This article started as a synopsis of the role of Orthodox Christianity in the Greek School Life, as a part of this article on the visit of representatives of the Atheist Union of Greece to the Minister of Education, but it grew rather lengthy in the writing so I’m putting it here separately. If you want to learn even more about Orthodoxy and its role in the modern Greek State, you can check out this article as well.
The owl: symbol of Athena, goddess of Wisdom, used regularly by educational organizations in Greece (like the pictured logo of the now defunct “Organization for the Publication of Educational Books”, which used to publish all school manuals).
A few comments to begin with
There are a couple of points that I should mention before you read on. Some things you may have noticed in the previously linked article on the historic relationship between Church and State that leads to an idiosyncratic relationship between the Citizens and the Church.
Greeks are very religious, but with an extra emphasis on tradition and outward typolatry and not theological correctness, church attendance or charity. Also Greeks are quite suspicious of the organized Church; the higher up someone is in the Church Hierarchy, the more suspicion he earns. There are precious few hierarchs beyond reproach and they often gather cult followings. Monks are more loved, but most Greeks would be horrified if their child became a monk without having married and born children first. Finally, the overly devout laity are viewed with a mixture of pity and ridicule typically reserved for a village fool.
All this means that Greeks know typically little on the doctrines of their religion other than observance rules and since they distrust the Church, the school is the next best thing to offer religious education to the children (which makes any attempt to remove RE from the curriculum quite difficult).
Let’s move on to specific points where religion and education intersect in Greece.
The Constitution
Unlike the United States and other secular european countries, the Greek Constitution is not secular at all and has no clause separating Church and State. The Constitution opens with a preamble “In the name of Holy, Homoousios and Indivisible Trinity” (a fancy word that even most theologians would be unable to explain properly) and has a whole article on religion:
ARTICLE 3
- The dominant religion in Greece is the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ. The Orthodox Church of Greece, recognizing as its head our Lord Jesus Christ, exists inseparably united doctrinally with the Great Church of Constantinople and every other Church of Christ of the same denomination; it follows without fault, like them, the holy apostolic and synodic rules and holy traditions. It is autocephalus, governed by the Holy Synod of the active Arch-hierarchs and the Ongoing Holy Synod that comes from the former and is assembled as ordained by the Charter of the Church, following the provision of the Patriarchal Tome of June 29th, 1850 and the Synodic Act of September 4th, 1928.
- The ecclesiastical regime that exists in some areas of the State does not contradict the provisions of the previous paragraph.
- The text of the Holy Bible is preserved unaltered. Official translation in any other linguistic form is prohibited without the approval of the Autocephalus Church of Greece and the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople.
The following paragraph however throws a wrench in any attempt for secularization in Education:
ARTICLE 16§2
Education constitutes a basic mission for the State and shall aim at the moral, intellectual, professional and physical training of Greeks, the development of national and religious consciousness and at their formation as free and responsible citizens.
That basically means any secular group has little wiggle room. The best argument I’ve heard so far is that the State is constitutionally obligated to offer religious education, but that the Citizens are not obligated to receive it (however, conditions may apply). We’ll have to wait for the next Amendment for any real progress on the issue.
Start of the Year Benediction
The school year in Greece starts on September 11th and it’s a day when children return to school, are greeted by the principal and the teachers and/or professors, get divided in classes and classrooms, (unlike the american school system, students don’t move around to different classrooms for different subjects, but it’s the teachers and professors who move around) and get their books.
Before all that, all the student gather up in the courtyard for what is typically known in Greece as “αγιασμός” (ah-yee-ah-ZMOS). It’s basically a benediction ceremony where the priest prays for a successful and productive school year and at the end sprinkles the students and staff with holy water with a handful of basil sprigs. Typically he also gives a speech with a similar content.
Source: Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace
Morning Prayer
A school day typically starts at 8:00 am with the “morning prayer”. The entire school, students and faculty alike, gather at the schoolyard and a teacher choses a student to come up to the microphone (if there is one) and recite the Lord’s Prayer (or the Easter prayer as appropriate). This is more of a problem in the elementary school, when students are pressured to learn the prayer. In junior high and high school, typically a student will volunteer to recite the prayer (often the same one over several days, till the teachers ask for a different volunteer). After the prayer, the principal makes any announcements that need to be made and the kids go up to their classrooms.
In elementary schools some teachers also have their students recite another prayer at the end of the school day, but the changes in the curriculum and the involvement of several teachers even in elementary school have dulled this phenomenon.
School Church Attendance
Every once in a while, especially near major feasts, like Christmas and Easter, the whole school goes to church (like a field trip with extra incense). Services typically last till 10 a.m. after which the students return to school for the rest of the classes. Church attendance was and is compulsory, unless someone is exempt because they belong to a different religion. Missing out on church counts as 2 absences (which can be problematic in Junior High and High School were students are allowed a total of 100 period absences per year; more means you have to repeat the year).
When I was growing up we went to church every other Friday, since my elementary school was right next to a large church.
Confession and Sunday School
Again when major feasts approach, a priest might visit a school for those students who want to confess their sins. This is actually a novelty since it was unheard of when I went to school and it’s most prevalent where the principal is really devout or is a graduate from the Faculty of Theology. Confession in the Orthodox tradition is considered a compulsory sacrament, though not widely observed by the laity and differs from the Catholic version in that it doesn’t require a cubicle with a separator. The person just kneels or sits at a lower position than the priest who places his epitrachelion on his head and listens to their confession (the positioning often offers opportunities for whimsical remarks from the less than devout).
Source: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Since children do not fully comprehend the notion of sin, nor are they very forthcoming with when they’ve been “bad”, there used to be a guide circulated in schools (unknown by who) to aid the process. Whether this practice continues today, I have no idea, but the guide’s content was really impressive for its thoroughness and its creepiness (which is why I included a translation of it at the end of the article). Ιt’s the leaflet on the right; click to enlarge. For the Greek-speaking readers, a fellow blogger also did a parody version of the same document several years ago, but with confession advice for priests (you can read it here).
Sunday schools at churches (or Catechism Schools as they are called in Greece) are not ubiquitous, but they do exist, though they are more common at various para-ecclesiastical groups that operate in Greece. When the church doesn’t have a proper room for Sunday school, it is not uncommon for a nearby school to offer a couple of classrooms for use by the priest on Sunday. They’re not the most common element of greek religious life and are often viewed with suspicion by parents as breeding grounds for future priests and monks. Given that the typical Greek’s religiosity is far less strong than his desire to become a grandparent (and keep the family property in the family and not wasted on some monastery), few children are sent to Sunday School, which increases the citizens’ desire for a sectarian religious education class in the more controlled and neutral environment of the school classroom.
I still recall my mother’s abject horror when I asked her at the age of 8 to become an altar boy and go to Sunday School. Of course I only went because a buddy of mine did. I went once to observe the duties of an altar boy (boring) and once at Sunday School (even more boring) and never went back, much to my mother’s great relief.
Religious Education in the Classroom
The school day comprises 7 periods of 40′ each, divided by breaks of 10′ for each 40′ period. That’s a total of 35 periods per week. Of those 35 periods, RE takes up the following hours according to the current legislation:
- Elementary School: 2 periods per week, from 3rd through 6th grade.
This is comparable to History, Geography and Informatics (source) - Junior High School: 2 periods per week, in all three grades.
This is comparable to Ancient Greek, Physics, Geography, History, English and Physical Education. There are subjects that are worth only a single hour per week to the Ministry of Education; stuff less useful than RE, such as Chemistry, Biology and Informatics (source) - High School: 2 periods per week in 1st and 2nd grade; 1 hour per week in 3rd grade.
Hour comparisons are similar to Junior High. 3rd grade is a grade dedicated to preparation for the University Exams, so RE takes a back seat (source)
Throughout High School however, the students’ attitude towards RE is typically indifferent and professors usually focus on students that are interested in the subject leaving the rest to their own devices. Studying for the next class or the frontistirio (=university exams preparatory private school) is a typical passtime during RE.
The content of RE has also become more and more sectarian over the years. When I went to elementary school in the 1980s, RE was basically just the Bible rewritten for children and the books contained little catechism; the only one we got was based on what the teacher told us extra. In 3rd grade we were taught the Old Testament, the New Testament in 4th grade, Ecclesiastical History in 5th and Elements of Orthodox Worship and Practice in 6th. Nowadays, children are taught the following books:
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL | |||
3rd Grade God in our Life |
4th Grade Our Walk through Life |
5th Grade Christians in the Struggle of Life |
6th Grade Seeking Truth in our Lives |
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL | ||
1st Grade The Old Testament The Prehistory of Christianity |
2nd Grade The New Testament Jesus and his Work |
3rd Grade Topics of Christian History |
HIGH SCHOOL | ||
1st Grade Orthodox Faith and Worship |
2nd Grade Christianity and Other Religions |
3rd Grade Topics of Christian Morality |
Everything nice and objective of course. Especially when presenting different religions, the theme is: “This is what this religion says and this is why they are deluded and Orthodoxy is correct”. The same goes for other Christian denominations with a special dislike for Catholics (I don’t think the Church ever really let go of the grudge for the Schism of 1054 and the Sack of Constantinople of 1204).
Religious references can also be found sprinkled around in virtually any subject, either existing in the books (Greek Language books are especially vulnerable to this, since a lot of Greek Literature either is religious or has religious themes) or inserted by the teacher or professor (for instance, my especially devour English teacher made sure to include blunt references to religion whenever possible… all in English of course… for paedagogical reasons). Also, in an effort to avoid religious turmoil, biology textbooks keep material regarding the Theory of Evolution towards the end of the book. That way those chapters are almost never taught due to time restraints, are easily ignored by the students and are never part of the material to be included in exams.
It should be noted that the Orthodox Religious Education is only absent from schools of the Muslim minority of Western Thrace, a few Jewish schools and handful of catholic schools, who all have the right to offer their own religious education.
Teachers and Professors
All this emphasis on religious education also created an extra problem: Teachers had to be exclusively Greek Orthodox. No non Orthodox could become a teacher, unless he took care to hide his religious affiliation; which admittedly could be easy to do since almost all Greeks are baptized when young and changes in religious affiliation are not recorded on official papers. A special stigma was placed on teachers who became Jehovah’s Witnesses later in life (since they are especially despised in Greece as the only christian denomination that competes in proselytism attempts with the Church of Greece) and they could face dismissal, especially if they were found guilty of proselytism (which isn’t only illegal in Greece, but also unconstitutional).
Today this has changed: there is no real religious test to become a teacher, nor does a teacher face dismissal for changing his religious affiliation, though any known non Orthodox teacher will be watched closely by suspicious parents who care about their children’s “spiritual purity”.
In Junior High and High School, the quality of the instruction is somewhat better since almost all professors of RE are graduates of the various faculties of Theology of Greek Universities (a faculty that is notoriously easy to get into and out of). Since RE forms the basis for the job positions, they have formed a powerful and influential lobby (along with the Church of Greece) to safeguard RE in the schools. Due to their training in Ancient Greek and Ancient Literature during the studies, a theology professor might double as a Greek Language teacher in the absence of a proper philologist, which allows for even more religious education to seep into other subjects.
Exemptions from Religious Education
The issue of exemption from religious education has been a thorny one for several years. Exemptions used to be typically granted to students that belonged to a different religion in non minority schools and were unwilling to audit the RE class. Students that had been baptized Orthodox Christians as infants were not allowed to be exempt from the class, regardless of their actual current belief system. For the past couple of years there have been attempts to rectify this, but the implementation has been awful.
The encyclicals issued by the Ministry of Education so far have been mired in ambiguity and illegality. The encyclical issued by the previous government, for instance, allowed for exemption upon the student’s parents’ request, but only if the student had documents to prove that he was not an Orthodox Christian and belonged to a different religion. Students who had the misfortune to be baptized as children could not do this since it used to be included in the birth certificate and schools had that information on file. However, religion is considered private information and it is illegal to be forced to divulge it. So, for a time, exemptions rested in the hands of the school principals alone, who often abused their position to deny requests (especially if they were particularly religious).
The current encyclical rectifies the situation somewhat. Now anyone can request an exemption, but has to declare that he is not an Orthodox Christian without the need to divulge their current religious affiliation. Needless to say that this can be problematic and stigmatize a student (though the mere act of asking for an exemption from RE can do that, truth be told).
School principals are also ordered to be vigilant in case someone tries to abuse this right and be exempt just to miss the class and not for reasons of religious consciousness. Neeedless to say that opens a major window for abuse.
Ideally, the question “Why won’t your child be taught RE?” should have only answer as far as any public servant is concerned: “None of your business”.
The Atheist Union of Greece has been working these past few years to remove any religious clause from the exemption form; either direct of indirect, so that anyone who wants an exemption from Religious Education will be able to get it.
CHILDREN’S CONFESSION GUIDE
My dear child,
now that you are about to confess, before going to the confessor think about whether you have committed any of the following sins and underline them or place a mark in front of them so you will remember to tell them to the confessor. Also, pray that the good God will illuminate you to remember all of your sins and confess them with honesty.SINS OF THE TONGUE
1. Do you lie, even if it is in jest?
2. Do you sing the vulgar song you listen on the radio?
3. Do you talk back to your parents? teachers? elders?
4. Do you swear by the name of God and the Saints?
5. Do you blaspheme against the divine or say “go to hell”?
6. Do you talk yourself up?SINS OF THE EYES
1. Do you watch bad shows on the TV?
2. Do you watch inappropriate movies?
3. Do you read magazines and books that do you no good?
4. Do you neglect to read the Holy Bible?SINS OF THE EARS
1. Do you enjoy listening to secular songs on the radio?
2. Do you like to hear vulgar words from older or younger people?
3. Do you listen to other talking ill of our Christ and blaspheming against Him and do not protest?
4. Do you hear others being unjustly accused and say nothing?SINS OF THE HANDS
1. Do you still other people’s stuff from home or school?
2. Do you hit younger classmates or your siblings?
3. Do you do vulgar gestures at yourself and others?
4. Do you do the sign of the cross properly and with reverence?
5. Do you do a mountza against others?SINS OF THE FEET
1. Do you go to the theatre or cinema?
2. Do you go to parties and dance sinful dances?
3. Do you kick your friends or siblings?
4. Do you neglect to go every Sunday to church and the Sunday School?VARIOUS OTHER SINS
1. Do you neglect to pray every day?
2. Do you disobey your parents?
3. Do you neglect to study for school?
4. Do you neglect to fast as set by our Church?
5. Do you neglect often to commune?
6. Do you dress up during the Carnival?
7. Do you neglect to give alms to the poor?
Τα σχόλιά σας είναι ευπρόσδεκτα / Your comments are welcome