‘Eastern’ Orthodoxy and ‘Western’ Secularisation in Contemporary Europe (with Special Reference to the Case of Greece)

Abstract

This paper engages with an ongoing scholarly debate on where Orthodox Europe stands in relation to (Western) European secularisation. It navigates between perspectives presenting Orthodoxy as an exception to European secularisation on the one hand, and as an imminent participant in the secularisation process via integration into European institutions on the other. Focusing on the Greek case, the inquiry examines the extent to which ‘Europe’ (both culturally and politically) may be considered to have a secularising influence on Orthodox Greece. Rejecting narrow and linear conceptions of secularisation, the paper emphasises the dialectical, discursive nature of secularisation which precludes generalisations about either ‘eastern’ or ‘western’ secularisation, much less about their relation to one another.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the support of the European Commission for the Marie Curie Fellowship at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) during which this paper was written, and that of the London School of Economics Hellenic Observatory. I owe gratitude to Grace Davie, Nikos Kokosalakis and the journal's anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft, and to Slawomir Mandes and Theoni Stathopoulou for their assistance with the quantitative survey data.

Notes

 1 This paper was written during a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). It also draws on ideas developed through the project on Europe, Religion and Multiple Modernities (EUROMM) funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

 2 Berger repeated and fleshed out this statement during a London School of Economics Forum on Religion seminar devoted to the topic of his ‘retraction statement’ on 12 November 2008 at the LSE.

 3 See for example: Dawson (1952), de Rougemont (1963, 1966), Halecki (1950), Delanty (1995) and Geremek (1996).

 4 Also critical, of course, is a realistic consideration of how ‘religious’ the Orthodox East is, including the complex phenomenon of postcommunist religious freedom that skews to a large extent the religious picture in each postcommunist context. This topic, however, is beyond the necessarily limited scope of the present article. On this see Borowik and Tomka (2001).

 5 He does however qualify this description with the following parenthetical statement: ‘I cannot discuss here the possibility of whether European culture itself may change in this regard. If it does, an important factor will be the challenge of Islam within as well as on the borders of Europe, a religious community that largely refuses to play by the rules of laicité’ (Berger, 2005, p. 443).

 6 For more on religion in labour and equal opportunity legislation, see Vickers (2006, 2008). See also Carrera and Parkin (2011) and McCrea (2010).

 7 Of course, the ECtHR is not an EU institution, but although the ECHR and the ECtHR are formally under the auspices of the Council of Europe, rather than of the EU as such, it is clear that the ECtHR and its rulings play an integral role in the EU's relations with individual countries. Further, EU accession requires prior membership of the Council of Europe, which entails also being a signatory to the ECHR.

 8 According to one interpretation (Richardson and Shoemaker, 2008), the margin is greater for older member states and smaller for newer member states (and, particularly, for Orthodox and postcommunist states).

 9 The table presents a necessarily selective sample of the research results, given space limitations. The questions included here are considered key questions indicating religious belief and religious practice. They appear in the table in the order in which they appear in the surveys.

10 According to Stathopoulou (2012), there are several possible reasons for the divergence of results between the EVS and the ESS, including methodological differences in how religiosity is measured (the EVS traces the content of religious beliefs, whereas the ESS is limited simply to whether religious beliefs exist); differences in the wording of the questions (where applicable; for example, ‘how important is religion in your life’ is not the same as ‘how religious are you’); and differences in the scaling. She also suggests that particular events around the exact dates when the surveys were conducted in Greece might have skewed the results; but even this potential factor would not easily explain such divergent results.

11 These include Anagnostopoulou (2000), Dimitropoulos (2001), Kalaitzidis (2003a, b, 2007, 2010), Kokosalakis (1987, 1995, 1996, 1997), Makrides (1991, 1996, 1997, 2009), Manitakis (2000a, b), Vassiliadis (2003), and contributors to the special issues of the journal Synaksion church–state relations (vol. 75) and church and nation (vol. 79).

12 Cipriani (2011) defines religious diffusion as religion that involves vast sectors of society beyond the simple limits of ecclesiastical religion and which is widespread as the historical and cultural result of the long presence of the majority religious institution in a particular nation and the outcome of its socialising and legitimising action over time.

13 The cited cleric made the statement at a public seminar held at a Greek theological institute in May 2010.

14 David Martin made this argument eloquently at the London School of Economics Forum on Religion seminar on 7 March 2012.