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.