Greece legalizes SSM

Details here. 

So, how many of those who voted for this have been excommunicated? There was a day when the immediate answer would have been "all of them." This is as much an indictment of the Church as it is of modern society. The usual suspects are crowing with a particular glee because Greece is the first ostensibly Orthodox country to cave on this. And they are not wrong. Bluntly, this was a stunning defeat for the Church, made all the worse by the fact that they largely acquiesced to it.

Greek military put on high alert as tensions with Turkey rise

Greece has placed its military forces on high alert, recalling its naval and air force officers from holiday, as tensions with Turkey over exploration of potentially lucrative offshore energy reserves escalate in the eastern Mediterranean.

With Ankara dispatching the Oruç Reis, a drillship escorted by gunboats, to conduct seismic research in contested waters, Athens stepped up calls for Turkey to stop the “illegal” activities, intensifying a diplomatic offensive that has prompted the US, EU, France and Israel to express growing anxiety over the situation.

“Our country does not threaten [anyone], but nor can it be blackmailed,” the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, told the country on Wednesday night. “Let it be known to all: the risk of an accident lies in wait when so many military forces gather in a limited area.”

Amid the mounting international concern, Mitsotakis on Thursday thanked Emmanuel Macron, calling him a “true friend of Greece and fervent protector of European values and international law” after the French president demanded Turkey halt its explorations and said he would reinforce France’s military presence in the area

Read the rest here.

Erdogan orders study of possibility of converting Agia Sophia into a mosque again

 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has instructed his aides to conduct a comprehensive study of the possibility of converting the status of the famous Agia Sophia in Istanbul from a museum back into a mosque, the Turkish paper Hurriyet reported today.

“Do the research, then we will all assess and talk about it. Tourists will still be able to visit Agia Sophia if it becomes a mosque, as happens with the Blue Mosque on Sultanahmet Square,” the President said at a meeting of the Central Executive Board of the ruling Justice and Development Party, which is chaired by Erdogan himself.

The head of state asked his aides to take their time and study the issue well, reminding that Agia Sophia belongs to the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Foundation and is a symbol of the conquest of Istanbul.

Agia Sophia, originally built as a great Orthodox cathedral in the 6th century by St. Justinian the Great when Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, remains a point of tension between Turkey and Greece.

It was converted into a mosque when the Ottomans defeated the Byzantine Empire in 1453. In 1931, the building was secularized, and in 1935 it opened as a museum.

Erdogan has often used readings from the Koran in Agia Sophia and declarations of his intent to make it a mosque once again to inflame tensions with Greece and the Orthodox world, most recently over this past weekend when the 567th anniversary of the conquest of Constantinople was festively celebrated at Agia Sophia, with the reading of the 48th chapter of the Koran.

Read the rest here.

Turkey opens its border to Europe for 3.6 million migrants

Mobs rush Greek border. Greeks repel them with tear gas and force.

Details.

Orthodox churches repeatedly vandalized by Muslim refugees on Lesvos

The tense situation on the islands of the northern and eastern Aegean, now home to tens of thousands of refugees, mainly from predominantly Muslim countries, is like a “time bomb ready to blow,” reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.

The locals have reached their limits and are in a constant state of anger and sorrow as the refugees repeatedly attack and desecrate their Orthodox holy sites.

In particular, residents of Moria, Lesvos complain that groups of illegal Muslim immigrants have repeatedly vandalized churches in the area and made direct threats against the Orthodox faith. The Church of St. Catherine is now locked, as residents try to block the entrance and protect it from being desecrated again.

The windows of the church have been broken, the holy cross has been thrown down, and the icons have been overturned. Refugees have also damaged the chapel of Taxiarchis (the Archangel Michael), the patron saint of Mytilini, the capital of Lesvos, breaking in to sleep there. 

With the help of the police, local residents managed to kick the refugees out of the Taxiarchis chapel, “but the picture inside the church was tragic.”

According to a recent report from the Guardian, there are more than 42,000 immigrants on Lesvos and a handful of other islands, who are “unable to leave because of a containment policy determined by the EU, they are forced to remain on the islands until their asylum requests are processed by a system both understaffed and overstretched.”

Police on Lesvos clashed with some 2,000 Afghani migrants and refugees who were participating in a protest rally from the Moria camp to Mytilini last Monday to demand better living conditions and a acceleration of asylum procedures. 

The conditions at the Moira camp are widely recognized to be extremely poor. 

Source

Sad News

Greece has its first crematorium.

Large cross on Greek island destroyed because it could be ‘offensive to Muslim migrants’

The ancient mythical Greek island of Lesbos is today better known as anchorage ground for human traffickers and the problems and conflicts that have arisen in connection with the boat traffic.

It is now reported that a large cross monument on the Greek Orthodox Christian island has been levelled to the ground. This after a group claiming to promote intercultural coexistence argued that the cross could be perceived as offensive to the predominantly Muslim boat migrants.

The cross monument was built on the cliffs of Apellia, beneath the castle of Mytilene, in memory of people who have died in the sea. According to the local coexistence group, however, the cross was offensive because many who have drowned, and many migrants on the island are not Christians.

The local newspaper on the island reports that the group has also received support from some aid organisations that expressed similar negative opinions about the cross-shaped memorial monument.

A letter was sent to the Island’s port minister and mayor, in which the coexistence group claimed that the cross was placed there to prevent migrants from swimming.

The letter stated that the initiators of the monument were “aspiring crusaders” with racist and intolerant motives who abused the Christian cross, which should be a symbol of love and sacrifice. And they therefore called for the monument to be demolished.

And that was what happened. Just a few days later, at night, the whole monument was levelled to the ground. The demolished remains of the cross remain as rubble on the site

The attack by the coexistence group on the monument and the demolition of it has aroused strong reactions in large parts of the local population who believe that the deed goes against the Christian religious beliefs shared by a majority of the inhabitants of the Island.

Source

Greek Government to Propose Separation of Church and State

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras intends to initiate the process of separating the Greek Orthodox Church from the Greek state and revising the relevant article of the Greek constitution, reports Russian Athens with reference to the Greek paper Kathimerini. 

According to the Greek publication, within the next month Tsipras will present his plan for the revision of the constitution, including plans to separate the Church from the state, ahead of the expected submission of the SYRIZA proposal to parliament, planned for October.

Tsipras and his advisers are aware that the initiative is likely to cause strong reactions from the Greek Church, although Tsipras believes he will be able to manage the situation. The initiative will be presented as “progressive,” and therefore the prime minister is hoping to receive the support of the centrist party “Movement for Change.” 

The project on the separation of Church and state from SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left, was published about a year ago. The project provides:

1. That Church and state discretion are fully established with full respect for the Orthodox Church and its historical role;
2. The explicit fixing of the religious neutrality of the state, recognizing Orthodoxy as an historical religion;
3. The obligation to guarantee a single political oath for president, prime minister, legislators, judges, and other public officials.

The Holy Synod of the Greek Church has opposed the government’s plans to unilaterally separate the Church from the state. The bishops argued that one political part cannot make such a decision, but only with the support of the people. 

Source.

Uncharted Waters

Greece tells Europe to pack sand.

Greek Government Weighs Emergency Actions -May close banks and the stock market

Bank runs and a possible stock market crash... who didn't see this coming? Apparently a lot of people.

I've been saying it for probably at least five years. Greece is broke. They were broke yesterday and they will still be broke tomorrow. The money just aint there. There are a lot of reasons for this clusterbleep - the Euro was a horrible idea, the predatory way the emergency loans were structured etc. But the bottom line is that this is a Greek tragedy mostly of their own making. You can’t run a country that promises everyone a minimum standard of living and government pensions for all while no one pays taxes.

“The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money to spend. “ -Margaret (Baroness) Thatcher

OK; who didn't see this one coming?

Minister of education of Greece: “We are launching the process of separation of Church and state”

Memo to the Greek people... Elections have consequences.

Greece threatens tilt to Russia and China unless Europe yields

Greece's radical new government has threatened to seek money from Russia and China to avert a financial crisis rather than yield to austerity demands from Europe, risking a dangerous political rift with the leading EU powers and a full-blown NATO crisis. 

Read the rest here.

Greece: Far left wins election - setting stage for battle with Europe

ATHENS — Greece rejected the punishing economics of austerity on Sunday and sent a warning signal to the rest of Europe as the left-wing Syriza party won a decisive victory in national elections, positioning its tough-talking leader, Alexis Tsipras, to become the next prime minister.

With 60 percent of the vote counted, Syriza had 36 percent, almost eight points ahead of the governing center-right New Democracy Party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who had conceded defeat. The only uncertainty was whether Syriza would muster an outright parliamentary majority or if it would have to form a coalition.

Appearing before a throng of supporters outside Athens University late Sunday night, Mr. Tsipras, 40, declared that the era of austerity was over and promised to revive the Greek economy. He also said his government would not allow Greece’s creditors to strangle the country.

“Greece will now move ahead with hope, and reach out to Europe, and Europe is going to change,” he said. “The verdict is clear: We will bring an end to the vicious circle of austerity.”

Read the rest here.

Greece: Here we go again

 ATHENS — The long-dormant euro crisis could come roaring back to life Monday with a vote in the Greek Parliament that is expected to bring down the pro-austerity government and open the way for a radical leftist party to take power for the first time in the history of the European Union.

The vote will be watched closely around the continent as a marker of economic peril in the year ahead as Europe gazes into the abyss of another recession. But it could also be a key political milestone as the center gives way to forces that were once relegated to the European fringe and are now buoyed by a populist, anti-austerity backlash.

For Greece, the expected collapse of the government comes just as the economy here had begun to stabilize. Now, with the far-left Syriza Party forecast to win the elections that would follow at the end of January , all bets are off.

The party has vowed to halt payment on Greece’s debt until the terms of the country’s $284 billion bailout agreements can be renegotiated, and it says it will thumb its nose at international lenders by ramping up public spending.

Read the rest here.

Greek Orthodox Bishop Threatens to Excommunicate Politicians Voting for Gay Unions

A leading Greek bishop has warned lawmakers that they risk incurring the wrath of God – and will be excommunicated – if they vote in favour of legalising same-sex partnerships.

In a letter lambasting homosexuality as "an insult to God and man", the Metropolitan of Piraeus, Seraphim, pleaded with the country's deputy prime minister, Evangelos Venizelos, not to condone gay unions.

"I beseech you from the heart not to proceed," he wrote.

"You will deny yourself the blessing of the most just Lord whose help and protection we daily need as much personally as nationally … during these critical times for our country."

Last week, the 57-year-old former monk, a prominent personality in Greece's powerful Orthodox church, threatened to excommunicate any MP who endorsed civil unions among gay couples following condemnation of Athens's failure to do so by the European court of human rights.

Read the rest here.
HT: Byzantine Texas

Axios!

Shock: Greece will need a third bailout

And a fourth and a fifth... until people decide to stop throwing good money after bad. Greece is the Detroit of the EU. They are broke. They owe more money than they can repay. Period. They have already defaulted on their debt. It's long past time to just let the country go bankrupt so they can begin rebuilding and healing. Yes, that will mean a lot more near term pain. But this is a situation where there are no good alternatives. Bankruptcy is the least bad and the only one that holds out the hope of eventual recovery.

See here for latest news.

Greeks Furious Over IMF Apology

(Reuters) - Greeks reacted with an air of vindication and outrage at the International Monetary Fund's admission it erred in its handling of the country's bailout, berating an apology that comes too late to salvage an economy and countless lives in ruins.

Anger was palpable on the streets of Athens, where the EU-IMF austerity recipe that the Washington-based fund says it sharply misjudged has left rows of shuttered stores and many scrounging for scraps of food in trash cans.

"Really? Thanks for letting us know but we can't forgive you," said Apostolos Trikalinos, a 59-year old garbage collector and a father of two.

"Let's not fool ourselves. They'll never give us anything back. I'm sorry for all the people who killed themselves because of austerity. How are we going to bring them back? How?"

Read the rest here.

A Bankrupt Greece Does The Unthinkable

Pushed by its European creditors amid its crippling economic crisis, Greece began this week to do something it hasn't done in more than 100 years: fire public-sector workers en masse.

Following weeks of tough negotiations with its lenders – the "troika" of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank – the Greek government started laying off public-sector workers in an effort to implement the austerity that the troika has demanded. The first two civil servants were let go on Wednesday under a new law that speeds up the process – one, a policeman, for stealing debit cards, and the other for 110 days of unexcused absence.

Read the rest here.

Greece reclassified to 'emerging market' from developed

A major fund manager has reclassified Greece from a developed to an emerging market, in an unprecedented move reflecting the "unfortunate economic tailspin" of the Greek economy, which has threatened the future of the euro.

Russell Investments, which advises funds with $2.4 trillion (£1.6 trillion) in assets, said the Greek economy has been a "world concern" since it revealed unsustainable levels of public debt in 2009.

The American-based company said Greece, which Russell designated as a developed market in 2001, has been on a path towards reclassification as an emerging market since 2010, having failed Russell's operational and macro risk tests, including per-capita income, total market capitalisation and the level of trading volume, which determine the economic health and status of countries.

Read the rest here.