Holy Bond Loosens: Austerity Creeps Up on Greek Orthodox Church

[sysop]

The Greek Orthodox Church has managed to cling onto many of its economic privileges, despite austerity stinging nearly all other parts of the country's society. But after numerous scandals have revealed corruption and embezzlement in the Church, more Greeks appear to be demanding sacrifice.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-858905.html

[philobiblos]

While the Church officials are human beings, with all the weaknesses that accrue to the species, the institution is the oldest in continuity in the Greek space. The Church, which was to a degree respected even by the predatory Ottomans, became victim to the modern Greek state, when that became administered by Bavarian Germans in the 1830s to 1840s. It was under this Administration that over 90% of Church properties were seized by a succession of Greek governments, which then undertook to support the clergy (i.e. they made them civil servants).
The Church can contribute to the crisis by appropriate exploitation of its remaining properties, if only the government mechanisms and para-government mafias keep their hands off. The Church provided the only social safety net in our Greek Christian society for 1700 years.
The journalists writing the Spiegel piece clearly know little about our history, and respect it even less, to bother doing even some superficial research.
Aristide Caratzas