Faneros Deipnos 2016: Storm in a teacup

Those who follow the atheist movement in Greece might know that every Good Friday (April 29th in 2016) the Atheist Union of Greece has been organizing for the past 6 years an event called “Faneros Deipnos”. The name is a wordplay of the “Last Supper” which is Greek is called as “Supper in Hiding” (Mystikos Deipnos); so we organize a “Supper in Public”. The event is typically scheduled on Good Friday around 9 p.m., the time during which the various churches parade the “epitaphios” (a wooden carrying case, adorned with flowers and containing a cloth icon of Christ being lamented around as he has just been deposed from the cross). The event is meant to provocatively break the strict Good Friday fast, usually with roasts and kebabs (though participants are free to chose what they want to eat; no one is forced to eat meat or anything).

The event has so far been held successfully in Athens and Thessalonica for 5 consecutive years. Until this year. This year was different.

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Atheist Union of Greece meets with the Minister of Education

Now this is something you don’t see every day.

The Atheist Union of Greece (AUG) typically makes press releases and sends letters to public officials regarding matters in its fields of interest, but this was the first time a meeting was arranged face to face with an elected representative.

On August 6th two members of the AUG, the president (Fotis Frangopoulos) and the treasurer (Antonis Markouizos) met with the Deputy Minister of Culture, Education and Religions (Tasos Kourakis) and discussed several issues, the most important of which was the continuing problems students face when trying to get an exemption from religious education in all three levels and 12 years of public education (elementary school, junior high and high school).

The Deputy Minister was reportedly friendly, the discussion lasted about 30 minutes and and the AUG was promised that the Ministry would try to resolve the issue as swiftly as possible. I should note that a promise from a politician pretty much means jack shit in Greece (pardon the French) even under normal political conditions, let alone the current tumultuous situation (as I’m writing this the government has resigned, trying to renew its approval with national elections on September 20th). In any case, however, it was a first step and that should not get overlooked.

I have translated the text presented to the Deputy Minister below, but before you read it you should probably check out this article first, since it describes the various ways Orthodox Christianity intersects with school life in Greece. Originally it was intended to be included here, but it grew rather lengthy and I placed it apart. 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.

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Aorati Melani: “I am here to stay”

Just a couple of minutes after I posted my article condensing the various news reports about yesternight’s incident caused by fundamentalists and nationalists in downtown Athens (“Corpus Christi” – Censorship attempts escalate), my good friend “Aorati Melani” (i.e. Invisible Ink) posted a wonderfully eloquent article in Greek about the things she experienced outside the theatre, when she attempted to see the play and support the actors’ freedom of expression, along with some other friends from the “Atheist Union of Greece”.

If you can read Greek, head on to the greek article; it’s excellent and disturbing at once. If you cannot, Toomanytribbles and I joined forces to quickly translate the article in English for those of you who cannot speak Greek (and let’s face it; Google translate generally sucks). I’ll mirror the text here as well for archivial purposes (as it has been edited by Aorati Melani herself) but I’ll keep the comments closed here so the conversation doesn’t get broken up.

Head over to Aorati Melani’s blog to discuss her harrowing experience.

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Free Elder Pastitsios!

UPDATE at the bottom of the post

Οι Έλληνες αναγνώστες μπορούν να βρουν μια λίστα με ενημερωτικές πηγές για το περιστατικό στο τέλος του άρθρου.

Holy crap on a cracker! (is this considered blasphemous, BTW?) This took me by surprise. I’d heard the rumours, to be sure, but never thought that anything would come of them. What am I talking about? Do you remember this old article of mine?

T’is a miracle! Greek-Orthodox style #2

Take a moment and read it, if you haven’t already. It marks the seminal event that precipitated this whole mess. Go ahead, I can wait…

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Arrests over “Corpus Christi”

You can read the article in Greek, here »

According to the ΣΚΑΙ.gr website, yesterday afternoon (June 9th, 2012) 3 actors that took part in the “Corpus Christi” play, which opened in Athens last week, were arrested with the charge of blasphemy (though they were released the very same day). It is unknown who filed the charge, but a few days earlier the Synod of the Church of Greece released the following statement, about the play:

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