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Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece says the Church will not allow to remove icons from public buildings, cancel Orthodox lessons of Orthodoxy in schools or remove the cross from the national flag
Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece says the Church does not intend to impose its presence where it is not wanted and will lose nothing by it.
‘We would not bring tanks to the Greek Parliament building. Neither we will shoot those whose opinion on Church-State relations differs from ours’, the Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church underscored. He added, however, that the Church would not allow to remove icons from public buildings, cancel Orthodox lessons in school or remove the cross from the national flag.
He was speaking at the conference on dialectical and canonical nature of the Church. Hierarchs and university faculty attended the conference.
An official representative of the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church reported that the Holy Synod did not intend to discuss separation of the Church from the state at its sessions, and the government ‘did not raise this question’. Yet, members of the Holy Synod render their support to the Primate’s statement, which clearly outlines the bounds of a possible dialogue with state’s representatives.
Greek Minister of Education Marietta Jannakou said that the Church and the state were in constant dialogue and maintained close cooperation.