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Signs of National Socialism in the Greek
Church?
Athanasios N. Papathanasiou
Th e stage began to be set from the moment Greece agreed to the
terms of the fi nancial bailout from the international community,
i.e., from the spring of 2010. It was not created in a vacuum, but
rather had its own characteristics, which developed with dizzying
speed. Especially since the beginning of 2011—when the eff ects
of the economic crisis began to be felt more acutely, the extent of
political corruption became more widely
Оригинальное название
A. N. Papathanasiou, National Socialism & Orthodox Church (1)
Signs of National Socialism in the Greek
Church?
Athanasios N. Papathanasiou
Th e stage began to be set from the moment Greece agreed to the
terms of the fi nancial bailout from the international community,
i.e., from the spring of 2010. It was not created in a vacuum, but
rather had its own characteristics, which developed with dizzying
speed. Especially since the beginning of 2011—when the eff ects
of the economic crisis began to be felt more acutely, the extent of
political corruption became more widely
Signs of National Socialism in the Greek
Church?
Athanasios N. Papathanasiou
Th e stage began to be set from the moment Greece agreed to the
terms of the fi nancial bailout from the international community,
i.e., from the spring of 2010. It was not created in a vacuum, but
rather had its own characteristics, which developed with dizzying
speed. Especially since the beginning of 2011—when the eff ects
of the economic crisis began to be felt more acutely, the extent of
political corruption became more widely
St Vladimirs Teological Quarterly 57:3-4 (2013) 461478
Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church? Athanasios N. Papathanasiou Te stage began to be set from the moment Greece agreed to the terms of the fnancial bailout from the international community, i.e., from the spring of 2010. It was not created in a vacuum, but rather had its own characteristics, which developed with dizzying speed. Especially since the beginning of 2011when the efects of the economic crisis began to be felt more acutely, the extent of political corruption became more widely known, and the protests of the so-called indignant swelledwe also witnessed a surge in ecclesiastical rhetoric which, if we look closely, seems to consist of a paradoxical combination of sharp criticism of the political system along with expressions of intolerance: lament, for example, for the decline of democracy, while simultaneously waxing nostalgic about the leaders of the Junta (19671974). Watching this unfold, I could not help but sense that the lingering tendency in some religious circles toward authoritarianism and totalitarianism had, in some cases, assumed features peculiar to National Socialism. 1 Tings began to deteriorate in an alarming way in the summer of 2012, when the Golden Dawn party, with a documented 1 Since this began, I have detailed my growing concerns (i.e., that we are dealing with a social radicalism accompanied by covert intolerance for democracy itself ) in various publications. See my Foreword, Synaxi 120 (2011): 34 [in Greek]; book review of the collective volume On an Economy with a Human Face (Athens: Youth Of ce and Foundation of the Archdiocese of Athens, 2011), in Synaxi 121 (2012): 10104 [in Greek]; An Age of Spiritual and Material Bankruptcy in Europe? A Valuable Op- portunity for Meaning to Emerge, Manifesto 35 (2012): 3236 [in Greek]; among others. I intended to present my fndings at the international conference Ecclesi- ology and Nationalism held by the Volos Academy for Teological Studies of the Metropolis of Demetrias, May 2427, 2012, and other Orthodox theological insti- tutions, but various exigencies of life prevented me from participating. Te present text represents my belated contribution to that conference, and was frst published in Greek in the journal Synaxi 125 (2013): 2337. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 461 1/9/2014 9:26:29 PM 462 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY history of neo-Nazism, 2 entered parliament afer the May 6th and June 17th general elections. Did it really come as a surprise, then, that some ecclesiastical fgures expressed their enthusiasm for this partys success? Or was it simply that some ecclesiastical circles latent inclination toward National Socialism, which began to swell in 2011, fnally boiled over? Personally, I think it is the latter. From a theological point of view, the whole issue has enormous spiritual signifcance. Tis is not a partisan or narrowly political controversy. It concerns, rather, the dilemma between fdelity to the gospel of Christ and apostasy. 3 In this context, there are two critical questions (which may be regarded as two aspects of the same issue): frst of all, what is it that makes it possible for religious circles to tolerate or even welcome Nazi or neo-Nazi ideas, and secondly, what is it that makes some Christians adopt essentially national socialist views while fervently rejecting, at the same time, Nazi paganism? We must, then, examine the religious landscape to discover what had taken root there which would now lead to the abomination of desolation in the holy place. Normally, it would require no more than two minutes for someone to see that Christianity and National Socialism are completely incompatible. Te cornerstones of the Churchsuch as the new commandment to love, and the recognition of all people as brothers and sistersrender any merger between Christianity and National Socialism clearly impossible. And herein lies the problem: the blurring, in the rhetoric of the ecclesiastical fgures who are 2 See Dimitris Psaras, Golden Dawns Black Book: Documents fom the History and Activities of a Nazi Group (Athens: Polis, 2012) [in Greek]. 3 Since the summer of 2012, there have been an abundance of substantive theologi- cal articles condemning neo-Nazism and its supposedly ecclesiastical supporters, whichI believeshould be catalogued as a testimony to our times. See, for in- stance, Tanasis [Athanasios] N. Papathanasiou, Friends of the Lef: Dont Stick Your Heads in the Sand, Te Way of the Lef, 22 October 2012, p. 22 [in Greek]. In the Christian anti-Nazi works I referenced in that article, I did not have time to include the recent thoughts by Vasilis Argyriadis, which are particularly insightful: From the Right Hand of the Lord to the Far Right of the Devil! (13 October 2012, http://www.pheme.gr/node/5571), and Metropolitans Walking the Tight- rope (18 October 2012, http://www.pheme.gr/node/5639) [both in Greek]. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 462 1/9/2014 9:26:30 PM Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church 463 firting with National Socialism, of the Gospel commandments on the one hand (since none of them can openly preach against love or seek to remove the parable of the Good Samaritan), and views consistent with National Socialism on the other. Similarly, hatred of the non-Orthodox and the desire for God to smite them (so much for the incident in which the disciples asked Christ to smite the Samaritans, and he rebuked them!) can ofen be witnessed today coming from pastors who, at the same time, run soup kitchens that welcome everyone, including foreigners! As is always the case when things combine, what is needed is for the intelligent believer to distinguish that which is central and that which is peripheral, that which is essential and that which is merely a faade. In this particular muddying mixture, the Gospel commandments are still preached in word, but in practice they are nullifed, since they are not made the priority. Te priority is instead given to the anti-Christian elements, which are then highlighted as evidence of true, militant Christianity! Considering what is expected of a pastor, a priest who firts with Nazism should be relieved of the burden of the Gospel: either the priest himself should withdraw from the Church, or the Church should recognize that he no longer constitutes one of its members. But what about the people in general who vote for the Nazi party? Te truth is that the majority of them are not themselves Nazis but are, rather, simply disgusted with the fetid political system. But whatever the motives, the fact that the demonic has managed to penetrate the Christian consciousness (evinced even by seemingly innocent comments such as I didnt vote for them, but good for them) is a very serious problem. We need to see just how far the ecclesiastical criteria have eroded. Te existence of overt as well as latent elements of National Socialism is not unique to Greece. At the European level, National Socialism is openly preached only by fringe groups. Te issue, however, is to what extent various ideas of National Socialist favor or origin have taken root in other political groups which, in order to enter the political mainstream and join Parliament, have declared SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 463 1/9/2014 9:26:30 PM 464 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY themselves democratic, and now only vaguely discuss their hardline positions. Tese groups belong to the far right, the exact current identity of which has been the subject of countless academic studies. A more apt defnition of the parliamentary far right is probably as a populist radical right. Te populist radical right is not identical with National Socialism, and, in fact, several parts of it difer considerably. Tere is, however, a great deal of overlap and cross-fertilization, which should not be ignored. In a fascinating study, researchers have found that the populist radical right has enjoyed particular success in countries which of cially collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II (which, however, is not the case in Greece). Although these populist movements do not defne themselves as descendants from the historical Nazi parties, there is, nevertheless, a certain Nazi infuence, which ofen creates confusion and doubts about their identities. 4 I will now attempt, therefore, to examine the points at which elements of National Socialism come into contact with the illnesses in the religious sphere. Te reader will have already noticed that 4 See Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 24446. See the discussion among experts about whether these should be considered fascist, neo-fascist, etc.: Andrei Zaslove, Te Populist Radical Right: Ideology, Party Families, and Basic Principles of their Ideology, Political Studies Review 7: 3 (2009): 307. Mudde himself (op cit, 413), considers them radical, but not extreme, to the extent that they are not unconstitutional. Ig- nazi argues that the traditional neo-fascist parties have been replaced by a new kind of far right party which, while unconnected with fascist ideology, is nevertheless con- trary to the fundamental values of the democratic system. See Piero Ignazi, Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). See also Shadows Over Europe: Te Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in West- ern Europe (eds. Martin Schain, Aristide Zolberg, & Patrick Hossay) (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002), 6181, and Hans-Georg Betz, Te Growing Treat of the Radical Right, in Right-Wing Extremism in the Twenty-First Century (eds. Peter H. Merkl, Leonard Weinberg) (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 7493. Here in Greece, it is worth noting that Golden Dawn has moved from using the term National So- cialist to the term Nationalist. Te General Secretary of the party wrote: Let no one be mistakenthere is no hint of apology in this. We do not take back a single word of what we have written and argued. It is simply that we now consider this the most appropriate term. N. G. Michaloliakos, Enemies of the Status Quo: Golden Dawn 19931998 (Ashkelon, 2000), 70, cited in Psaras, op cit, 251. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 464 1/9/2014 9:26:30 PM Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church 465 I do not use the term Nazism so much as the term National Socialism, not because there is an essential diference between them, but rather because National Socialism better conveys the connection between idolization of the nation and social radicalism. A Radical Critique, But Against What? At many times in our modern history, the institutional side of the Church, with some exceptions, has been partners with the major economic interests and their political exponents. On this stage, most church leaders abstained from any social critique, which was seen as the purview of communists and their sympathizers. Te belief in blessed wealth came to be identifed with the traditional right, which maintained that its core values were conservatism, family, and care for the nation. Tis model, of course, has not disappeared, but beside it has emerged another, which was bred by two factors: frst, afer the dictatorship (1974), the ruling right began to move toward modernization and sometimes expressed unease with the close relationship between church and state. Secondly, the political fgures most in favor of modernization supported the conditions of the countrys international fnancial bailout. Te ecclesiastical attitude in this new model (which appears to be a minority, but is rapidly gaining momentum) features a populist leader (bishop or presbyter, as the case may be) who now talks about the rights of the poor and denounces the plutocrats and the powerful who are endangering the country. In and of itself, this could be hailed as a signifcant resurgence of the critical, prophetic role of the Church. And indeed it is, in some cases, when the criterion for such an attitude is the universal altruism of the Gospel. In the cases, however, of those who firt with National Socialism, this rhetoric is merely a convenient faade, which quickly gives way to other criteria. Te churchman 5 with National Socialistic tendencies speaks 5 In this text, I use the terms churchman, Christian, etc, in connection with fgures associated with National Socialist tendencies only as a matter of convention, in order to show that these fgures are operating in the ecclesiastical milieu. I certainly do not mean to imply that there is any compatibility between the Christian and National Socialist identities. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 465 1/9/2014 9:26:31 PM 466 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY mainly about the current crisis afecting the country and its indigenous people. And when he comes around to criticizing the banking system, his main argument is that the bankers are tools of international Zionism. His wrath, in other words, is not directed toward Mammon, the national or cultural identity of which, it should be noted, are of no interest to the Gospels. Rather, it appears as anti-systemic rage against the national elite, who led the country to the brink. Of course, the elite deserve to be sharply criticized, but to settle for simply shouting is nothing more than populism. To be of any substance, the criticism must be accompanied by refection on the question: To what end are we protesting? What do we want to see happen? See, for example, this statement: We are fghting against the corruption of a parliamentary system that doles out seats based on party statistics, without regard to character or ability. And, indeed, who would disagree? Te question, however, is what conclusion is drawn from this: whether, in other words, corruption harms democracy or, on the contrary, is intrinsic to democracy itself ! Tis excerpt is from the sixth article of the platform and Catechism of Hitlers National Socialist party (February 25, 1920), 6 which patiently participated in the parliamentary system until it was able to subvert it. Some criticize liberal democracy as a poor substitute for authentic democracy, i.e., for mans more substantive participation in the organization of public life. Tese critics include those who see representative democracy as an oligarchy and therefore seek methods for more direct democracy, as well as those who decry party bureaucracy, not because they dream of a dictatorship, but because they enjoy pluralism and desire a heightened sense of personal responsibility and participation. 7 Of a completely diferent 6 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 865 in the Greek translation by Leonidas Proestidis (Athens: Kaktos, 2006). 7 See, e.g., George Economou, From the Crisis of Parliamentarianism to Democracy (Athens: Papazisi, 2009) [in Greek]; Simone Weil, On the Abolition of All Political Parties (with commentary by Andre Breton and an addendum by the philosopher Alain), Greek translation by Sotiris Gounelas (Athens: Armos, 2011; Democracy SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 466 1/9/2014 9:26:31 PM Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church 467 sort are the critics who secretly desire to replace the parliament with a dictatorship. In this scenario, Christians must not seek to identify the Gospel with a political system. Neither, however, should they look for a middle ground between freedom and limitation, between justice and injustice, between aggressors and victims. Christians must base their attitudes and actions on the Gospels criteria. What we fnd today, however, is that in many Church circles there is no desire for the frst of these two kinds of critique. On the contrary, these circles seem to delight in the mess that our political system has become, which only confrms, in their minds, their belief that democracy is inherently fawed. Tey ofen invoke the name of democracy in their texts, but usually out of self-defense, i.e., when they want to defend one of their own interests. Beyond that, they have no real interest in democracy itself or its implementation. It is simply a concept of convenience, and that is why they demonstrate no concern when othersbesides themselves and those of their ideological circlefall into illiberal, undemocratic situations. But if freedom constitutes Gods mark on human life, and the burden which God has placed on mans shoulders, then the violation of any human beings freedomwhether of the same faith or a diferent faith, whether of the same race or a diferent raceis nothing less than blasphemy against God. It is, therefore, no mere accident that we hear no cries of protest in such cases from those in these particular ecclesiastical circles. Under Construction: From the Streets to the Squares (eds. Christos Giovanopoulos and Dimitris Mitropoulos) (Athens: Asynexeia, 2011) [in Greek]; Cornelius Cas- toriadis, Ancient Greek Democracy and Its Signifcance for Us Today (Athens: Ypsilon, 1986) [in Greek]. See also the cautious position of Tanasis D. Diamantopoulos, Te Referendum as an Institution and as a Political Act: An Authentic Expression or the Forced Guardianship of Popular Sovereignty? (Athens: I. Sideris, 2011) [in Greek]. It is remarkable that Christos Yannaras, in his wild attacks on the parliamentary par- ties of the Lef, does not challenge the society-centered vision, the non-negotiable demand for freedom, that defne the Lef, but rather condemns the exploitation and betrayal of the Lef; Christos Yannaras, Te Political Question in Greece Today (Athens: Janus, 2009), 176 [in Greek]. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 467 1/9/2014 9:26:31 PM 468 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Is it Possible to Have a Christian Paganism? One can fnd, in certain ecclesiastical circles, a strange mixture that is part pre-modern/imperial, and part modern/totalitarian. A theology with a totalitarian mindset results in a collectivist political philosophy, i.e., a political philosophy that perceives the people as a uniform and undiferentiated mass, which means that it is not able to distinguish between the community of the Church and society in general. It therefore envisions a state in which the atheists and the heterodox are citizens by accident, an undesired aberration, a cancer. Here, in the name of the Church transforming the world, they commit a serious ecclesiological error. Christ is all, and in all (Col 3:11) is stripped of its eschatological context and turned into a political slogan for the here and now, which inevitably sees freedom and diference within history as an impediment. Tis confusion leads to Christian political ideas that tend, sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly, toward totalitarianism and heavy-handed moralizing. 8 In our days, there is a subtle distinction in this understanding of the people. I say in our days because, afer all the theological contributions from the decade of the 60s and thereafer, many of the advocates of this concept claim that they do not understand the people racially, but rather culturally, even going so far as to denounce nationalism, which they equate with racism. Tis distinction is signifcant, but it does not take care of the problem entirely. In a totalitarian mentality, the cultural criterion can function just as the racial one does, making indigenousness the decisive criterion. As I have argued elsewhere, 9 the term indigenousness in this 8 See my article, From the dilemma absence or presence to the question what kind of presence? in the newspaper Christianiki, Tursday 19 February 2004, p. 8 [in Greek]. 9 Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, n Orphan or a Bride? Te Human Self, Collective Identities and Conversion, in Tinking Modernity: Towards a Reconfguration of the Relationship between Orthodox Teology and Modern Culture (eds. Assaad E. Kattan & Fadi A. Georgi) (Balamand & Mnster: St John of Damascus Institute of Teol- ogy, University of Balamand, Lebanon & Westphalian Wilhelms University, Centre SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 468 1/9/2014 9:26:31 PM Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church 469 case is not used in its normal sensei.e., that every human being has a homeland and a culturebut rather in the sense that the truth is tied to being native. According to this deifed view of indigenousness, the true citizen is he or she who remains faithful in all respects (culture, religion, values, etc.) to the faith of his/her ancestors. Otherwise, he/she is a renegade, a traitor, a bad citizen. In this line of thought, cultural and religious identity are inextricably bound; man is only comprehensible as part of a collective. Tis perspective, of course, is contrary to Christianitys fundamental tenet that there is one truth for all humankind, i.e., a truth which is chosen, which encounters and challenges every indigenousness, without itself being produced by any indigenousness. As a result, one is able to break out from the collective into which he or she was born, reformulate his/her cultural identity, and embrace a truth that is diferent from that of his ancestors. Tis, afer all, is what happened in the encounter between Hellenism and Christianity. Ceding priority to indigenousness is the basic principle of an ancient and enduring phenomenon: paganism. Te paradox is when this pagan perspective is adopted by Christians, who claim to believe in the one, universal truth of Christ, while at the same time making indigenousness the prism through which they see the world as well as, ultimately, their political criterion. Tis ineluctably leads, consciously or unconsciously, to the acceptance of indigenousness as a source of meaning. Advocates of this view are, in fact, die-hard supporters of an extreme contextual theology, even if they rail against it in their rhetoric. Collectivism is the oldest and most intractable facilitator of Christians fornication with totalitarianism. It did not frst appear (as is ofen argued) with the nationalism of the modern erai.e., afer the dissolution of the multinational Byzantine empirebut was, in fact, a temptation inherent in that empire, inasmuch as it turned Christianity into the very thing Christianity itself had rejected in its frst centuries: of Religious Studies, 2010), 13363; Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, Te Church as ission: Fr Alexander Schmemanns Liturgical Teology Revisited, Proche-Orient Chrtien 60 (2010): 641. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 469 1/9/2014 9:26:32 PM 470 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY the religion of the state, conceived as a coherent whole (i.e., a collective) in which any sort of diference constituted an ofense. No matter how it was cloaked (sometimes emphasizing the racial component, at other times the nationalistic, cultural, theocratic, or some combination thereof ), collectivism turned the Gospel on its head, warping the eucharistic community from something built upon personal choice to something determined naturalistically. Tis is precisely the attitude underlying those Christian consciences that are susceptible to Nazi indigenism. Hitlers slogan Blut und Boden (Blood and soil) encapsulates the National Socialist credo. Tat this slogan expresses the most earthy and animalistic way of being human, grounded in mundane biological reductionism, is quite easy to demonstrate. Te question, however, is whether it is similarly easy to distinguish a Nazi racially-based indigenism from a Christian culturally-based attachment to indigenousness. Research has shown that indigenism has not only crude biological (and thus easily disposable) forms. Scholars such as Lukacs and Ustorf have pointed out that, while Hitler was certainly a racist, his ideas were not limited to biological reductionism, nor to the blatant racism of his collaborators Rosenberg and Himmler. National sentiments of superiority, where and when they existed among the German people, were cultural rather than racial. 10
Lukac notes indicatively that as early as the late 1920s, Hitler had defned race as the basis of the nation, but in 1944 began to distinguish race from a people, even claiming that the Jews are not a race at all, 11 probably taking into account not just biological characteristics, but also cultural ones. It is of paramount importancepainfully important, in factto understand how certain theological trends facilitated, 10 John Lukacs, Te Hitler of History (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 122; Werner Ustorf, Sailing on the Next Tide: Missions, Missiology, and the Tird Reich (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), 45. 11 Lukacs, op cit, 124. Te racial criterion is exceptionally emphasized in Hitlers work Mein Kampf, op cit, 20203, 388441 (11th chapter, Nation and Race. Lukacs, op cit, 3, contends that Hitler himself deemphasized, if not altogether dismissed, Mein Kampf afer 1936 []. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 470 1/9/2014 9:26:32 PM Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church 471 with astonishing speed, the reception of Nazism in the German consciousness. Starting from the beginning of the 20th century, the concept of Volkskirche, the church of the (or each) peoplewhich was even seen as a unique expression of each particular race or peoplebegan to develop, primarily in the Protestant milieu. Te term referred to an entirely Christianized society, with a Christian culture, Christian institutions, etc. Te idea sprang, apparently with good intentions, from the struggle between two understandings and methods of mission: on the one hand, the conversion of individuals out from a people and, on the other, the Christianization of the whole society. 12 Tus, in the early 20th century, when Germany still had colonies in which the German churches had missions, the fundamental, primeval ties of the African natural communities were accepted en masse, in a collectivistic conversion. Western Christianity, you see, is not limited to its infamous individualism; it also includes collectivism, which, while it may excite supporters of communitarianism, can also lead to the nightmare of totalitarianism. From the missionary point of view, this concept poses an enormous problem: the goal, of course, is to incarnate the Gospel in the particular conditions of each and every context, but this endeavor always runs the risk of falling prey to collectivism and indigenousness, which produces not sarx (fesh) for the incarnation of the Truth, but a sarcophagus that encages the Truth. 13 Te Volkskirche paradigm of mission emphasized three points: Blut, Boden, Alten (Blood, soil, elders). 14 As early as 1932, the German Christians who accepted National Socialism declared: We want an evangelical church that will be based on nationality and will 12 Timothy Yates, Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 35. 13 See Tanasis N. Papathanasiou, Teaching Gypsies and Nobles about Circumcision and Avatar: Indigeousness and Questions of Truth in Multi-cultural Societies, Synaxi 98 (2006): 3547 [in Greek]. Te same line of thought is developed more fully in my as-of-yet unpublished paper, Mission as a Challenge to an Orthodox Contextual Teology at the international conference, Neo-patristic Synthesis or Post-patristic Teology: Can Orthodox Teology Be Contextual?, Academy for Teological Studies, Volos, 36 June 2010. 14 Yates, op cit, 4143. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 471 1/9/2014 9:26:32 PM 472 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY protect the nation from the degeneration of our people. 15 It is not at all coincidental that one of the pre-eminent representations of this perspective, the missionary Christian Keysser, admired the collectivism of the Old Testament (the indissoluble bond between soil, race, and theocracy), and welcomed Hitlers rise to power in 1934, even calling him a fellow fghter. 16 Tis case is quite indicative, because it demonstrates how lines become blurred when Christianity and National Socialism are mixed: from a rejection of the Semitic Old Testament on the one hand to an enthusiastic embrace of its collectivist elements on the other. With this emphasis on indigenousness and collectivism, it was almost inevitable that those German Christians who were moved by Nazism would create the monstrous hybrid of the Aryan Christ, i.e., a false Christ subjugated to the claims of the German context (i.e., indigenousness). Conversely, it is extremely revealing that the anti- Nazi German Christians denounced Nazism as demonic. 17 Mark Mazower has perceptively noted that the revolutionary rhetoric of National Socialism did not really mean a break with the past (revolutionary attitudes demand, by defnition, a break), but rather a continuation of the ideas of a distant past, which the Nazis simply dressed up and intensifed. 18 Tis is precisely why Golden Dawn attracts some religious people in Greece. As was the case in pre-war Germany, National Socialist activism is seen as advocacy for the primeval soul of the people, which has been wounded by modernity. Te fact that, for religious people, this primeval soul means the Christian tradition, while for Nazi pagans, it means the pre-Christian tradition, is ultimately a minor consideration in light of what is truly important for both groupsindigenousness. 15 Busch, op cit, 90. 16 Yates, op cit, 54. Of course, the backbone of the Biblecontrary to this collectiv- ist readingis the emergence of the subject and personal responsibility, especially in the prophets. See Klaus Koch, Te Prophets, Greek translation by Polixeni An- donopoulou (Athens: Artos Zois, 2009), 43539. 17 See Eberhard Busch, Te Barmen Teses Ten and Now (tr. Darrell & Judith Guder) (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 2010); and Victoria Barnett, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 18 Mark Mazower, cited in Ustorf, op cit, 910. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 472 1/9/2014 9:26:32 PM Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church 473 Golden Dawns willingness to move from crude insults against Christ 19 to declarations in favor of Christian oaths in judicial practice (in order to preserve national morale) 20 is characteristic. Afer all, Hitler was by no means an atheist, but was instead motivated by the conviction that the German people and he personally had been commissioned by the Divine Providence to create the highest form of humanity on the planet. 21 Are there not af nities between some Orthodoxs perceptions of the role of their holy nation (and not specifcally the Church) and this way of thinking? It is no coincidence that nowadays the crux of the confict between the positive and negative stances within the Church toward Golden Dawn is their respective attitudes toward foreigners. Te immigration problem is extremely dif cult and complex. Its international dimensions, and the ethno-nihilism of some of the advocates for immigrants, have proven embarrassing to people of goodwill. Whatever the dif culties, however, and no matter how much the embarrassment, the primary concern for the Church is not to lose its Christian criteria. Moving the center of gravity from the Gospel-rooted acceptance of foreignness (both of our fellow man and of Christ Himself ) to indigenousness results in the creation of a diferent gospel. Golden Dawn understands the whole issue quite clearly, and it is telling that Golden Dawn has organized soup kitchens for Greeks only, hastening to explicitly contrast this with the Churchs policy of opening its soup kitchens to anyone and everyone in need. 22 Te problem is that the religious groups built around the concept of indigenousness do not have similar clarity about the criteria of the Gospel. Tus, one fnds a gaping intra-ecclesiastical 19 See Psaras, op cit, 21032, 30507. 20 www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/oi-sunhtheis-kathgoroi-ths- chrushs-aughs-katadikazoun-thn-ellada (posted 9 January 2013; accessed 21 January 2013). 21 Not only in Mein Kampf, but also in his speeches. See Ustorf, op cit, 35, 40. 22 See, for example, the interview with members of Parliament for Golden Dawn, Elias Kassidiaris and Elias Panayiotaros, on the television station Skai (with journalist Nick Evagellatos), 10 May 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np4aaeBBoGI [accessed 01 February 2013]. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 473 1/9/2014 9:26:33 PM 474 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY breach: on the one side, there are theologians and parish priests who boldly preach and then put into actual practice the principle that every human being is an icon of Christ, while elsewhere there are other church persons for whom the issue is never considered in soteriological perspective and never put high on the agenda. Tere, the usual topic of discussion (when they are not directly asking to stop aiding foreigners) involves the social problems of immigration, not the spiritual problem of bypassing foreignness. Te attitude of these ecclesiastical groups contributes to the modern phenomenon that researchers have dubbed nativism, 23
meaning the shif of emphasis to indigenousness. From the crude (and, as I said, easily confronted) biological criterion, some ultra right-wing movements have moved to the most refned cultural or sometimes to the osmosis of biological/culturalcriterion. But at its crux is always an absolutized collectivist we, which is sharply contrasted from the others, who are not included in our collective nor, to a great extent, in our democracy. Te dynamics of nativism needs to be carefully monitored, because it does not just entail a national perspective (one can fnd a national perspective in very diferent venues, such as, for example, the patriotic lef), but a very specifc orientation: the emergence of the nation as a source of meaning. It is equally true that one can fnd anti-Nazi partisans of ancient Greek democracy within the paganistic milieu. But what is needed from Christians is a radical opposition to any kind of paganism, i.e., to any kind of deifcation of indigenousness and thirst for power, which inevitably entails naturalism. Tis means opposition even to nominal Christianities, which actually constitute pagan lifestyles and value systems, sprinkled with cheap and empty words: Lord, Lord . . . (Mt 7:21). Te Double Standard Te ecclesiastical circles with a totalitarian mentality loudly call, as I have already noted, for democratic principles in the name of the people; yet it is absolutely indicative that they themselves cultivate 23 Peter Papasarantopoulos, Foreword, in Mudde, op cit, 23. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 474 1/9/2014 9:26:33 PM Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church 475 neither democracy nor conciliarity within their own groups. Tey are dominated rather by an unquestioned leader, either of the charismatic type (a priest/spiritual father), or the institutional (a bishop). What is produced, then, is a mix of lefist rhetoric on the one hand and authoritarian behavior on the other (it could even be seen as a kind of Stalinism but, as I said before, the National Socialist paradigm is the coalescence of all the characteristics). Halliday relates an incident that hits close to home; we have only to replace the word president with Elder: I once asked someone in a semi-authoritarian state that allowed a multiplicity of parties and some variety in the press: Why do you have pluralism in your country? And the answer was: Because the Elder told us to have pluralism. 24 Te aforementioned mix produces something truly frightening, which typically uses an increasingly insulting vocabulary to describe its opponents, while even co-opting the opponents own vocabulary. Tus the real fascists who praise dictators go so far as to blame their adversaries for fascism! National Socialism cannot exist without shock troops, and crypto-Nazi parties cannot exist without vigilantes who roam the streets at night. A Christian cannot justify the use of physical violence, but when he surrenders to totalitarianism, he searches for ways to eliminate his opponents using spiritual terrorism. A stroll through the sewers that call themselves Christian blogs makes this abundantly clear! Tey are overfowing with insults and threats. Superfcial attacks and characterizations abound at the expense of those who wish to say something substantive. Te treatment of dissidents occurs in such a way that the audience (followers) consolidate, the people are indoctrinated, and then mobilized against persons or opinions about which they know only what the leader has told them. Nazi propaganda insisted on the importance of repeating just a few things to the masses, always in slogan form in order to make an immediate 24 Fred Halliday, Te World at 2000: Perils and Promises (London: Palgrave McMillan, 2001), 158, cited in the Greek translation by Ariadne Alavanou (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2001). SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 475 1/9/2014 9:26:33 PM 476 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY impact and be easily repeatable. Hitler believed that people learn little and forget easily. 25 In the case of religious totalitarianism, one can easily see the derision of the bodily characteristics of dissidents (how does this difer from crude biological reductionism?), and delusional mental acrobatics that connectwithout any factual basisopponents with groups that are doomed from the outset in the minds of the audience (references to heresies, moral deviations, etc. 26 ). Te narrow-minded fanatic (a tautology!) cannot really discern what someone who disagrees with him is really saying. He adopts the convenience of the stupid: He ascribes anything he disagrees with to being a product of the New Age, and thus unburdens himself of the bother of having to actually think and treat his opponents arguments seriously rather than resorting to ad hominem attacks. Afer all, in the art of propaganda, the construction and the launch of ofensive characterizations, along with generalizations, is a device to make us form a judgment without examining the evidence on which it should be based. Here the propagandist appeals to our hate and fear. 27 Under the sway of this combination of metaphysics and bullying, the religious tend to sympathize with black-clad lads. As Vattimo has aptly noted: Although not all metaphysics have been violent, I would say that all violent people of great dimensions have been metaphysical. 28 Anti-Semitism in Disguise We read: His life [sc. the Jews] is of this world only and his mentality is as foreign to the true spirit of Christianity as his character was foreign to the great Founder of this new creed two thou- 25 David Welch, Te Tird Reich: Politics and Propaganda (London: Routledge, 2002), 11. 26 Te populist radical right customarily emphasizes precisely this kind of diferentia- tion between insiders and outsiders, constructing the identity of those who dis- agree with giant conceptual leaps. See Mudde, op cit, 113. 27 Propaganda Techniques of German Fascism, http://www.maebrussell.com/Ar- ticles%20and%20Notes/German%20Propaganda.html (13 May 2012). 28 John D. Caputo & Gianni Vattimo, Afer the Death of God (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 43. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 476 1/9/2014 9:26:34 PM Signs of National Socialism in the Greek Church 477 sand years ago. And the Founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of His estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Chris- tians enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. Tey even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation. 29 Tis excerpt comes not from a militant Orthodox website nor from a zealots homily. Tese are the words of Adolf Hitler! It is both a monumental distortion of the Gospel (he condemns the Jews nature and depicts Christ as expelling the Jews as a whole rather than just the merchants!), and an example of why it is not enough for Christians to denounce only the unabashedly anti- Christian paganism; in order to contrast themselves clearly with Nazism, they have to discern and denounce Nazism in every form and disguise. Racism has also evolved. As Pierre-Andr Taguief has written, the old, grotesque version of racism, which was based on biology and which defended inequality, has been succeeded by (without, however, completely eradicating it) a new paradigm, which talks about culture rather than race, diference rather than inequality, and defnes itself as anti-Zionist rather than anti-Semitic. 30 Opposition to political choices of Israeli governments is understood to be legitimate (something Taguief himself recognizes), however, the criteria in each case must be that of democracy and freedom. Otherwise, the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism 29 A. Hitler, Mein Kampf, tr. James Murphy (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1939), Ch XI. 30 History is not like a quiet river (Andreas Pantazopoulos interview with Pierre- Andre Taguief) Kathimerini newspaper, 14 August 2011. news.kathimerini. gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_civ_1_14/08/2011_452528; accessed: 1 February 2013. See also Pierre-Andre Taguief, What is Antisemitism? Greek tr. Anastasia Iliadeli & Andreas Pantazopoulos (Athens: Estias, 2011). SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 477 1/9/2014 9:26:34 PM 478 ST VLADIMIRS THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY rings hollow and serves as nothing more than a poor disguise for an extreme anti-Jewishness. Anti-Semitism has a foothold in religious circles that insist on the collective guilt of all generations of Jews for the crucifxion of Christ; in other words, while these groups claim on the one hand that they are opposed to the Zionist Jewish leadership and not the Jewish people (and thus concede that opposition to the Jewish people would make them anti-Semites), on the other hand, they attribute collective guilt to the entire Jewish people, including children and those yet to even be born! So which is it? What are their criteria? Te following is a characteristic example of the schizophrenia created by their ideological fanaticism: Te same preachers who insist on the inherited guilt of the Jews are usually the same ones who decry the medieval western concept of original sin as inherited guilt! 31 What are we to do? It is easy for the self-proclaimed Orthodox zealot to denounce the Filioque, but it is very dif cult for him to give up the role of Inquisitor! Translated by the Rev Dr Gregory Edwards, TD 31 See my article God as Provocateur, God as Nazi, and the Redeemer God: Essay on the Value of Interpretation, Synaxi 119 (2011): 1725. SVTQ 57,3-4.indb 478 1/9/2014 9:26:34 PM
(Library of Modern Turkey 11.) Axiarlis, Evangelia - Political Islam and The Secular State in Turkey - Democracy, Reform and The Justice and Development Party-I.B. Tauris (2014)