“A lost opportunity for secularism in Greece”: that’s how Valia Kaimaki, writing in Le Monde diplomatique (December 2002), calls the “pressures” of the Orthodox Church on the State, repeated after the local elections in October, but at the centre of political debate for at least two years. “Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos recalls Kaimaki has lost the battle of the identity card: as demanded by the European Union, religious membership no longer appears on it. But the ruling socialist party (Pasok) has not exploited this victory to advance along the road of the separation of Church and State”, even though “the constitutional reform of 2001 would have provided it with an occasion for doing so”. With regard to the battle between Church and State over identity cards, Kaimali explains that this was not, as might seem, a “victory” of the State, in a society like that of Greece where “religious worship is omnipresent, and even agnostics go to Easter Mass”. In 1998, the election of Christodoulos as archbishop, moreover, gave “a new impetus to the Church (…). Bishops, priests and bureaucrats of the ecclesiastical administration intend to protect their gains threatened by the liberalization of society. And Archbishop Christodoulos embodies the widespread disquiet aroused by such challenges as globalization and immigration. All this is translated into a wave of neo-fascism and xenophobia, which history especially the resistance to Nazism during the second world war had hitherto spared Greece”. The question of “European culture” as “Christian culture” is reflected on by Olivier Clément ( La Croix, 2/12). According to Clément, Christianity “has permitted” European culture “to fuse together and transcend, in a crucible that needs to be called biblical and evangelical, both the philosophic genius of Greece and the juridical genius of Rome”. The idea of the person, explains the Orthodox theologian, “was developed” thanks to Christianity as a “unique and at the same time open existence, existence in communion with the image of a God who is neither the lonely omnipotence in heaven, as in Islam, nor the principle of fusion as in the oriental spiritualities, but simultaneous fullness of unity and diversity, of the One and the Other”. At the same time, Clément adds, “the Christian revelation has shown a created reality in the world, i.e. an autonomous reality, endowed with its own consistency and in spite of that penetrated by the intelligence and beauty of God (…). It has made possible, not least, modern science, also favoured by the thought ‘in tension’ that characterizes the theology of the first councils”. At the centre of the comments of the German press are the reactions to the double terrorist attack in Kenya. “ The world as battleground“, is the headline of the article by Peter Münch in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (29/12) . “The front isn’t between rich and poor, between tyrants and the oppressed”: that is demonstrated by “the multimillionaire Osama Bin Laden and his numerous Saudi supporters. With a religious infrastructure and a pseudopolitical pathos, the terrorists succeed in winning the minds of a huge mass of people in the Islamic world. To restore peace and harmony to the Middle East what’s needed are not military but political means“. “ The campaign against terrorism and the campaign against the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of despots are not the same thing“, comments Klaus– Dieter Frankenberger in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “ But both have the same urgency. A little negligence could have fatal consequences“. The weekly magazine Der Spiegel (2/12) also dedicates coverage to the terrorist attacks in Kenya: “ The mode of attack in Mombasa and its motives are perfectly compatible with Al Qaida. They are the methods indicated by their ideological guru Aiman al-Sawahiri with reference to tourist resorts“. “ No one must any longer feel safe anywhere” in the world, the magazine continues. “ Al-Qaida continues to globalize the struggle. For the first time, the network and its sympathisers have demonstrated that even abroad the Israelis are no longer safe“.
