both the state and the nation. Then, it shows how different interpretations of the category of the person support contrasting visions about the Church’s role in today’s world. On the one hand, those who espouse ethnoreligious schemata of thought promote the heroic figures of the Neomartyr and Ethnomartyr in their attempt to secure the institutional power of the Church and legitimize its role as ‘ark of the nation’. On the other hand, actors who are motivated by a desire to bring the Church into a constructive dialogue with modernity and the secular world employ the postmodern idea and value of the ‘Other’, which they link to the religious value of the neighbor. Finally, the paper calls attention to the social conditions that make ecclesiastical and social strata prone to support one of the above visions for the Church.

1. Introduction

Churches are not otherworldly entities, but structures of this world; they provide the so-called ‘goods of salvation’ (see Weber 1978, pp. 54–56; Bourdieu 1991a), have symbolic and economic power, and exert, to different extents, political influence. It is unsurprising, then, that they actively participate in the public sphere; for instance, by mobilizing their spiritual and material resources in order to address the needs of their members and of the broader society in which they also exist, as well as to secure or expand their own position in the public realm. The Orthodox Church is not an exception to this general description. Of course, there are differences within Orthodox Christianity as well as among the Churches of the various denominations—differences that exist for several reasons: the way the Churches have developed in the course of history; the contemporary socio-political environment in which they act; the form of church-state relations; the character of civil society (e.g., weak or strong); the correlation of forces within the religious field (e.g., ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ currents)—to mention but a few. However, all Churches, like secular organizations too, must necessarily develop a coherent public discourse in order to legitimize their social activity and their overall intervention in the public affairs. What is of particular concern here are the core ideas and values underlying such discourses, for values create meaning that orientate attitudes towards the world, as Weber (2012a) has aptly demonstrated.

Adopting this theoretical framework, this article examines current public discourses and practices of the Orthodox Church of Greece and of individual clerical and lay actors (e.g., theologians) who take an active interest in religious affairs and other matters of public interest. In doing so, I do not wish to suggest that Greece is an exceptional case compared to other Orthodox milieus. One might expect to find similar results in Orthodox majority countries in which, for historical reasons (e.g., national state and national church formation after the liberation from the Ottomans), Orthodoxy exhibits the same characteristics, for instance, close church-state and religion-nation relations, and adoration of the Byzantine past. The present study does not offer such a comparative analysis but rather a detailed examination of a specific religious tradition in order to shed light on its internal differentiation often hidden behind the existence of common dogmatic beliefs and ritual practices.

To that aim, I adopt an interpretative methodology that is composed of three interrelated steps: (i) discursive analysis, (ii) social-historical analysis, and (iii) interpretation (see Thompson 1984, pp. 133–38). In short, I examine different kinds of primary sources of the immediate context, such as statements, sermons, interviews, textual and visual content published on websites, posters, movies, and other types of videos. All these different types of language do not simply convey neutral information, but values, meanings and representations that reproduce or delegitimize power relations. They are thus used as ‘weapons’ in symbolic struggles (Bourdieu 1991b, p. 225) among different religious actors, who compete to implement their own vision about the Church’s position and role in today’s plural world. In order to narrow the domain of research, I shall focus primarily on the conceptualization of the idea and value of the person. There are two important reasons for this choice. First, personality belongs to the so-called fundamental categories of thought (see Durkheim 1995, pp. 8–18; Carrithers et al. 1985); thus, it can be found in every elaborated discourse and more broadly in every ideology, be it secular or religious. It thus provides a stable ground for the comparison and interpretation of the different currents of thought. Second, the category of the person has a prominent place in Orthodoxy, for its theology understands both the Trinity (i.e., one God existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and humans as relational entities (prosopa, persons) and not as individuals.1 However, I shall demonstrate that this common category of personhood takes a more specific content in public discourse, producing conceptual images that have differing consequences as regards the role of the Church in the public sphere. This is even more the case with ideas and values, which are connected to secular ideologies that orientate human behavior in different directions. I also associate these values and ideas with the institutional position and ideological preferences of the carriers of the discourse. Moreover, I take into consideration the context within which the discourse is uttered, for instance, the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution of 1821. Finally, I attempt to trace correspondences between these values and certain ecclesiastical and social strata, acknowledging, however, that this would, in fact, require a thorough sociological investigation beyond the scope of this paper. To support my interpretation, I quote illustrative excerpts from various primary sources.

The paper is organized as follows. In the first part and after some general remarks on the issue of religion vis-à-vis the public sphere, I demonstrate and explain through recent examples the prominent position and role of the Orthodox Church in various domains of Greek public life. In the following two main sections, I present in an ideal typical manner the main conceptualizations of the idea of the person in current Orthodox public discourses. First, I analyze the notions of the saint and the hero, pointing out the crucial element that glues them together. I argue that these ideas and values continue to constitute the ideological lens through which the Church as an institution views the world and understands its role in Greek society and state. Although these ideas penetrate the ecclesiastical field and various segments of society, it is particularly the advocates of the ethno-religious ideology who espouse them with enthusiasm. In the next section, I show how change-oriented actors, who mostly belong to a younger generation of theologians, rearrange the position of values within the broader religious ideology in their attempt to weaken the national character and orientation of the Church. They, too, share the fundamental religious idea and value of the saint, but they place the latter closer to the suffering human being than to the extraordinary hero. To that end, they also employ the concept of the ‘Other’, which has been particularly highlighted by postmodernism, connecting it with the traditional religious concern for the poor and the oppressed. In the concluding section, I reflect on whether there is a kind of value-based ‘tug-of-war’ in contemporary Greek Orthodoxy, calling attention to the ideological and social features of the actors that participate in this struggle as well as of the social groups that support them.

2. The Orthodox Church and the Public Sphere

A church, according to Durkheim (1995, pp. 39–44), is a moral community based on shared values, feelings and experiences, which are being produced and reproduced through its system of religious beliefs and rites. From this definition, it flows as consequence that churches have a collective character, which can be fully manifested in the public realm. However, in highly differentiated, contemporary societies the public space becomes the battlefield among opposing ideologies, be it religious or secular. In such a context of ‘polytheism’ of values (Weber 2012b, pp. 314–15), no religious community can assert exclusive right to the control of the public sphere by invoking metaphysical truths or historical claims. As is well known, Western modernity separated religion from the domain of political life and restricted its public influence, while it facilitated various forms of religious individualism. Today, however, traditional Churches are reclaiming or reinforcing their position in the public sphere, even in social milieus where faith was considered to be a private matter. They do this without—with the exception of fundamentalist currents2—questioning the plural character of modern society and the secular orientation of the state.

In comparison with Western Europe, religion in Greece has not become widely privatized. On the contrary, it retains for religious, cultural and historical reasons a prominent position in all domains of public life (e.g., see Makrides 2010, 2013a, 2019; Roudometof 2005; Fokas 2009). As one might expect from an overwhelmingly Orthodox country, there are overnumerous church buildings in cities and in the countryside, which cover the religious needs of the faithful. This situation provides to the Church profound public visibility. It must not be forgotten that religious ceremonies in Greece (e.g., baptisms, marriages, and funerals) are social events that transcend the individual and the family levels—especially in rural areas, where the whole village community participates. Besides, not all religious ceremonies are confined within the walls of the church buildings, but there also many that expand to include the public sphere; for instance, public litanies through which a patron saint is honored or God’s healing protection is requested, especially in times of hardship like the financial and coronavirus pandemic crises (for a recent example, see Kareklas 2021a). Needless to say that religious festivals like Christmas, Easter, and the Feast of Dormition of the Theotokos (‘Mother of God’) are major cultural events, which enhance the central position of the Church in Greek society.

No doubt, religion plays an important role in people’s lives, irrespective of the actual levels of church attendance. Let me mention a characteristic scene that took place during the 2021 Orthodox Easter Liturgy, which was conducted in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens and covered by national broadcaster ERT. More specifically, the moment Archbishop Ieronymos and other hierarchs started chanting from the special platform, which was placed in the square in front of the Cathedral, the saying ‘Christ is Risen’, the military band interrupted them to play the national anthem.3 When the band finished, the hierarchy continued to chant the resurrection hymn. Hierarchs; the President of Greece; politicians; representatives of all the army units dressed in uniform; the laity; church bells ringing; religious chanting; the national anthem: all these religious and secular symbols and practices mixed together in the same ritualized scene, producing and reproducing the so-called ‘ethnodoxy’, namely the conflation of religion and national identity (see Karpov et al. 2012). The intertwinement of Orthodoxy and the Greek national identity is due to historical reasons that have to do with the creation of the modern Greek state and the instrumentalization of the Church for the achievement of national goals. The Church’s active involvement in national struggles reinforced its perception as ‘ark of the nation’ that preserves the core elements of the Greek national identity, namely faith, language, and culture; in a sense, the Church became a ‘kind of legitimate medium not only between the faithful and God but also between the people and the nation’ (Kessareas 2019, p. 72). The strong entanglement between religion and national identity is clearly manifested on the symbolic, constitutional, and ideological levels of life: the national flag depict the cross; the constitution recognizes Orthodoxy as the prevailing religion in Greece and guarantees its organization and dogmas; a sanctification rite performed by the Archbishop marks the beginning of the new term of Hellenic Parliament; belief in Orthodoxy is considered as a conditio sine qua non of genuine ‘Greekness’, represent but a few examples.

Therefore, although Greek civil society is considered to be weak compared to the strength of the market, the state and the family (e.g., see Mouzelis and Pagoulatos 2005), the Church remains rather powerful, since, apart from its religious and social role (e.g., acts of charity), it constitutes a basic ideological institution of the Greek nation-state. It is thus not accidental that the Church diachronically functions as a close ally of the state, supporting the strategic choices of the latter. An excellent example comes from the period of the severe Greek debt crisis, when the Church supported the staying of the country in the eurozone and in the European Union, despite the harsh austerity measures (see Kessareas 2019). The fact that the Church is an important institutional factor can be illustrated by mentioning two contemporary examples: first, the direct conversations between the Prime Minister and the Archbishop (see Enikos.gr 2021) or between the Minister of Health and the Archbishop concerning the Church’s role in the coronavirus pandemic (see Ecclesia.gr 2021); and second, the participation of the Archbishop in the official celebration of the 40th anniversary of Greece’s accession to the European Economic Community at Zappeion palace (see Orthodoxia.info 2021a). It goes without saying that such events are lengthy covered by both religious and secular media, something that enhances Church’s public visibility and influence.

To sum up, the Church has an institutional position of power and exerts great public influence. Belief and worship were never a strictly private matter in Greece. What is more, Orthodox faith is closely intertwined with the national and cultural identity of the Greek collectivity. Therefore, the Church is not outside the public realm; it is already there, vividly present, perceiving the public sphere as its rightful place not only for religious but also for historical reasons. As the Church and individual religious actors address various issues of contemporary social reality, a plurality of religious discourses emerges. However, despite this discursive pluralism, there are common values and ideas that provide coherence. Such a core idea and value is the category of the person. Still, the interpretation and evaluation of this common category may differ. As we will see below, it can take different contents, producing conceptual images that function as signposts to guide human behavior in the world. I shall demonstrate that these images reflect perspectives and aims of ecclesiastical strata that have a different vision regarding the position and role of the Church in the contemporary world. It should be remembered that the following ethnoreligious and Other-oriented categories are ideal-typical constructions; thus, they appear in a much more mixed form in reality (see Weber 2012a, p. 125). Therefore, it would be a mistake to think that there is no interaction between the representatives of the two currents within the church. Obviously, they support the same dogmatic claims and participate in the same sacraments. However, their overall orientation is different, as will be shown below.

3. Saints and Heroes: The Exemplars of the ‘Neomartyr’ and ‘Ethnomartyr’

Both saints and heroes are highly valued in Greek Orthodoxy. Although at first sight they appear to belong to different spheres of life and serve different interests, namely a religious life oriented to God and a secular, this-worldly life respectively, they nevertheless share a common crucial feature that binds them together. But first let us start with the saint.

The saint may be defined theologically as a recipient of God’s grace; a person of strong faith, who lived a way of life according to religious values and ideals such as love, forgiveness, temperance, ascesis, repentance, philanthropy, humility, and simplicity. Saints are promoted in public discourse as exemplars of religious virtue, whom ordinary people should—as much as they can—imitate in order to achieve the highest good of salvation. Their miraculous activity is offered as a proof of their charismatic nature. These are ‘always God’s own people; pure souls, clean, passionate and heroic; souls that fight and win’, in the words of a Greek theologian (Michailidis 2013). As instruments of God, they are perfect intermediates between God and people. This is a crucial factor that explains their great popularity. Consider, for example, the large numbers of believers that visit the Greek island of Tinos in order to worship the Holy Icon of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary or the pilgrims to the tomb of Saint Paisios—a famous Athonite ascetic of the 20th century believed to have prophetic charisma. It bears mention that a new TV series entitled ‘Saint Paisios, From Farasa to Heaven’ is shown on mainstream TV channel MEGA. This series, which are depicted as ‘historical-biographical’, are about ‘a modern Saint. An emblematic figure who enlightened a large number of people with his spiritual speech’, as we read in the official website of the channel.4 Another recent example is the great success of an international movie entitled ‘Man of God’, which depicts the life of modern-day Saint Nektarios; a person who ‘bears the unjust hatred of his enemies while preaching the Word of God’, as it is stated in the movie synopsis.5 Needless to say that such movies constitute a modern way of dissemination of Orthodox values and ideals to wider, religious and non-religious, audiences.

Religious actors steadily refer to saints in their sermons and other public speeches. In so doing, they do not solely aim at honoring them for living a godly life. They also depict them as solutions to contemporary problems like ones that have to do with ‘illnesses, the body fatigue and the soul’, as one archimandrite has stated in his speech at an event on health, prevention, and therapy organized by doctors (Sarantos 2013a). To that aim, they use in their sermons framing vocabulary of the immediate context. For instance, Chrysostomos, Metropolitan of Trikkis (2021) extolled Saint Vissarion, pointing out that ‘through his miracles, he vaccinated and cured people from illnesses and pandemics that existed at that time, since [then] there were no vaccines, doctors and medicines’. This was possible, he goes on to argue, because saint Vissarion had ‘his soul vaccinated with the vaccine of Christ’. Saint Vissarion is not presented as a relic of the past, but as a living figure that can today ‘vaccinate all of us with his grace and eulogy so as not to suffer spiritually’.

Saints are also depicted as true leaders of the people in juxtaposition with politicians, who are criticized as proudly promoting themselves without offering real solutions to people’s problems (see Meliton, Metropolitan of Philadelphia 2013). Saints are also invoked with the aim of denouncing attitudes, which are perceived as deviations from the Orthodox ethos. An interesting example is the theological distinction between the Holy Virgin and the Eve made by Ieronymos, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece (2021) on the occasion of the Feast of Dormition of the Theotokos. More specifically, the Holy Virgin was presented as exemplar of the godly way of life that is based on patience in times of hardship and on strong belief in God. In juxtaposition, Eve was depicted as expressing the ungodly values and attitudes of revolt, disobedience and individual independence. But such theological statements, although they are grounded in the tradition of Christianity, they have a political meaning too, particularly when they are made during heated political periods. Archbishop’s statement was made within the negative for the government political climate caused by the deadly wildfires in Greece. It is in this broader political context that the Archbishop urged people to choose the world of the Holy Virgin (patience) and not that of Eve (political disobedience).

Before moving on to the next conceptualization of the person, it is important to note that the Church has the monopoly of the canonization process by which someone is officially recognized to be a saint. This functions as a control mechanism for securing its power, since it can deny sainthood to those who had challenged its authority. In any case, the saint is part of the Church’s own flesh; thus, it holds a central position in its value system. What about the hero? Heroes enjoy public popularity because they have done great deeds for the common good. This is particularly true for the case of national heroes, who exclusively concern us here. They belong to the worldly realm, for their actions have an immanent orientation. But at the same time they transcend average behavior, as is with the case of saints too. In fact, there is a crucial element that glues them together: the strong belief and impulsion to serve a sacred source of meaning, be it religious (God) or secular (nation). Their behavior constitutes par excellence praxis, that is activity in the world that can reach the highest point of sacrifice for service to God or to fatherland. The sacredness of God and nation, and specifically the belief that God protects his chosen nation, blurs the boundaries between the saint and the hero; they can be treated as a single unity, or, to put it differently, as expressions of the same essence. This is best manifested in the notions of the Neomartyr (New Martyr) and Ethnomartyr (martyr for the nation)6, which have come to denote anyone who offered his/her life in order to defend the Orthodox faith and the Orthodox nation against the religious and national enemy—in the Greek case the Turks. In a paper published in an Orthodox Monastery’s website, a mathematician specifies the meaning of the two terms as follows:

The New Martyrs of the Christ’s Church offered their being and their blood so that the evergreen tree of Orthodoxy and Hellenism becomes a giant […] Many of us conflate the two notions: Neomartyrs and Ethnomartyrs. This is justified, because both groups of people fought for Orthodoxy and for the Freedom of the Greek genos.7 The Neomartyrs had as their first priority to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of bodies and souls. The Ethnomartyrs aimed at liberating the Greek genos, were worshipping the true God and were believers and good Christians.

(Myrgiotis n.d.)

Given the strong link between religion and national identity in Greece, it should come as no surprise that national heroes hold a special position in public discourses of Orthodox actors. This was even more evident in 2021, when Greece celebrated the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the War of Independence in 1821. The Church felt that it was rightfully entitled to organize through the extended network of its Metropolises numerous public events all over Greece in order to honor the independence of Greece and, at the same time, to defend its thesis about its great contribution both to the preservation of the Greek identity during the Ottoman period and to the creation of the modern nation-state against those who question its role. In so doing, the Church made emphatically the point that it is not merely a partner of the state but the crucial agent of national consciousness.

A few examples may suffice to demonstrate Church’s active involvement in the public sphere on the occasion of these celebrations. From the early beginning, it organized in its official website a special thematic unit concerning its role during the National Revolution, taking advantage of all the modern social means of communication, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.8 The main image on this website aptly illustrates the bond between religion and nation: national heroes, holding the flag with the cross, kneel on the holy floor of the church and before the Bishop Germanos of Old Patras, who blesses them and their weapons. Above all stands the icon of the Christ—a signification that God himself blesses the struggle for national freedom. On a subsite, the phrase ‘Mother of God, Invincible General of the Genos’ stands at the center of a waving Greek flag, surrounded by links that lead to images of national heroes and Neomartyrs.9 One look at the Church’s official programme for the 2021 celebrations is enough to reveal the importance assigned to nation by the Church (see Holy Synod 2021). To name only a few of these initiatives: the Holy Synod issued a relevant Encyclical that was read in all the churches; the Archbishop addressed the people via the television; liturgies were conducted to commemorate great national events of the War of Independence like the Chios massacre (1822) and the Exodus of Mesolongi (1826); scientific conferences were organized about the contribution of the clergy in the national struggle and about the preservation of the national identity during the Ottoman period; special memorial services were offered for Neomartyrs and Ethnomartyrs; a national youth assembly was organized, as well as panhellenic conferences with catechetical goals like the one entitled ‘How are we going to transmit to our youth the spirit and the vision of 1821’.

The Church also organized together with the Administration of Attica a public concert at the Panathenaic Stadium of Athens, in which not only youth choirs of Metropolises but also well-known singers participated. The poster of the event conveys the message that religion and nation in Greece form an inseparable unity, as it depicts national heroes, who hold Greek flags with the cross and the icon of Christ, while above them there is the phrase ‘…for the Faith and the Freedom’ (see Orthodoxia.info 2021b). Ieronymos, Archbishop (2021a) made the following statement: ‘Our ancestors of the 1821 epoch sacrificed themselves, because they have so much believed in their vision that they made it a reality: A life of freedom and with a mode of life based on the spirituality and the teachings of the Orthodox Christian faith’, adding that the concert ‘will fill our hearts with Christ and Fatherland’. This unity is also the central message of TV spots made by Metropolises. Two indicative examples are the spot of the Holy Metropolis of Messinia (2021) and the one made by Apostoli (2021), the Filanthropic NGO of the Holy Archdiocese of Athens. In the latter, well-known actors play famous national heroes, stressing that their desire for national freedom was based on their strong belief in Orthodoxy. At the same time, the viewer hears music, which is a ‘simulation of the Cherubic Hymn sung in the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople’, as the spot’s description specifies.

It is instructive to recall that Hagia Sophia remains in the Greek collective imagination both a religious and national symbol, since the Byzantine Empire is perceived to be one of the greatest accomplishments of the Greek Nation throughout its historical course from ancient to modern times. A recent illustrative manifestation of this belief is a video made by the Greek Armed Forces, which was projected on the Greek Parliament façade on 21 November 2020 (see Hellenic Parliament TV 2020). The choice of the day is not accidental; it is both the Armed Forces Day and the popular religious feast of the Entry of the Holy Theotokos into the Temple. The video presents great war events from the Classical, Byzantine, and Modern periods of history; thus, it reproduces the ideology of an uninterrupted national continuity: the battle of Marathon (490 BC); the ‘ygro pyr’ [liquid fire] weapon that was developed by the Byzantines in the 7th century; the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829); the Macedonian Struggle (1904–1908); the First World War (1914–1918); the Greco-Italian War of 1940, as well as images that stress the current military strength of Greece. But even more noteworthy as regards the bond between religion and politics was the projection of the icon of Holy Virgin (patron saint of the Greek Armed forces), holding the Christ child, and accompanied by images and sounds of church bells, at the center of the Greek Parliament. The message is clear: Theotokos (a religious symbol) is protectress of the Parliament (symbol of secular democracy); thus, religion and the Church not only cannot be separated from the public political domain, but there are also vital for a safe state. This reminds us the perception of Theotokos as protectress of the Byzantine walls and of Constantinople in general, which bore the characteristic name of ‘Theotokoupolis’, that is ‘city of the mother of God’ (see Tomadaki 2021). However, now this depiction is being reproduced in the totally different historical environment of secular modernity (Figure 1):

It is unsurprising, then, that both the Church and the Ministry of Education supported an anniversary edition entitled ‘The Neomartyrs of the Genos’. Apostoliki Diakonia (2021), the official publishing house of the Church, advertises this book as follows:

The struggle of the Greeks was conducted for ‘the Christ’s holy faith and for the freedom of the fatherland’, as the fighters of 1821 were confessing. It is thus not only about a national anniversary, but about the conjunction, interpenetration, the common route and undisturbed unity between Hellenism and Orthodoxy. The holy Neomartyrs, who were the soul of the [national] struggle, express this truth.

The Archbishop characterized this edition as a ‘fruit of Church’s love towards the Fatherland’, and the Neomartyrs as the ‘soul of the heroic struggles of the Genos’ (see Loudaros 2021). Neomartyres become the distinctive feature of ‘our’ Greek Orthodox identity in juxtaposition to Western Europeans, who are bearers of the spirit of the Enlightnment. Ieronymos, Archbishop (2021b) stressed this point as follows:

We have the Neomartyrts. Those who were massacred. Those who were martyred [...] The [Greek] Revolution is the offspring of the Kaltezon Monastery, where the monks and the representatives of the people declared: ‘We fight for the holy Christ’s faith and for the Freedom of the Fatherland’ [...] Of course, when the Europeans saw this enthusiasm, they were moved and helped us, but the Revolution of 1821 is not a product of the Western European spirit, of liberalism. It is our own product.

For the advocates of this outlook, the nation cannot be conceived without its ‘Mother’, that is Orthodoxy. As a politician of the conservative New Democracy party, who is also General Secretary of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy, has stated: ‘the heroic ‘covered in blood rhassa [cassocks]’ have indelibly put their stamp on the liberation of the nation and mainly on the preservation of the Greek national consciousness during periods of immense crisis’ (see Charakopoulos 2021). Overall, a sense of uniqueness or superiority of the Orthodox values lies at the heart of the problematic relation of Orthodox Christianity with modernity that has been pointed out by many scholars (e.g., Makrides 2012).

It will be sufficient to mention two last examples from the broader area of Greek Orthodoxy that show the conflation of faith and nation. The first concerns the decision of the Cyprus Air Forces to place on uniforms a logo that bears the flag of the Cypriot fighters of 1821 and the image of Archbishop Kyprianos on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his martyrdom (see Kareklas 2021b). On the same logo, a verse from the poem ‘9 July 1821’ composed by Cypriot poet Vasilis Michailides expresses the ideology of the undefeated spirit of Greek Orthodoxy: ‘Romiosini will vanish, when the world ends’.10 The second example concerns the temporary disruption of relations between the political leaders of Greece and Cyprus, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Nikos Anastasiadis, on the one side, and Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, on the other side, which occurred when the latter attended the inauguration of the ‘House of Turkey’ in New York, together with President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar. Archbishop’s presence at this event was perceived as an act of public offence, which endangered the national interests of Greece and Cyprus, for Turkey could use it as an indirect recognition of Tatar. The relations were finally restored when the Archbishop provided explanations, which were welcomed by the President of the Republic of Cyprus as a kind of ‘apology’ (see Kathimerini 2021). The reaction of all the persons involved in this incident was in complete accordance with the perception of the Orthodox Church as an auxiliary agency of the state that has to serve the interests of Hellenism. Even Elpidophoros, Archbishop of America (2021) himself stated: ‘I am fully aligned with our national center regarding all our national issues, as always, as all my predecessors, and I am ready to contribute to the promotion of our national issues’. These examples clearly show the strong entanglement between Orthodoxy and the Greek nation, which is true even for a Church of the so-called diaspora that functions within a multicultural and multinational environment like that of the USA. In this regard, there is nothing to be wondered at about the choice of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini to cover this incident within its ‘Foreign policy’ section.

There is no doubt that nationalism had (and still has) a great impact on Orthodox Christianity.11 Despite the ecumenical character of the latter, Orthodox Churches have so much engaged in the ideology of nationalism that they ‘have undergone a considerable degree of de-Christianization in their values’, as Kitromilides (2019, p. 110) has noted. Makrides (2013b) has pointed out a number of crucial endogenous historical factors that contributed to the strong connection between Orthodoxy and national identity; for instance, the close church-state relations; the principle of autocephaly in the Orthodox East; the impact of Orthodoxy on the processes of ethnogenesis, indigenization and vernacularization; the interconnection among the notions of church, people and fatherland. The central position of national heroes and martyrs in contemporary Orthodox discourses reveals that the official Church still understands its role as ‘ark of the nation’, despite the structural and ideological changes that have taken place under globalization (e.g., market economy, civil society, multiculturalism, individualism, transnationalism). No doubt, the negative consequences of globalization (e.g., economic inequality, democratic deficit, continuous crises of various kinds) have played a crucial role in the emergence of nationalistic tendencies all over the world, and particularly in the most severely affected countries. The Orthodox Churches in such countries are perceived of and utilized as valuable sources of national identity and pride against the processes of globalization and multiculturalism. This is particularly true for the fundamentalist currents that exist within the religious field (see Kessareas 2018). These religious hardliners see the person and the Greek nation as organic unity created by God in order to play a leading role in humanity’s salvation, which in their mind is equated with the Orthodoxization of the whole world. It is worth quoting at length a passage that expresses this spirit of idealism and organic nationalism:

Yes, the Greek [nation] was born by the favor of divine providence to become the teacher for humankind; this task was assigned to it; this was its mission; this was its calling among the nations; Martyrdom is its national history; martyrdom is its philosophy; martyrdom is its calling; martyrdom are its gentle dispositions; martyrdom is its global history; martyrdom is its longevity, from which we can infer its eternity so as to serve the eternal mission of Christianity, with which Hellenism was connected […] Only the Greek [nation] remained as an actor on the global stage throughout all the ages […] Finally, martyrdom is its election among the nations by divine providence, as it was entrusted with the holy heritage, the holy faith […] the eternal work of salvation through the transformation of the entire humankind according to the principles of the revealed religion. This work was truly assigned to the Greek race […] The Greek Nation was truly called for this task from the founding of the world […] God under His divine providence molded it as an eye of the body that is being constituted upon the whole humankind; the Greek was called as an organ of this body to work for the task of rebirth.

(Sarantos 2013b, p. 7)

Summing up our findings: the official Church (re)produces a religious ideology based on the ideas and values of the saint and the hero. The figure of Neomartyr/Ethnomartyr is promoted as exemplar of heroic attitude on behalf of both the Orthodox faith and nation perceived as a sacred unity. This religious ideology is in complete consonance with the broader secular ideology of the diachronic continuity of the Greek civilization; however, it shifts the emphasis from classical antiquity to Byzantium due to obvious reasons. Overall, these actors extol the Orthodox character of the Greek nation and pursue for the Church a dominant role not only in society but also in the state apparatus on the grounds of its contribution to the national struggles as well as on an idealized perception of the Byzantine Empire. This is even more the case with the so-called ‘ultra-conservatives’ or ‘fundamentalists’, who fully embrace nationalistic ideas and visions. However, the central place of this religious ideology does not preclude the emergence of antagonistic schemes of thought, as we will see below.

4. Saints and the ‘Other’: In Search of Creative Syntheses

Religious and lay actors of a more liberal spirit attempt to forge a middle way between those who identify the Church with the Greek nation and those who equate secularization with the privatization of religion. In contrast to the first, who pursue the total Orthodoxization of state and society on the grounds of the historical and cultural hegemony of Orthodoxy in Greece, but also in contrast to the second, who invoke the secular character of modernity in order to minimize the influence of the Church not only on the state but also on society, the proponents of the middle path embrace the values of pluralism and multiculturalism, urging for a constructive presence of the Church in the public sphere. As regards the issue of church-state relations, their response is not uniform. In general, they reject the absolute separation of church and state, supporting instead a form of relationship that will reflect the specific features of Greek society but without any violation of the constitutional principles and rights upon which a liberal and democratic state is based.

As one might expect, these actors too espouse the fundamental religious idea and value of the saint. However, they do not promote the condition of sainthood as a solution to every aspect of contemporary life or juxtapose it to secular science, as ultra-conservatives often do. The refusal of the latter to be vaccinated and wear masks, or even their uncritical devotion towards the existing mode of distribution of holy communion with a single shared spoon during the coronavirus pandemic are prime examples in this regard. For the proponents of the middle path, the state of grace does not transform the saint into a magician who can solve all people’s problems, while they themselves remain passive recipients. Rather, Christians are advised to use their intelligence and actively participate in public affairs. Thus, socio-political activity becomes in their discourses the key factor that can bridge the gap between the Christian and the citizen in the context of modern liberal democracy. Moreover, these actors do not overemphasize the prophetic charismata of the saints. Instead they shift the focus on qualities that also ordinary people have, such as love. By bringing the saint down to a level that is closer to ordinary people, they attempt to break the unity between the saint and the extraordinary hero we have analyzed in the previous action. Of course, their goal is not to question the importance of national heroes or to disregard the associated sentiments of the Greek people. What they want is to weaken the national orientation of the institutional Church as a necessary presupposition for its creative presence in the liberal public sphere. To achieve this, they employ in their discourses the concept of the ‘Other’, namely a core value in modern pluralistic societies, which they link to the traditional religious value of the neighbor. In this synthesis, the ‘Other’ is any person or group that has a different identity (e.g., national, religious, sexual one) from ‘our’ own, and in most cases is in need (e.g., immigrants and refugees). This ‘stranger’ becomes the neighbor of the Gospel, whom Christians ought to love and take care of.

An excellent example of the attempt to shift the center of gravity of the Church away from the nation and towards the ordinary ‘Other’ are four round tables organized by Volos Academy for Theological Studies in September of 2021 (see Volos Academy 2021). The titles of these meetings are characteristic in this respect: ‘We and the “other”: Facts and perspectives for Hellenism and Orthodoxy’; ‘The formation of the Modern Greek identity in Greece of today and tomorrow’; ‘The secularization of the State and society and the witness of the Church’, and ‘Islam in Greece and Europe’. Although these events were organized within the framework of the National Committee ‘Greece 2021’,12 namely as part of the celebrations for the anniversary of 200 years since the Greek Revolution of 2021, their orientation is quite different from the ones we have seen in the previous section. As it is stated in the public announcement of these four tables:

These meetings will examine the general attitude of religion and particularly of Greek Orthodoxy towards the “other,” focusing on the transformations of the country in the next 20 years, anticipating that this debate will contribute to a sustainable model of understanding and coexistence of religions and cultures and, ultimately, to a sustainable world, starting from the wider geographical area of the Balkans and the Mediterranean, and its possible forms by 2040.

(Volos Academy 2021)

Even the poster for these meetings is indicative of a reflexive, namely not mechanistic, stance towards tradition. More precisely, it is a painting of Nikos Eggonopoulos, one of the first surrealist poets of Greece, who belonged to the so-called “Generation of 1930s”—a group of writers, poets, artists and other intellectuals, who attempted to renew tradition by introducing elements of modernism.13 The underlying message of the poster is that religious tradition can and must have an open and fruitful relation with modernity and the secular world (Figure 2):

No doubt, the Volos Academy represents a liberal trend within the Greek Orthodox religious field; it functions ‘as an open forum of thought and dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the broader scholarly community of intellectuals worldwide’, as it is stated on its official website.14 For instance, it collaborates with the internationally renowned Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University,15 as they are both motivated by a desire to bring Orthodox theology and the Church into a constructive dialogue with modernity and the secular world. ‘Openness’, ‘inclusion’, ‘pluralism’, ‘minorities’, ‘modernity’, ‘postmodernity’, ‘human rights’, ‘multiple secularities’, ‘public space’, ‘coexistence’, ‘dialogue’, ‘sustainability’ constitute core values of the representatives of this theological current, who are in complete opposition to the so-called religious fundamentalists. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, director of Volos Academy, is a prominent promoter of these values within the Greek religious field. His speech at the third of the round tables mentioned above is an illustrative case in this respect. According to Kalaitzidis (2021a) the Church “cannot respond to the challenges of secularization, pluralism, modernity and postmodernity with the answers of the past, with the idealization of previous cultural formations or with the defense of a supposed ‘Christian’ civilization”. Rather, it needs to develop new ‘creative syntheses’ that will best serve its core spiritual and eschatological role in today’s pluralistic societies.

Therefore, these actors envision a Church that draws its power and prestige not from its structural position in the state or from its national role, but from its ecclesiastical activity in the world. For them, the Church should address not only the community of its believers or a specific nation but also the ‘Other’, not with the aim to proselytize but to serve him/her as a sacred person, fully respecting his/her own identity. For Kalaitzidis (2021b) the “challenge of pluralism urgently poses to Church and theology the issue of alterity; the relation with the ‘other’, who is the icon of the par excellence ‘Other’. Orthodoxy is, thus, invited to formulate and articulate a theology of alterity and of identity”. However, despite the critique to the institutionalization and nationalization of the Church, the representatives of this current are not in favor of the complete separation of church and state, something that clearly differentiates them from those who may be designated as modernizers. They do accept the need for further institutional or symbolic changes, but for them the French model of church-state relations not only does not correspond to the historical conditions of Greece but also can be dangerous, for, according to Kalaitzidis (2021a), without the ‘institutional brake of the democratic state’ fundamentalist, undemocratic currents may push the Church into following their own vision. In the case of hierarchical leaders, the hesitation towards change of church-state relations is even more evident. For instance, Anthimos, Metropolitan of Alexandroupolis (2021), who participated in the Volos Academy meetings mentioned above, stated that the ‘state needs to have a dominant [dioikousa] spirituality’ and respect the ‘self-identity of the majority’. Although he stressed emphatically that this must be done ‘without affecting any minority, any religion, any cultural tradition’, his reference to those ‘newcomers who are imbued with a desire to Islamize the country’ and his statement that ‘we will not impose the faith but we will impose the spiritual tradition of this land’ can be interpreted as attempts the Church to retain its prominent position in Greek state and society—they are expressions of what Karpov et al. (2012, p. 642) refer to as ‘privilege and protection seeking’.

To return to the lay actors of this current, they mainly belong to a younger generation of theologians, who have studied abroad and retain connections with academic institutions in the West. Although they do not represent the prevailing current of theological thought within the church, they have managed, through their public initiatives (e.g., conferences, publications), their connections with high-ranking officials and promotion of their views via digital media platforms, to attract attention—it is no accident that the ultra-conservatives launch a fierce attack against these internal antagonists, who are perceived to pose a threat to their ‘traditional’ values. As the change-oriented actors possess high social and cultural capital, to use Bourdieu’s (1986) term, they are able to move easily between theology and social theory, employing from the latter concepts in their attempt to adjust Orthodox theology to the multicultural and democratic context of (post)modernity. For instance, they marry the notion of the ‘Other’ with the religious value of the neighbor: ‘Theology can only work to update the message of the Gospel which has at its core the unconditional love for each other, for the neighbor who is an image of the truly “Other”’—in the words of the deputy director of the Volos Academy, Asproulis (2021). These ‘inheritors’ of the theological generation of the 60’s retain in their discourses the Orthodox perception of personhood, but they disconnect it from the anti-westernism and Byzantinism of that generation. They do this by linking the person to the modern notion of the ‘Other’. For instance, Asproulis (2021) underlines the need to ‘remember in our encounter with the “other” the imperatives of the theology of the person, recognizing the “other” as a constituent element of ourselves’. This attitude is considered vital so as the Eucharist not to be mere ritualism, but to ‘inspire and incarnate the spirit of sharing, justice, and hospitality or teach through the renewing and liberating ecclesiastical ethos how to welcome the otherness of the “other”’ (Asproulis2021). Thus, for these actors, the Church’s position is in the area of civil society, but under the presupposition that it will fully accept and support the pluralistic and democratic character of the latter, which means that it will not attempt to impose its own religious beliefs and moral positions by invoking its glorious past or its contemporary cultural dominance (see Papanikolaou 2017).

5. Conclusions

Various clerical and lay actors develop a plethora of public discourses in order to express their outlook and legitimize their proposals. Although they employ common ideas and concepts, they give a different meaning to them according to their own vision about the Church’s role in the contemporary world. This vision is not independent from their own position in the religious field and in society at large, as well as from their broader ideological preferences. The result is a kind of value-based ‘tug of war’, in which every participant tries to pull the Church into his own preferred direction, employing for this reason both legitimization and delegitimization strategies. However, this does not mean that all involved actors have the same power: the number of the supporters of each current and, more importantly, their occupational position in the religious field; old values ‘sacralized’ through time and tradition; new values that are fashionable; the external historical conditions; the broader political ideologies (e.g., nationalism, globalization)—are some crucial factors that can determine or at least influence the outcome of this struggle.

As regards the Church in Greece, the ecclesiastical hierarchy continues to understand the Church not only in religious but also in national terms, namely as ‘ark of the nation’. Hence, it places great emphasis on the ‘Neomartyrs’ and ‘Ethnomartyrs’, promoting them as exemplars of sacrifice towards both the faith and the fatherland. These figures are casted as charismatic symbols that prove the transformative power of the Orthodox faith, which raises human beings above the ordinary average level to that of the pantheon of religious and national heroism. In the case of ultra-conservatives, this outlook takes nationalistic features: the figures of saint and hero embody the essence of the Orthodox Greek Nation, which is chosen by God to act for the salvation (Orthodoxization) of the whole world. Consequently, for these actors, the Church rightfully has a prominent place not only in society but also in the state. Evoking an idealized past (mostly Byzantium), these agents express their dissatisfaction about the secularization process, which they perceive as a threat both to religion and to the nation. For them, the modern distinction between believer and citizen is a chimera, for faith represents the category of totality, encompassing all the other (partial) identities.

On the other hand, a new generation of theologians is motivated by a strong desire to weaken the national orientation of the Church, so as to open it to the context of (post)modernity. To that end, they oppose the mythologization of the past and the essentialist perception of tradition. At the same time, they search for ‘creative syntheses’ between tradition and modernity so as to retain the core dogmatic beliefs and ritual practices but without denying the basic tenets of modern Western society such as democracy, pluralism, institutional differentiation, scientific knowledge, and critical reflection of the past. For instance, they believe that the liberal democratic state with its legal framework of human rights provides a fertile ground for the protection of every human being as an image of God. They do accept the importance of the saints, however they place the emphasis not so much on the prophetic charisma of the latter, but on their devotion to the needs of the ordinary people. To that aim, they also introduce the modernist and postmodernist concept of the ‘Other’, which they connect to the traditional religious value of the neighbor. Therefore, for these actors, the Church belongs first and foremost in the area of civil society, where it should address the needs not only of its believers but also of every human being, particularly the ‘strangers’ who are in extreme need.

But this struggle is not just between opposing visions about the Church’s position and role within a pluralistic society. Ideas are not like ‘the Clouds’ of Aristophanes; they correspond to the living conditions of specific ecclesiastical and social strata. If we take into account the professional and social characteristics of the carriers of the different discourses we find clues to support the claim that actors, mostly of a younger generation, who possess high intellectual and social capital (e.g., foreign university degrees, collaborations with academic institutions in Western Europe and the USA) and who usually do not occupy a high ecclesiastical position, are bearers of the spirit of modernity, understanding the category of the person as the ‘Other’. On the other hand, those who belong to an older generation and normally belong to dominant constituent ecclesiastical groups have internalized the ethnoreligious ideology that secures their privileged position. Of course, this is merely a sketch that illustrates basic tendencies. Further sociological research is also needed for the examination of the exact preferences of specific social categories: see how the upper and middle strata of higher education, as well as strata that experience or face the danger to be downgraded to a subordinate social position, perceive the ‘Other’ public discourse and the national role of the Church.