Muslims and Greek Nationalism

I shall greatly look forward to reading this forthcoming book in September upon its release for it sounds like just the sort of work I take perhaps inordinate delight in. It confounds the fabulists who retail fantastical fiction about a past that never was in service of some dreary agenda in the present. This book reminds us once again that history is almost always written with nothing but crooked lines: it is, as I ceaselessly tell my students, messy, and a failure to appreciate that almost always dooms one to buffoonery instead of intelligent commentary and judicious analysis. 

In any event, forthcoming is Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1940 by Stefanos Katsikas (Oxford UP, Sept. 2021), 321pp. About this book the publisher tells us this: 

Drawing from a wide range of archival and secondary Greek, Bulgarian, Ottoman, and Turkish sources, Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1940 explores the way in which the Muslim populations of Greece were ruled by state authorities from the time of Greece's political emancipation from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s until the country's entrance into the Second World War, in October 1940. The book examines how state rule influenced the development of the Muslim population's collective identity as a minority and affected Muslim relations with the Greek authorities and Orthodox Christians.

Greece was the first country in the Balkans to become an independent state and a pioneer in experimenting with minority issues. Greece's ruling framework and many state administrative measures and patterns would serve as templates in other Christian Orthodox Balkan states with Muslim minorities (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Cyprus). Muslim religious officials were empowered with authority which they did not have in Ottoman times, and aspects of the Islamic law (Sharia) were incorporated into the state legal system to be used for Muslim family and property affairs. Religion remained a defining element in the political, social, and cultural life of the post-Ottoman Balkans; Stefanos Katsikas explores the role religious nationalism and public institutions have played in the development and preservation of religious and ethnic identity. Religion remains a key element of individual and collective identity but only as long as there are strong institutions and the political framework to support and maintain religious diversity.

Human Rights in Global Orthodoxy

As detailed in reviews, interviews, and notes on here over the past five years especially, discussions of human rights are front and centre in much of Orthodoxy today. A book set for November release continues and advances that discussion: Giuseppe Giordan and Siniša Zrinščak, eds., Global Eastern Orthodoxy: Politics, Religion, and Human Rights (Springer, 2019), 276pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

This volume highlights three intertwined aspects of the global context of Orthodox Christianity: religion, politics, and human rights. The chapters in Part I address the challenges of modern human rights discourse to Orthodox Christianity and examine conditions for active presence of Orthodox churches in the public sphere of plural societies. It suggests theoretical and empirical considerations about the relationship between politics and Orthodoxy by exploring topics such as globalization, participatory democracy, and the linkage of religious and political discourses in Russia, Greece, Belarus, Romania, and Cyprus. Part II looks at the issues of diaspora and identity in global Orthodoxy, presenting cases from Switzerland, America, Italy, and Germany. In doing so, the book ties in with the growing interest resulting from the novelty of socio-political, economic, and cultural changes which have forced religious groups and organizations to revise and redesign their own institutional structures, practices, and agendas.

Culture and Faith in a Greek Village

Twice in the past month this book, which I first mentioned on here in 2011, has come up unexpectedly in conversations: first when I was at Notre Dame College in Euclid, OH in early October giving a lecture, and was joined there by John Jillions, who was on my doctoral committee and is now the chancellor of the Orthodox Church of America, and just a lovely human being. I mentioned this book for some reason or other when we were in conversation over breakfast, and it turns out he knew the author from when he was in England teaching Orthodox theology at Cambridge and tending a parish.

Then last week a graduate student of mine returned from a trip to Greece that she just took, and was remarking on how often she saw layers of Orthodoxy superimposed on a still considerable "pagan" cultural substratum. So I take the liberty of drawing your attention anew to Juliet Du Boulay's Cosmos, Life, and Liturgy in a Greek Orthodox Village (Denise Harvey Publishers, 2009), 478pp.

It is a fascinating, textured work thick with descriptions and glimpses of lost worlds, and very moving, too, in unexpected ways. Her chapters, written without any sort of condescension, on certain customs and beliefs surrounding both marriage and death give clear evidence of the uneasy overlay of Christian and non-Christian beliefs and expectations--to say nothing of her unintentionally amusing discussion of villagers' reactions to news of the American moon landings in the 1960s. Those who think of Greece as full-throated, unadulterated Orthodox Christianity of the pure laine variety will be given frequent pause by what is described in this book by a graceful anthropologist who went on to become Orthodox herself, and is now married to an Orthodox priest.

In reading this book, I am repeatedly put in mind of a comment attributed to the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, in August 1914, as the chimes of Big Ben indicated the expiration of the ultimatum to Germany and the commencement of British hostilities against it: "the lamps are going out all over Europe and we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." In reading this book, it is astonishing to me how much the world has changed in less than four decades--how many of the "lamps" of Greek culture have been extinguished, and for not very clear, still less good, reasons. Practices that du Boulay observed during her time in Greece in the late 1960s and early 1970s had already begun to fall into desuetude, a process that has only accelerated exponentially in the last several decades.

Some further details about this book from the publisher:

In 1974 Juliet du Boulay published her first work, Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village, now considered a classic text for the anthropology of Modern Greece. This sequel, the fruit of a lifetime’s reflection, adds new dimensions to this portrait, exploring the all-encompassing religious awareness of the same village community, and its rootedness in both Orthodox Christian and pre- or non-Christian ideas and practices. The story is told through a steady development of rich ethnographic detail in which the people come to life in all their vitality, contradictoriness, humour, realism and courage. From the particularities of life in the village a picture is built up in which the Byzantine legacy intertwines with fragments of antiquity, both Greek and Jewish, and with the universal themes, both tragic and hopeful, which confront man as he struggles to make sense of life. In this way a compelling pattern of symbols and images is revealed which underpin every action and event in the human and natural spheres, and is described here lucidly, convincingly and with great affection.

Excerpts may be read here. But do buy the book if you are at all interested. It is a lyrical and poignant read, at once anthropological and autobiographical, but edifying in any event.

Orthodoxy and Islam in Greece

We are fortunate to be living in so fruitful an era when study of the many and messy encounters between Eastern Christians and Muslims continue to produced by scholars around the world focusing on different periods and places. To released in May is a new study by Greek author, Nikolaos-Nikodemos Anagnostopoulos: Orthodoxy and Islam: Theology and Muslim-Christian Relations in Modern Greece and Turkey (Routledge, 2017), 240 pages.

About this collection the publisher tells us:

Church History reveals that Christianity has its roots in Palestine during the first century and was spread throughout the Mediterranean countries by the Apostles. However, despite sharing the same ancestry, Muslims and Christians have been living in a challenging symbiotic co-existence for more than fourteen centuries in many parts of South-Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

This book analyses contemporary Christian-Muslim relations in the traditional lands of Orthodoxy and Islam. In particular, it examines the development of Eastern Orthodox ecclesiological thinking on Muslim-Christian relations and religious minorities in the context of modern Greece and Turkey. Greece, where the prevailing religion is Eastern Orthodoxy, accommodates an official recognised Muslim minority based in Western Thrace as well as other Muslim populations located at major Greek urban centres and the islands of the Aegean Sea. On the other hand, Turkey, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is based, is a Muslim country which accommodates within its borders an official recognised Greek Orthodox Minority.The book then suggests ways in which to overcome the difficulties that Muslim and Christian communities are still facing with the Turkish and Greek States.Finally, it proposes that the positive aspects of the coexistence between Muslims and Christians in Western Thrace and Istanbul might constitute an original model that should be adopted in other EU and Middle East countries, where challenges and obstacles between Muslim and Christian communities still persist.

This book offers a distinct and useful contribution to the ever popular subject of Christian-Muslim relations, especially in South-East Europe and the Middle East. It will be a key resource for students and scholars of Religious Studies and Middle Eastern Studies.

We are also given the table of contents:

 1. Introduction 2. Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople 3. The Development of the Autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church 4. Modern Historical Context of the States of Greece and Turkey as it Relates to the Minority Question 5. Methodology 6. Conclusion, Appendix 1 & 2

A Greek and a Turk Walk into a Bar...

Discussions of the First World War have, as I've noted before, focused on Christian suffering, especially in Armenia in 1915. Far less attention has been paid to the slaughter, at that same time, of Assyrian Christians and Pontic Greeks. Still less attention is given to the postwar massacres of Greek Christians in the forced exchanges of population after the war, events which came with the razing of Smyrna, inter alia, and the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia. But the more we learn of Christian-Muslim relations in the antebellum period, the more we realize that it was not all bloodshed and violence. A new book continues to help us see the messiness of history in this period and place: Vally Lytra, ed., When Greeks and Turks Meet: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Relationship Since 1923 (Ashgate, 2014), 319pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

The relationship between the history, culture and peoples of Greece, Turkey and Cyprus is often reduced to an equation which defines one side in opposition to the other. The reality is much more complex and while there have been and remain significant divisions there are many, and arguably more, areas of overlap, commonality and common interest. This book addresses a gap in the scholarly literature by bringing together specialists from different disciplinary traditions - history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, literature, ethnomusicology and international relations, so as to examine the relationship between Greeks and Turks, as well as between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, since the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. When Greeks and Turks Meet aims to contribute to current critical and comparative approaches to the study of this complex relationship in order to question essentialist representations, stereotypes and dominant myths and understand the context and ideology of events, processes and experience. Starting from this interdisciplinary perspective and taking both diachronic and synchronic approaches, the book offers a fresh coverage of key themes including memory, history and loss; the politics of identity, language and culture; discourses of inclusion and exclusion. Contributors focus on the geographical areas of Greece, Turkey and Cyprus and on the modern historical period (since 1923) up to the present day, offering in some cases an informed perspective that looks towards the future. When Greeks and Turks Meet will be essential reading for students and researchers working on the cross-roads of Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, on South-East Europe and the Middle East more generally. It will also be a valuable resource for students and researchers in inter-cultural communication, cultural and media studies, language and education, international relations and politics, refugee and migration studies, conflict and post-conflict studies.

Greek Orthodoxy and the Nazis

Though, as I have noted recently, the focus this year is on the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, next year represents the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second. In December, a new book will shed light on what happened in and to the Greek Orthodox Church during the Nazi occupation of that country for most of the war: Panteleymon Anastasakis, The Church of Greece under Axis Occupation(Fordham UP, 2014), 320pp.

About this book we are told:

Axis forces (Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria) occupied Greece from 1941 to 1944. The unimaginable hardships caused by foreign occupation were compounded by the flight of the government days before enemy forces reached Athens. This national crisis forced the Church of Greece, an institution accustomed to playing a central political and social role during times of crisis, to fill the political vacuum. Led by Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens, the clergy sought to maintain the cultural, spiritual, and territorial integrity of the nation during this harrowing period. Circumstances forced the clergy to create a working relationship with the major political actors, including the Axis authorities, their Greek allies, and the growing armed resistance movements, especially the communist-led National Liberation Front. In so doing the church straddled a fine line between collaboration and resistance individual clerics, for instance, negotiated with Axis authorities to gain small concessions, while simultaneously resisting policies deemed detrimental to the nation.

Drawing on official archives of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the British Foreign Office, the U.S. State Department, and the Greek Holy Synod alongside an impressive breadth of published literature, this book provides a refreshingly nuanced account of the Greek clergy's complex response to the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. The author's comprehensive portrait of the reaction of Damaskinos and his colleagues, including tensions and divisions within the clergy, provides a uniquely balanced exploration of the critical role they played during the occupation. It helps readers understand how and why traditional institutions such as the Church played a central social and political role in moments of social upheaval and distress. Indeed, as this book convincingly shows, the Church was the only institution capable of holding Greek society together during World War II.

While The Church of Greece under Axis Occupation elucidates the significant differences between the Greek case and those of other territories in Axis-occupied Europe, it also offers fresh insight into the similarities. Greek clerics dealt with many of the same challenges clerics faced in other parts of Hitler's empire, including exceptionally brutal reprisal policies, deprivation and hunger, and the complete collapse of the social and political order caused by years of enemy occupation. By examining these challenges, this illuminating new book is an important contribution not only to Greek historiography but also to the broader literatures on the Holocaust, collaboration and resistance during World War II, and church state relations during times of crisis.

Greek Struggles, Economic and Otherwise

Though the lurid tales of economic struggle in Greece have fallen off North American headlines, the struggles are far from over. A recent book takes a look at the related notions of economic progress, "modernization," and the role of Greek culture, including Greek Orthodoxy, within the current context: Anna Triandafyllidou, Ruby Gropas, and Hara Kouki, eds., The Greek Crisis and European Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 256pp. 

About this group of essays we are told:

This collection explores the current economic and political crisis in Greece and more widely in Europe. Greece is used to illustrate and exemplify the contradictions of the dominant paradigm of European modernity, the ruptures that are inherent to it, and the alternative modernity discourses that develop within Europe. By critically reviewing the 'alternative' path to modernization that Greece has taken, the authors question whether the current Greek economic and political-moral crisis is the resulting failure of this 'alternative' or 'deviant' modernization model or whether it is the result of a wider crisis in the dominant European economic and political modernity paradigm.

Nationalism in Greece and Beyond

I have long been fascinated by the role of nationalism in shaping, and often (but not always) in perverting Christianity, especially in the East. It has, of course, become a rather commonplace lament in the East for more than a century that too much of Orthodoxy is too bound up with ethnophyletism. Though that problem in places is perhaps not as pronounced as it once was, it does still continue to bedevil the Christian East in more ways than one. A recent book looks at the politics of nationalism in an Hellenic context:  Rachel Tsang and Eric Taylor Woods, eds.,The Cultural Politics of Nationalism and Nation-Building: Ritual and Performance in the Forging of Nations (Routledge, 2013), 216pp.

About this book we are told:

Rituals and performances are a key theme in the study of nations and nationalism. With the aim of stimulating further research in this area, this book explores, debates and evaluates the role of rituals and performances in the emergence, persistence and transformation of nations, nationalisms and national identity.
The chapters comprising this book investigate a diverse array of contemporary and historical phenomena relating to the symbolic life of nations, from the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan to the Louvre in France, written by an interdisciplinary cast of world-renowned and up-and-coming scholars. Each of the contributors has been encouraged to think about how his or her particular approach and methods relates to the others. This has given rise to several recurring debates and themes running through the book over how researchers ought to approach rituals and performances and how they might best be studied.
The Cultural Politics of Nationalism and Nation-Building will appeal to students and scholars of ethnicity and nationalism, sociology, political science, anthropology, cultural studies, performance studies, art history and architecture.

The publisher also helpfully provides a table of contents:

1. Ritual and performance in the study of nations and nationalism Eric Taylor Woods and Rachel Tsang PART I: APPROACHES 2. The rites of nations: elites, masses and the re-enactment of the ‘national past’ Anthony D. Smith 3. National holiday commemorations: the view from below John E. Fox 4. Time-bubbles of nationalism: dynamics of solidarity ritual in lived time Randall Collins 5. Competition as ritual and the legitimation of the liberal nation-state Jonathan Hearn PART II: APPLICATIONS 6. Ritual in the early Louvre Museum Carol Duncan 7. Inventing or reviving the Greek ideal? Forging the regeneration of the French nation in the art of Paul Cézanne after the Franco-Prussian War Athena S. Leoussi 8. The nation’s shrine": conflict and commemoration at Yasukuni, modern Japan’s shrine to the war dead John Breen 9. Collective Action and National Identity: The Rally to Restore Sanity Rachel D. Hutchins 10. Britons in Maoriland: narratives of identity during the 1901 Royal visit to New Zealand Christopher McDonald

Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Post-Ottoman World

2014 marks, of course, as I have noted several times recently, the centenary of the outbreak of the so-called Great War, the conflict which, at its end, saw several empires--the Russian, the Habsburg, and the Ottoman--in ruins. As the latter of these empires collapsed, what fate befell its various ethnic groups? How long was the shadow of the Ottoman collapse? Did it extend to our own day? A recent publication I just came across helps us explore these questions more deeply: Jørgen S. Nielsenet et al, Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Former Ottoman Space (Brill, 2011), 294pp.

About this book we are told:

There has been a growing interest in recent years in reviewing the continued impact of the Ottoman empire even long after its demise at the end of the First World War. The wars in former Yugoslavia, following hot on the civil war in Lebanon, were reminders that the settlements of 1918-22 were not final. While many of the successor states to the Ottoman empire, in east and west, had been built on forms of nationalist ideology and rhetoric opposed to the empire, a newer trend among historians has been to look at these histories as Ottoman provincial history. The present volume is an attempt to bring some of those histories from across the former Ottoman space together. They cover from parts of former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece to Lebanon, including Turkey itself, providing rich material for comparing regions which normally are not compared.

Greek Muslims

As I noted recently in discussing "Greek" Christians and "Turkish" Muslims in late Ottoman Anatolia, relations in the region, and shifting understandings of "identity" have often been very complicated indeed. A recent study by Kevin Featherstone sheds further light on an especially neglected group: The Last Ottomans: The Muslim Minority of Greece 1940-1949.

About this book the publisher tells us:

This book provides a new study of the international and local politics surrounding the Muslim minority of Western Thrace (Greece) in the 1940s, based on previously unseen archival material. It addresses the minority’s complex identity, its relations with other communities in the area, the international diplomacy of WWII and strategic considerations of the Cold War.

Latin Orders in Greece 1204-1500

The more we study church history the messier we recognize it to be.  A book published late last year discusses some of this messiness and complexity in East-West, Orthodox-Catholic relations: Nickiphoros Tsougarakis, The Latin Religious Orders in Medieval Greece, 1204-1500 (Brill, 2012), 394pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

The monastic and mendicant orders that were so central in the evolution of western religion and spirituality also played a pivotal role in the expansion of Latin Christendom after the eleventh century. In the thirteenth century, following the capture of Constantinople by the armies of the Fourth Crusade, Cistercians, Benedictines, Franciscans, and Dominicans installed themselves in the former territories of the Byzantine Empire. Here, they had to adapt and compromise in order to survive, whilst Latins, Turks, and Greeks struggled to gain supremacy in the Aegean. They were also, however, faced with the challenge of attracting the devotion of the Greek Orthodox population, advancing the cause of church union, and promoting the interests of their Frankish, Venetian, and Genoese patrons. This volume follows the orders’ fortunes in medieval Greece, examines their involvement in the ecclesiastical and secular politics of the age, and looks at how the monks and friars pursued their spiritual, missionary, and Unionist goals in the frontier societies of Latin Romania.

Change? What Change? We're Orthodox

It is an amusing conceit among some Eastern Christians to maintain that theirs is an unchanged and unchanging tradition stretching back to the Fathers if not to the Apostles themselves. Anybody who has the slightest serious acquaintance with real history instead of "confessional propaganda" (Taft) knows what a romantic farrago of nonsense this is. Though some like to sneer at the West for all its "innovations," in some matters it was--at least until the fall of the empire in the West--far more stable, far more conservative, far less prone to change than almost anybody else in Christendom. In witness of this, consider but one of a myriad of examples plucked more or less at random: the rebuke of Pope Gregory I to Patriarch John the Faster of Constantinople over the latter's innovatory claim to the title "ecumenical" patriarch. Almost all of the major problems in the first millennium were "innovations," if not outright heterodoxies, originating in the East--Arianism, monophysitism, monothelitism, iconoclasm, etc.

How different things are today. Today the Christian East today is marked, in many places, by a deep conservatism and a resistance to change--indeed, an often ferocious fear of it, as recent reactions in both the Russian and Greek Churches to the proposal to use liturgically modern Russian and modern Greek respectively in place of Old Church Slavonic and old liturgical Greek. For some in North America especially, Orthodoxy is regarded as the one Christian tradition that has not changed and will not change on such controverted issues as the ordination of women or same-sex relationships. As a result, it has been perceived as a refuge for Christians fleeing more liberal traditions. 

A book set for release later this summer proposes to look at the question of change in the Greek Church: Trine Stauning Willert and Lina Molokotos-Liederman, eds., Innovation in the Christian Orthodox Tradition?: The Question of Change in Greek Orthodox Thought and Practice (Ashgate, August 2012), 256pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us:

The relationship between tradition and innovation in Orthodox Christianity has often been problematic, filled with tensions and contradictions starting from the Byzantine era and running through the 19th and 20th centuries. For a long period of time scholars have typically assumed Greek Orthodoxy to be a static religious tradition with little room for renewal or change. Although this public perception continues, the immutability of the Greek Orthodox tradition has been questioned by several scholars over the past few years. This book continues this line of reasoning, but brings it into the centre of contemporary discussion. Presenting case studies from different periods of history up to the present day, the authors trace different aspects in the development of innovation and renewal in Orthodox Christianity in the Greek-speaking world and among the Diaspora.

Contents: 

Preface

Part I Conceptual Overview:

• How can we speak of innovation in the Greek Orthodox tradition? Towards a typology of innovation in religion (Trine Stauning Willert and Lina Molokotos-Liederman);

• Orthodox Christianity, change, innovation: contradictions in terms? (Vasilios Makrides).

        Part II: Encounters with other Christian Denominations:  

• Double-identity churches on the Greek islands under the Venetians: Orthodox and Catholics sharing churches (15th to 18th centuries) (Eftichia Arvaniti);

• Religious innovation or political strategy? The rapprochements of the Archbishop of Syros, Alexandros Lykourgos (1827–1875), towards the Anglican Church (Elisabeth Kontogiorgi).

Part III Adaptations to Modernity:

• Emancipation through celibacy? The Sisterhoods of the Zoë Movement and their role in the development of 'Christian feminism' in Greece 1938–1960 (Spyridoula Athanasopoulou-Kypriou);

• The new sound of the spiritual modern: the revival of Greek Orthodox chant (Tore Tvarnø Lind).

Part IV Reform and Power Struggle in Religious Governance;

• Holy Canons or general regulations: the ecumenical Patriarchate vis-à-vis the challenge of secularization in the 19th century (Dimitrios Stamatopoulos);

• A innovative local Orthodox model of governance? The shrine of Evangelistria on the island of Tinos (Katerina Seraïdari).

Part V Change in Contemporary Socio-Political Contexts:

• A new agenda for religion in Greece? Theologians challenging the ethno-religious understanding of Orthodoxy and Greekness (Trine Stauning Willert);

• From mobilization to a controlled compromise: the shift of ecclesiastical strategy under Archbishop Hieronymus, (Konstaninos Papastathis).

Part VI Beyond National Borders: the Greek Orthodox Diaspora:

• Innovation within Greek Orthodox theology in Australia: Archbishop Stylianos and the mystique of indigenous Australian spirituality (Vassilios Adrahtas);

• Continuities and change in Greek American Orthodoxy (Effie Fokas and Dena Fokas Moses).

Cretan Christians and the Ottomans

I'm currently doing research on the relationship between the French Revolution, nineteenth-century nationalism in Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Orthodox Churches of those countries. So this book looks especially fascinating: Pinar Sinisik, The Transformation of Ottoman Crete: Revolts, Politics and Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century (Library of Ottoman Studies) (Tauris Academic Studies, 2011), 320pp.


About this book, the publisher tells us: 

The island of Crete under Ottoman rule in the nineteenth century saw successive revolts from its majority Christian population, who were set on union with the newly-independent Greece. This book offers an original perspective on the social, political and ideological transformation of Ottoman Crete within the nationalist context of the late nineteenth century. It focuses on the Cretan revolts of 1896 and 1897, and examines the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State and the withdrawal of Ottoman troops from the island in 1898. Based on Ottoman, British and American archival sources, the author demonstrates that, contrary to the standard view that the uprisings were merely an expression of discontent at Ottoman rule, Cretan Christians in fact aimed to radically change the socio-economic and political structure of Cretan society and to actually overthrow and expel the Ottoman administration. This book provides a deeper understanding of the Cretan experience, and of the wider politics of the Eastern Mediterranean, in the late nineteenth century.

Orthodoxy in Greece in Our Time

I have a friend about to move to Athens for work, and the news out of Greece these days gives me frequent pause over what he will be facing there with the financial problems and consequent social turmoil embroiling the country currently. Greece, of course, is the only Orthodox country in the European Union, and Orthodox monks, according to this fascinating article, have played a not insignificant role in the fiscal crisis.

Now a new book, briefly mentioned before, comes along to look at the wider picture of Greek Orthodoxy:

Victor Roudometov and Vasilios N. Makrides, eds., Orthodox Christianity in 21st Century Greece (Ashgate, 2010), 268pp.


About this book, the publisher tells us:

One of the predominantly Orthodox countries that has never experienced communism is Greece, a country uniquely situated to offer insights about contemporary trends and developments in Orthodox Christianity. This volume offers a comprehensive treatment of the role Orthodox Christianity plays at the dawn of the twenty-first century Greece from social scientific and cultural-historical perspectives. This book breaks new ground by examining in depth the multifaceted changes that took place in the relationship between Orthodox Christianity and politics, ethnicity, gender, and popular culture. Its intention is two-fold: on the one hand, it aims at revisiting some earlier stereotypes, widespread both in academic and others circles, about the Greek Orthodox Church, its cultural specificity and its social presence, such as its alleged intrinsic non-pluralistic attitude toward non-Orthodox Others. On the other hand, it attempts to show how this fairly traditional religious system underwent significant changes in recent years affecting its public role and image, particularly as it became more and more exposed to the challenges of globalization and multiculturalism.

I asked Dr. Nicolas Prevelakis, who lectures on social studies at Harvard, to review the book for Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. His long and considered review will be published in our fall issue. Prevelakis calls this ''a very impressive, extremely interesting and much needed book. It is of great value to scholars of contemporary Greece and at the same time very accessible to a wider audience.''

Patterns of Secularization

A century ago and more now, it was a commonplace among many academics that as countries and societies continued to "modernize" they would concomitantly throw off any religious allegiances they may once have had. Modernity, it was assumed, could only follow the way of secularity. Today we know that is bunk--pious superstition concocted by those for whom religion was the bearer of all evils. Religion is back today in a big way.

And yet, for all that, we continue to see societies once strongly identified with Christianity move away from their religious moorings. How does that happen? What are the motives? These and other new questions are tackled in a book that looks as the process of secularization in a once heavily Catholic country--Ireland--and a once heavily Orthodox one, Greece:

Daphne Halikiopoulou, Patterns of Secularization (Ashgate, 2011), 194pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Drawing on David Martin’s “Cultural Defense Paradigm,” which expects secularization to be inhibited in cases where religion serves as a carrier of national identity, Patterns of Secularization offers a comparative study
highlighting the limits of existing interpretations and identifies variations within the cultural defense paradigm.

Contents:
Introduction.
PART I: THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
National identity and the secularization debate;
The origins and consolidation of ‘cultural defence’ in Greece and the Republic of Ireland.
PART II: CHURCH, STATE AND NATION:
Church and state: nationalist legitimisation versus ‘moral monopoly’;
Church and nation: external threat perceptions, national identity and religion.
PART III: EMPIRICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
State discourse and the redefinition of national ientity in the Greek and Irish educational systems; Church discourse and nationalist mobilisation.
Conclusion: Pattern of secularisation.
Bibliography; Appendix; Index.