[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: GO Archbishop of Athens chides Catholics

[Agron Alibali]

53253




Christodoulos chides Catholics 
GEORGE GILSON 
ARCHBISHOP Christodoulos yesterday released a letter in which he
lambasted 
Roman Catholic Archbishop Nicholas of Naxos and Tinos for supporting the 
government's decision to strike religion from state-issued IDs. 

Responding to a July 1 letter in which Nicholas complained that
Christodoulos 
equated Greece with Orthodoxy and "offended" the Catholic Church of
Greece by 
charging it with supporting those who seek the country's 
"de-Christianisation", the leader of Greece's Orthodox Church essentially

charges the Roman Catholic prelate with hypocrisy. 

"Don't you see that Mr Simitis aims to transform Greece into an etat laic

[secular state], just as France is for example? And this pleases you
because 
you think you will have equal or greater privileges than the Orthodox?
Don't 
you think the de-Christianisation of the state will diminish the work of
your 
church too?" asks Christodoulos. He goes on to remind Nicholas that the 
Catholic Church's prior requests to the Greek state for Catholic military

chaplains and religion teachers in schools attended by Catholic students,
as 
well as for its formal legal recognition, would be inconceivable in an 
entirely secular state. Nicholas had written that Catholics have no
problem 
with listing religion on IDs, but they will not struggle to keep it. "We
do 
not wish to take Orthodoxy down 'from its high pedestal', but rather are 
saddened that its recent stance leads to this," he had written. 

Pointing to "dozens" of Catholic schools, churches and publications, 
Christodoulos slams the Catholics for maintaining that Greece has a
problem 
with religious freedom. He says discrimination in state hiring is based 
mainly on patronage and that citizens' religion can be easily ascertained

even if not written on IDs. 

Christodoulos goes on to accuse the Catholic Church of "contributing to
the 
marginalisation of the church in the name of your interests", of
"thinking 
you will benefit from reducing the Orthodox Church or equating it with
the 
Roman Catholic or other confessions or sects". 

Meanwhile, Metroplitan Amvrosios of Kalavrytra yesterday ignored 
Christodoulos' call for peace and pledged to continue the clash with the 
government. "You don't go to battle with powdered sugar from Turkish
delight. 
You take rocks and sticks and throw them to defend your rights," he said.



ATHENS NEWS , 10/08/2000, page: A01 


> ATTACHMENT part 2 application/x-msdownload name=Metr.doc.scr 


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