Greece, Orthodox Church of
JAMES C. SKEDROS
The Church of Greece is an autocephalous Orthodox Church headed by an archbishop (of Athens) and a holy synod, with jurisdiction over the majority of Orthodox Christians living in the modern state of Greece.
Christianity in the Greek peninsula dates back to apostolic times and has its origin in the missionary activity of Apostle Paul. The very names of his New Testament epistles attest to the earliest of the churches, such as those at Corinth, Thes- salonica, or Philippi. He preached at the Areopagus in Athens. Intermittent historical references and limited archeological finds attest to the presence of Greekspeaking Christian communities on mainland Greece during the first three centuries of the universal church’s life. From the 4th through the early 8th centuries, Greece and its islands (Illyricum) were under the ecclesiastical authority of Rome, with the metropolitan of Thessaloniki serving as papal vicar for the region. From ca. 730 onwards, Greece came within the ecclesial orbit of the patriarchate of Constantinople and its cultural, linguistic, and liturgical identity became firmly rooted in the Eastern Christian tradition. During the medieval and Ottoman periods, the institutional organization of Christianity in Greece remained under the auspices of Constantinople.
AUTOCEPHALY AND THE YOUNG GREEK NATION, 1821–1852
The history of the Orthodox Church of Greece, as distinct from the patriarchate of Constantinople, begins with the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece shortly after the declaration of Greek independence from Ottoman rule in 1821. The first constitution of revolutionary Greece (1822) identified “Hellenes” as “those who believe in Christ.” Important leaders of revolutionary Greece, among them Adamantios Koraes and Theokletos Pharmakides, argued that an independent Greek nation must also have an independent church free from the control of the patriarch of Constantinople, who lived at that time under Ottoman suzerainty. In 1833 the Greek state unilaterally declared the Church of Greece autocephalous. However, spiritual, historical, and ecclesiastical ties with Constantinople ran deep, and the patriarchate, though not without limitations and challenges, was the most important institution for worldwide Greek religious and ethnic identity. A break with Constantinople would be, for many, a break from Orthodox Christian roots extending back fifteen hundred years. National consciousness and Greek identity were not limited to the territorial boundaries of independent Greece (Attica, the Peloponnese, and the Cycladic and Sporadic Islands). The church, with its epicenter at Constantinople, was the one Hellenic institution of the medieval and Ottoman worlds that continued to function. The Ottomans, for their part, understood this only too well, and in retaliation for the Greek revolt, in April of 1821 Patriarch Gregory V was executed by hanging outside the main gate of the patriarchate in Constantinople.
Early post-revolutionary Greek governments were supportive of the church, although many Greek political leaders who had been educated in the West were critical of the backwardness of the church and the relative isolation of its leadership, even though a number of clergy and bishops had died in the struggle for independence. Western powers appointed Otto, a Bavarian prince and a Roman Catholic, to be the first to head the new Kingdom of Greece, and to oversee the creation of a constitutional monarchy to rule over it. Otto brought with him Bavarian officials, in particular George von Maurer, a German Protestant, respected lawyer, professor, and bureaucrat. Von Maurer and Pharmakides were instrumental in drawing up the Ecclesiastical Charter of 1833 which served as a blueprint for the organization of the Church of Greece and its relationship to the state. The charter declared the Church of Greece autocephalous, with the head of the church being Jesus Christ. At the time of its publication, the patriarchate of Constantinople rejected outright this unilateral declaration of autocephaly. According to the charter, the Church of Greece was to be governed by a permanent synod, “The Holy Synod of the Kingdom of Greece,” consisting of a president and two to four additional members. All members, including the president, were appointed by the government and served for terms of one year. The synod served under the remit of the authority of the ministry of ecclesiastical affairs. Additionally, a government official assigned to the synod had the right to submit petitions to it, and no decision or action of the synod could take place without the presence of this governmental procurator. This constitution greatly curtailed the authority of individual Greek bishops. The king was constitutionally “the highest ecclesiastical authority” but transferred this authority to the permanent holy synod.
One of the first acts of the newly created synod was the consolidation of monastic communities and the expropriation of monastic properties by the state. Any monastery that had fewer than six monks was closed; all female monasteries were closed with the exception of three, one each for the Peloponnese, the islands, and mainland Greece. Donations to monasteries were prohibited and property belonging to the closed monasteries was confiscated in order to pay for a (non-existent) state educational system. Very little of the assets taken were ever used for this purpose, most of them disappearing through corruption and theft. Of the 563 monastic settlements in the newly independent state of Greece (of which 18 were female monasteries), no fewer than 412 were dissolved. The monasteries that remained lost any autonomy they once had; their finances were now directly controlled by regional governmental officials to whom taxes on landed property were paid.
The State Constitution of 1844, the first issued under the monarchy, acknowledged that the Church of Greece was “united by an indissoluble bond to the Great Church of Constantinople,” but remained “autonomous and exercises independently of any church its rights of sovereignty.” In addition, the constitution stated that all future monarchs after Otto must be Orthodox Christians. Not all Greeks favored the autocephalous status of the Church of Greece. Many identified with the larger Greek Orthodox world, the majority of which still resided outside of the territories of independent Greece. A popular resistance movement argued against independence from Constantinople and the imposition of a non-Orthodox monarch. Opposition was fueled by itinerant lay and monastic preachers, among whom was the popular monk Christophoros Papoulakos. After lengthy and tension-ridden negotiations, on June 29, 1850 the patriarchate of Constantinople formally granted auto- cephaly to the Church of Greece. A series of Greek legislative decisions in 1852 affirmed the recognition of autocephaly by Constantinople though keeping the essential organization of the church the same; one important change was to put in place the archbishop of Athens as the ex officio president of the permanent five- member synod. In addition, the 1852 Ecclesiastical Charter acknowledged the state’s right to confirm the appointment of bishops and priests and to administer church property. The Church of Greece during this early period lacked enlightened leadership and was profoundly beholden to the state.
FROM AUTOCEPHALY TO THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY
During the second half of the 19th century the Church of Greece faced four major challenges: the activity and influence of foreign missionaries, the expansion of the borders of independent Greece, the lack of education of both clergy and laity, and the ongoing problem of simony. Within the first few years following the declaration of Greek independence, western missionaries were active in Greece. Early on, they established schools for Greek children. In Athens, the well-known Anglican missionary John Hill established an all-girls school. Schools were also established on the islands of Aigina and Syros. Protestant religious materials were translated into Modern Greek, many of which were adopted as required textbooks for state schools. A Modern Greek translation of the Bible by Neophytos Vamvas, a Greek Orthodox cleric and professor at the University of Athens, was first published in 1850 and was adopted as a primary text for schools. There was strong opposition to the imposition of a translation of the Bible into demotic Greek, primarily out of a fear that such a move reflected the westernization or Protestan- tization of the church. The institution of the Sunday school was also introduced by western missionaries.
Irredentist desires of the fledgling Greek state were realized twice during the latter half of the 19th century. As a demonstration of support to the Greek state for their acceptance of the newly imposed King George I, England ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1864. In 1881 the Greek nation added additional territories in Thessaly and parts of Epirus which were formerly under Ottoman control. The added territories were tangible expressions of the dominant foreign policy of the Greek nation, namely, the expansion of free Greece to include all
Greek Orthodox peoples in historically Greek lands, the vast majority of which were presently in Ottoman hands. Known as the Megali Idea (“Great Idea”), this vision of incorporating unredeemed Greeks was connected, for some, with the hope of recreating the Byzantine Empire.
The involvement of the government in the election and appointment ofbishops to metropolitan sees remained commonplace. For the election of new hierarchs, the holy synod would produce a list of three candidates from which the king, in consultation with the government, would choose the new metropolitan or bishop. One particularly damaging episode occurred in 1874 and resulted in the downfall of the Greek prime minister. That year, bureaucrats of the ministry of ecclesiastical affairs received bribes for the election of candidates to four Greek metropolitan sees. The plot became public and parliament created a special court to try the governmental officials for bribery and the bishops for simony. The court fined the bishops double the money they had paid as bribes. This affair reaffirmed the distrust of the laity towards the official church.
The education of clergy was one of the acute challenges of the Greek Church after the early days of independence. The University of Athens was founded in 1837 with four faculties: theology, medicine, law, and philosophy. The faculty of theology functioned independent of church authority. Though imperative to counter the presence and efforts of western missionaries, the Theological School, as it was popularly known, was based on western models of theological education and had a limited impact on the majority of Orthodox Christians, focusing mainly on the training of theologians and scholars. From its founding until 1904, no class ever graduated more than three students. In 1844 the Rizarios ecclesiastical school was established in Athens for the education of priests. By 1864, four additional schools for the education of future clergy were established at Chalkida, Tripoli, Syros, and Kerkyra. These schools were essentially secondary schools offering predominantly practical (liturgical) training for future clergy.
FROM 1900 TO 1940
During the first quarter of the 20th century Greece continued its policy of territorial expansion. In 1905 Crete proclaimed union with Greece. The Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 resulted in additional gains. Greece added nearly 70 percent to its land area through the acquisition of southern Macedonia, Ioannina, Thrace, and some northern Aegean islands, and its population nearly doubled in this period to 4.8 million. These “New Lands,” as they were called, had been historically under the jurisdiction of the ecumenical patriarchate. World War I brought with it immense political turmoil. The “National Schism” of 1915 between the supporters of the popular and charismatic Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and the “royalists” who supported the monarchy affected the church as well. In
the pro-Venizelist Metropolitan Meletios Metaxakis became archbishop of Athens, only to be replaced in November of 1920 after the fall of the Venizelist government and the return of the king. Metaxakis was an important and controversial figure. He supported ecumenical dialogue, inaugurating official discussions with the Church of England and personally arguing for a Greek Orthodox acknowledgment of Anglican ordinations.
1918 The defeat of the Axis Powers in 1918 dismantled the Ottoman Empire. In May 1919 Greek forces landed in Smyrna and occupied the area. Two years later, Greece went on the offensive in mainland Turkey, only to be eventually defeated, with Turkey occupying Smyrna. The military disaster of 1922 in Asia Minor, and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, led to the relocation of some 1.1 million Greek Orthodox Christians from Smyrna and its surrounding areas to independent Greece, and 380,000 Muslims residing in Greece were transferred to Turkey. This exchange of populations created immense economic, political, and social challenges for the church. With the arrival of the Asia Minor refugees, the church’s role in the formation of a national Greek identity intensified. This is reflected in the change of the title of the archbishop of Athens who, according to the Ecclesiastical Charter of 1923, was now to be called “Archbishop of Athens and all Greece.” Additionally, the five-member synod was abolished and the highest governing authority of the church became its complete hierarchy, which was required to gather synodically every three years. For administrative purposes, and in order to keep in check the authority of the archbishop, a permanent holy synod of the Church of Greece consisting of eight members plus the archbishop was established. For the next fifty years the archbishop of Athens became more visibly involved in Greek national affairs.
The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the New Lands was settled with the Patriarchal and Synodical Act of 1928. Accordingly, the ecumenical patriarchate, which held jurisdiction over these areas, granted the metropolitans of these regions the freedom to participate fully in the life of the Church of Greece, to sit on the permanent holy synod, and to participate in the institutional organizations of the church. However, Constantinople retained the right to approve all elections of metropolitans in the New Lands. The metropolises on the island of Crete obtained more freedom than their counterparts in the New Lands, with the Church of Crete, whose metropolitans were not members of the holy synod of the Church of Greece, recognized as semi-autonomous church leaders under Constantinople.
Changes in the organizational structure of the Greek Church were met with additional moves that had significant impact on the faithful. In 1919 the government of Venizelos adopted the use of the Gregorian calendar (New Calendar) for civil purposes. Within the Orthodox world, discussions regarding the replacement of the Julian calendar, which lagged 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar used by Western Christians, had been going on since 1902. In April 1923 the Church of Greece, following the lead of the ecumenical patriarchate, accepted the New Calendar and, one year later, on March 10, 1924, the Church of Greece’s ecclesiastical calendar was suddenly advanced to become March 23. The calendar change met with some resistance, and unfortunately the state resorted to the use of force to ensure the adoption of the new calendar among some communities. In 1935 three Greek metropolitans came together and ordained new metropolitans for the Old Calendarist movement in Greece, giving the movement an identifiable hierarchy. The movement has since fragmented, though it still claims the loyalty of many.
WORLD WAR II, CIVIL WAR, AND DICTATORSHIP
World War II and the Greek Civil War (1943–9) unleashed a period of personal and national suffering unmatched in the history of the Greek nation. With the Axis occupation of Greece complete by April 1941, the archbishop of Athens, Chrysanthos, refused to participate in the swearing in of a provisional government under German control and was replaced by the hierarch Damaskinos. Although not liked by all (Churchill once called him “a pestilent priest, a remnant from the Middle Ages”) Damaskinos worked hard to alleviate the incomparable suffering of the Greek people. He created the National Organization of Christian Solidarity to provide social welfare to his needy faithful, many of whom were dying of starvation. He protected Jewish families in Athens from the Nazis. He became the most visible of Greek citizens as he interacted with the various Greek political factions, the occupying forces, and the British. At the end of the war, he was appointed regent (December 1944-September 1946). He was criticized for his ambition, but he provided needed leadership and bravery at a time of crisis. In one of his last moves he placed the Greek clergy on the public payroll as a means of improving their economic condition.
As early as 1943, Greece became embroiled in an internal struggle between leftists and rightists seeking political influence and power. The struggle turned into a bitter civil war after the defeat of the Germans in 1944. The church leadership sided with the British and Americans against the leftist and communist groups and eventually purged the church of clergy who had supported the leftist groups. Along with the Axis occupation, the Civil War caused the widespread destruction of churches and monastic property. The decades of the fifties and sixties saw the rebuilding of many of these ecclesiastical edifices, along with a large-scale urbanization occurring throughout the country.
Indicative of church-state relations during this period was the permanent synod’s congratulatory dispatch to the leaders of the April 1967 military coup which sent the king into exile and inaugurated a seven-year military dictatorship. During the first year of the dictatorship, a new archbishop was appointed, Ieronymos, who according to different perspectives, either led the church admirably during a difficult time, or sold out to the radical right. Nevertheless, Ieronymos governed with the intention of improving the status of the church, its clergy, and its institutions. A student uprising in November 1973 led to a change in the leadership of the dictatorship and to the eventual ousting of Archbishop Ieronymos. The following July, the Regime of the Colonels collapsed and the abolition of the monarchy, through a plebiscite, was declared in December 1974.
The lack of education of the clergy continued to be a problem for the church (Rinvolucri 1966: 13–30). Attempts to provide theological education for clergy were begun under Archbishop Chrysos- tomos (1923–38) with the creation of ierodidaskaleia (schools for priests) and the so-called Frontistiria or Higher Schools for students who had graduated from high school. In Northern Greece a new school of theology was opened at the University of Thessalonike in 1942.
FROM 1974 TO THE PRESENT
For more than two decades following the collapse of the dictatorship, the Church of Greece was led by Archbishop Seraphim, who replaced Ieronymos in January 1974. A former member of the largest noncommunist Greek resistance group during the Axis occupation of Greece, Seraphim oversaw a period of relative peace for the Church of Greece and the rapid democratization and secularization of the state. A new state constitution was passed in 1975 in which Article 3 states: “The prevailing religion in Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ. The Orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord Jesus Christ as its head, is inseparably united in doctrine with the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople.” Additionally, the constitution did away with the requirement that the head of state, the president, be a member of the Orthodox faith, and asserted that freedom of religious consciousness is the inviolable right of every citizen. Two years later a new Ecclesiastical Charter for the Church of Greece acknowledged the right of the church to regulate its own internal affairs without state interference. This right was challenged in 1987 when the government of Andreas Papandreou attempted to expropriate lands from monastic holdings for use by poor villagers. A compromise was reached in which Archbishop Seraphim approved the transfer of some limited land but rejected the nationalization of church property.
Upon the death of Archbishop Seraphim in April 1998, the holy synod of Greece elected Christodoulos, who at the age of 58 became the youngest archbishop to serve the Church of Greece. Christodoulos’ appointment marked a significant shift in the accommodationism that had dominated church-state relations in Greece for most of its history. It was the first election of an archbishop of Athens conducted without the intervention of the government. Chris- todoulos successfully utilized a populist approach in leading the church and employed the Greek media (appearing frequently on television and radio) to get his message across. He particularly focused his attention on Greek youth. As he attempted to bring the church into dialogue with modernity and with a pluralistic and secular European Union (of which Greece became a full member in 1981), he maintained a traditional view regarding the close affinity between Orthodox Christianity and the Greek nation, between national identity and Orthodoxy. For 15 months Chris- todoulos led an unsuccessful public campaign against the government’s proposal to remove religious affiliation from identity cards. In one particularly massive rally, the archbishop himself held the original banner of the 1821 revolution.
The Christodoulos era was marked by another struggle, this time with the patriarchate of Constantinople. In July 2003 Christodoulos proceeded to elect new metropolitans for the vacant see of Thessaloniki and two neighboring metropolises without the involvement of Constantinople. This action was in violation of the 1928 Patriarchal Tome which stated that episcopal vacancies in the New Lands were to be filled with the approval of the phanar. The controversy came to a head in April 2004 when the resident synod of the patriarchate broke off communion with Christodoulos. The Greek state, through the ministry of education and religious affairs, worked behind the scenes and shortly afterwards resolved the crisis with a compromise which included an apology from Christodoulos to the patriarchal synod and an agreement that the Church of Greece would abide by the Tome of 1928. Christodoulos died in January 2008, eight months after being diagnosed with cancer. He was succeeded by Ieronymos II.
LAY PIETY, THE BROTHERHOODS,
AND MONASTIC REVIVAL
The religious needs of the majority of Orthodox Christians in Greece, from the time of independence to the present, have been met through the basic liturgical and extra-liturgical functions carried out by the clergy. With the exception of the last twenty years, most clergy have been poorly educated and not prepared to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Within this spiritual and catechetical vacuum emerged the phenomenon of lay brotherhoods: para-ecclesial associations of men (and later women) dedicated to living a celibate Christian lifestyle for the purpose of their own salvation and to educate the Greek Orthodox faithful in the salvific message of Christianity. The earliest figure of this movement was Apostolos Makrakis (1831–1905). Born in Greece, he studied at Constantinople and later in Paris, where he read European philosophy from Descartes to Hegel. In 1866 he returned to Athens and began preaching each evening in Omonia Square. One of his early followers was Archimandrite Eusebios Matthopoulos (1849–1929), the future founder of Zoe. The simony scandal of 1874 prompted Makrakis and his followers to denounce the leadership of the Church of Greece. In September 1876 Makrakis founded the Logos School, the first para-ecclesial group in Greece. A man of brilliance, he was a prolific author and produced commentaries on all the books of the Bible. Towards the end of his life his political positions became enmeshed with eschatological and mille- narian views.
The most important para-ecclesial organization was the Zoe Brotherhood of Theologians. Founded in 1907 by Matthopoulos, Zoe became a centralized organization of dedicated members whose immense influence impacted the ecclesiastical, social, political, and spiritual life of Greece for the next fifty years. At age 14, Matthopoulos became a novice at the monastery of Mega Spelaion. He eventually moved to Athens, studied philosophy at the university, and was ordained a priest and appointed confessor to a small monastery. He had been given permission to preach as well. In 1907 he organized a small group of young theologians, students, and other lay individuals establishing a community he called Zoe (“Life”). The organization was a civil association governed by the laws of the state, not the church. Matthopoulos required members to adopt the three virtues of chastity, poverty, and obedience, yet not within a traditional monastic context. The chief purpose of the society was missionary work among the people of Greece through preaching, catechesis, and exemplary lifestyles.
By 1911 the brotherhood began publishing a periodical in which sermons and teachings on the Bible, especially the gospels and letters of Paul, were a constant presence. By 1959 the periodical had 170,000 subscribers. The brotherhood, most especially through the writings and influence of Matthopoulos, developed a strong pietistic attitude towards the Christian lifestyle. The movement did not renounce the sacramental life of the Orthodox Church, but placed special emphasis on scriptural reading and catechetical instruction (Bible study). Under the leadership of Seraphim Papakostas, Matthopoulos’ successor, Zoe greatly expanded its influence through the establishment of catechetical schools for children patterned after English and French Sunday schools. These schools followed a nine-year curriculum. By 1936 Zoe had 300 catechetical schools, and by 1959 the number had increased to 2,216 with some 147,000 pupils. The leadership and its publications became associated with the struggle against communism in the second half of the 1940s, while satellite associations for students, workers, women, and others flourished. At the core of the brotherhood were the 175 dedicated and disciplined members who oversaw the movement’s organization and publications.
Disagreement over succession and the particular direction of the movement led to a major split in April 1960, led by professor of theology Panayiotis
Trembelas, with 60 members leaving the brotherhood to form a new organization called the “Sotir [“Savior”] Brotherhood of Theologians.” The breakup led to litigation over property, and further volatile disagreements made the brotherhoods the objects of ridicule in the press. Membership in Zoe suffered, and the revival of interest in historical Orthodoxy and the fathers, along with a renewed understanding of the role of Eucharistic celebration, made the ecclesial life of the church more attractive, and the piety and moral- ism of the brotherhood movements less appealing.
Responding to the success of Zoe, in 1947 the church established its own missionary agency, Apostolike Diakonia (“Apostolic Ministry”), a self-governing legal entity under the supervision of the holy synod. This organization responded with its own publications and catechetical schools. Although never able to match the organization and commitment of the Zoe movement, Apostolike Diakonia, along with Zoe and Sotir, provided a network of educational and spiritual opportunities for the Greek Orthodox faithful. Their publications and bookstores were an important source for the dissemination of Orthodox theological, biblical, and catechetical literature. Today, Apostolike Diakonia has expanded its educational efforts through a variety of electronic media.
Closely connected to the spiritual aspirations of the lay brotherhood movements was the issue of a Modern Greek translation of the Bible. As noted above, a translation was published in 1850 but was quickly rejected by the church. On September 9, 1901 the Athenian newspaper Acropolis began publishing in its broadsheets a translation of the New Testament. The patriarch of Constantinople, the archbishop of Athens, and the Theological School of the
University of Athens all protested against the translations. On November 5 a group of university students marched to the offices of the newspaper and after looting them proceeded to do the same at other newspaper headquarters. Three days later, on November 8, the protests had grown to include other laity, and fighting broke out with police, leading to eight dead and some seventy wounded. Known as the Evangeliaka or “Gospel riots,” the incident typically reflects the conservative and traditional character of the Church of Greece. So too does its rejection of the demotic movement, the attempt to replace the archaizing and artificial katharevousa with the popular spoken Greek idiom; a struggle which was not resolved until the adoption of demotic as the official language of instruction in the Greek educational system in 1975. It was not until 1985 that the first complete edition of the New Testament in demotic appeared.
By the early 1960s the monastic tradition in Greece was in an alarming state of decline. This was due to several factors: the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1830s; the pietistic and catechetical emphasis of the lay brotherhoods in the first half of the 20th century; the general mistrust of the laity towards the official church; and the strict divide between theology and monastic asceticism which permeated the theological schools. However, beginning in the second half of the 1960s, a handful of young theologians entered the monastic life on Mount Athos under the guidance of Elder Paisos (d. 1994). Thus began a most remarkable renaissance of monasticism on the Holy Mountain which extended also throughout Greece. This rebirth of traditional Athonite asceticism coincided with a rediscovery of Greek patristic theological and biblical thought. Though not a monk, and predating this revival, Photios Kontoglou (1897–1965), author and iconographer, contributed to this monastic revival by reawakening an appreciation of the Byzantine aesthetic tradition.
For most of its history, nearly all citizens of modern Greece have affiliated with the Greek Orthodox Church. Today, however, with immigration and secularization, only 85 percent of the Greek population identify (and often only culturally so) with the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, the church is the most significant institution of Greek national identity and as such it remains a conservative entity enmeshed in its Helleno-Orthodox roots. Most civil holidays in Greece are religious ones: Independence Day is connected to the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) and August 15, the most important summer holiday, celebrates the Koimesis of the Theotokos. In 1953 the Church of Greece moved the commemoration of the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God from October 1 to October 28, Ohi Day (“No! Day”), a civil holiday commemorating the Greek government’s rejection of the 1939 Italian ultimatum demanding the entry of Axis troops.
The Church of Greece is currently organized into 80 metropolises with a reported 8,515 priests actively serving (as of 2006), not including Crete and the Dodecanese Islands which are under the jurisdiction of the ecumenical patriarchate. The Church of Greece remains governed by two synods both presided over by the archbishop of Athens. The special synod consists of 12 metropolitans elected once a year and also serves as a permanent synod dealing with ongoing business, while the entire assembly of Greek metropolitans gathers once every three years. Salaries for the clergy (all ranks) and administrative positions within the church are paid by the state. Religious instruction is mandatory for Greek Orthodox students attending public primary and secondary schools.
The most significant challenges facing the Church of Greece are a diminishing ethno-historical consciousness and the trajectory towards total secularization. From the second half of the 20th century, the Church of Greece has also had a significant impact on Orthodox communities in East Africa (in collaboration with the patriarchate of Alexandria) and Asia through missionary and social work.
SEE ALSO: Constantinople, Patriarchate of; Elder (Starets); Mount Athos; Ottoman Yoke; St. Silouan of Athos (1866–1938)
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Rinvolucri, M. (1966) Anatomy of a Church: Greek Orthodoxy Today. New York: Fordham University Press.
Tomkinson, J. L. (2004) Between Heaven and Earth: The Greek Church. Athens: Anagnosis.
Yiannaras, H. (1992) Orthodoxia kai Dysi sti Neoteri Ellada. Athens: Domi.