Abolition of the state
The Church revelations of the past few weeks are not just about isolated cases of improper behavior by certain clerics – who should be dismissed from Church ranks irrespective of other developments – and they do not just concern the actions of shady characters who operated under multiple aliases with the help of Greek state bodies and possibly also other countries. The most shocking revelation of all is that the concept of the state itself has suddenly been destroyed, that the behavior of a group of dubious individuals is setting the tone for our political and social life – and all this in the name of transparency in the ranks of the judiciary and the Church. Transparency is badly needed and all negative elements in public and social life must be purged. But this needs to be carried out systematically by the responsible institutions, the government or Parliament. Otherwise, Greece will regress into anarchy and the citizen’s democratic right to know will become a vehicle for the dissolution of state institutions. Over the past few days, there has been a shift from scandals involving individual clerics and judges to the inactivity of the government (and the country’s political system in general), which seems not to realize that in times of crisis the citizen needs to feel the presence of a state which guides developments and is not at the mercy of individuals, well-intentioned or otherwise, or of the media. A senior judge recently rejected the proposal by Archbishop Christodoulos and the Holy Synod for the establishment of a committee (including judicial officials) to monitor accusations leveled at the Church, stressing that it would not be viable in view of the current entanglement of Church and judiciary. The unruly ones prevail while the government – to whom the proposal was directed – remains silent. However, because society demands an answer, television has become the self-appointed regulator of the situation while representatives of the broader Left have taken it upon themselves to «save» the Church from its road to perdition. Christodoulos was elected archbishop by 49 votes but more clerics supported him this time around because the Holy Synod recognizes that if it yields to the pressure of self-appointed purgers, the Church will become a puppet of external forces. As a result, the Church will retain its unity and Christodoulos will keep his post. In a society which believes it is moving forward by shedding old institutions, progressives see the Church as a body radically at odds with the spirit of the age, one which must be discredited or undermined.
