The State of Orthodoxy in Greece

[buzuxi02]

and i have to say that there are spiritual fathers that tolerate premarital sexual relationships.

Ahh yes then theres Father Modernist who appeases the hippocrites instead of admonishing them. No wonder many cowards in the church,who are afraid to speak out against abortion.

 

[Annoula]

One or two people which IF you are lucky may be younger than 60 years old.

sorry...but when i do my cross i don't belong to the 60 age group...
and sometimes i am startled by some people doing their cross. they don't have the "church look"...

i am not saying that everybody does it. i am only saying that there ARE people that have some respect for the Church.

Less hypocritical. The next person I see yelling "Ellas, Ellinon, Christianon" I will personally bite their throat.

my mother and uncle say..."we need a Papadopoulos"...

(hey...i don't support it!!!)

 

[Philothei]

sorry...but when i do my cross i don't belong to the 60 age group...
and sometimes i am startled by some people doing their cross. they don't have the "church look"...

i am not saying that everybody does it. i am only saying that there ARE people that have some respect for the Church.





my mother and uncle say..."we need a Papadopoulos"...

(hey...i don't support it!!!)

lol Annoula.

Overall the situation in Greece might be bad, but young people still go to Church let us not forget the movement of the Rock monks about five years ago. There is always interest about the Church in general.

 

[E.C.]

I think that a few things must be taken into account.

1) Generally, there is a higher percentage of people in urban cities who do not go to church every Sunday, if at all. This is true for almost every country.

2) Greece was granted independence from the Ottomans in 1821 almost 180-90 years ago. This is more than enough time for some Western things such as no church going to seep in; especially after World War II and during the Cold War.

3) Something to note; whenever a country tries to protect its Orthodox heritage such as Russia by not allowing other Christians, mainly Protestants, to spread, this is immediately called "intolerant" by Western countries but whenever a Muslim country such as Saudi Arabia does the same, the government is nearly praised and respected for defending its peoples culture.

Odd, isn't it?

 

[nikostheater]

Really odd....

 

[Iacobus]

For whatever its worth, we were in Greece several years ago for about three weeks. We were on what we jokingly called the churches 'n monasteries tour -- we just wandered around, and every time we saw a church or a shrine we stopped in. Since there is a church or shrine every few feet, we spent a lot of time inside such places.

Our observation was that people of all ages and types would wander in at all times of the day to light a candle and pray for a few moments while going about their business. I can't say it was any particular age group -- we saw old and young and in between, and people who were dressed as if they were professionals as well as blue collar workers and housewives. We were very impressed by the people of Greece, and the devotion we observed.

Dcn. James

 

[Oblio]

I will second Dcn. James, though my experience mingling with the 'secular' was limited to Thessaloniki. I found the piety refreshing coming from a culture where outside Wed eve and Sundays the churches are shut tight. Outside the local monasteries and Athos, the one church I attended on 2 occasions was packed. The age distribution was probably skewed a bit to the right, but there was no shortage of youth and young adults.

 

[Orthosdoxa]

3) Something to note; whenever a country tries to protect its Orthodox heritage such as Russia by not allowing other Christians, mainly Protestants, to spread, this is immediately called "intolerant" by Western countries but whenever a Muslim country such as Saudi Arabia does the same, the government is nearly praised and respected for defending its peoples culture.

True dat.

LK

 

[Annoula]

I will second Dcn. James, though my experience mingling with the 'secular' was limited to Thessaloniki. I found the piety refreshing coming from a culture where outside Wed eve and Sundays the churches are shut tight. Outside the local monasteries and Athos, the one church I attended on 2 occasions was packed. The age distribution was probably skewed a bit to the right, but there was no shortage of youth and young adults.

Thessaloniki has a different spiritual "atmoshepere" than Athens, probably because it is very close to Mount Athos.
The churches are older there and you can sense this religious - spiritual atmosphere.

as i've already said (some months ago) there are young people that wear komposxoini on their hands. they may not know how to use it or what it is about but they DO wear it.
the seed is there.

 

[theoforos]

Lets take an average sample Annoula, I have 10 friends of all those friends 1 goes to church when he is able and all the rest once a year 5 minutes before midnight of Anastasi and leave five minutes past.

Wow, I wish it was like that over here, too. Here the rate would be like 1/1000 at the best, maybe slightly better among the Orthodox than the Lutherans, but not much.

 

[Andronic]

True dat.

LK

SERBS, GODS PEOPLE... Orthodoxy serbs faith, CHRISTOS OUR SAVIOUR!

 

[vfilip]

Orthodoxy is in our blood and allthough devil has do a good work also here in Greece i believe that generally we are keeping our faith as we are preserving our eyes .
I remind you the failure of political marriage in our country . All young couples prefer the secular marriage in the church .
However tradition is loosing ground , abortion rate is very high (estimates 300.000 - 400.000 abortions / year) many mixed marriages because of tourism & a lot of immigrants .
Our political governors were atheists for the last 30 years so our faith ties are loosening ! Tv channels are presenting more & more the devil than issues about our faith . You open TV at the morning and you see broadcasters speaking about zodiacs on a permanent basis .Journalists are in general atheists with few exceptions .
You don't see many young people in the church in Sunday morning but you do see many-many grandmothers taking their grandchildren to receive communion !!!!
Conclusively i can say that Orthodoxy is at a standby mode that waits for a spark to become a fire again !