SPECIAL TO IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM.
This
is not a post about religion and faith. Historical materialism, as it
has been analyzed in the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and others,
represents our perspective on the “opium of the people”. However,
this article focuses on the Greek Orthodox Church as an institution
and her high ranking representatives. Before going to our major
issue, let us remind the following: a) according to article 3.1 of
the Constitution of Greece (Hellenic Republic) “the prevailing
religion in Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ”,
b) the Church of Greece is, in fact, an institution tied to the
bourgeois Greek state, as long as priests (of all ranks) are civil
servants and their salaries are paid from the State. c) the Church of
Greece, with an estate of billion euros, is largely benefited by a
series of tax exemptions.
The
reactionary and regressive role of the Church of Greece through
history is, more or less, known. Since the formation of the
independent Greek state in 1830, the Orthodox Church has been always
part of the establishment- from the Ottoman rule to the formation of
the Kingdom of Greece and from the 1940s Nazi occupation to the
1967-1974 military dictatorship, the leadership of the Greek Orthodox
Church played its role as a staunch ally of the established order.
