Greece - Korina Miller [35]
You will notice taxi drivers, motorcyclists and people on public transport making the sign of the cross when they pass a church, and many Greeks will go to a church when they have a problem, to light a candle to the relevant saint. There are hundreds of tiny churches dotted around the countryside, predominantly built by individual families dedicated to particular saints. The tiny iconostases or chapels you see on roadsides are either shrines to people who died in road accidents or similar dedications to saints. If you wish to look around a church or monastery, you should always dress appropriately. Arms should be covered, women should wear skirts that reach below the knees and men should wear long trousers.
While religious freedom is part of the constitution, the only other officially recognised religions in Greece are Judaism and Islam, despite the existence of everything from Greek Jehovah’s Witnesses to Scientologists. While there is tolerance of non-Orthodox faiths, they still face legal and administrative impediments.
The recent wave of migrants has significantly increased the Muslim population of Athens, where many makeshift mosques operate. Construction of an official mosque, though approved at the official level (both government and Church leaderships publicly support it), remains mired in controversy and delays.
There are more than 50,000 Catholics, mostly of Genoese or Frankish origin and living in the Cyclades, especially on Syros, where they make up 40% of the population. Polish and Filipino migrants make up the majority of Athens’ Catholics.
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THE GREEK DIASPORA
Greece was until recently a nation of emigrants, with more than five million people of Greek descent living in 140 countries. The biggest migration waves were in the 15 years before the Balkan Wars, after the 1922 Asia Minor purge and the postwar period in the 1950s and ’60s.
The largest Greek communities abroad include an estimated three million in the US and Canada. Melbourne, Australia, claims to have the third-largest population of Greek-speakers in the world (300,000), after Athens and Thessaloniki.
Nostalgia and ties with the home country remain strong, with a significant number of Greeks living abroad or of Greek descent returning for annual holidays or retiring in Greece. They own property and are involved in the country’s political and cultural life, while a steady stream of young second- and third-generation Greeks are also repatriating.
The Greek state promotes Greek language, culture and religion abroad and funds a world body representing the Greek diaspora. There were also controversial moves to give Greeks living abroad the right to vote in elections.
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Greek Jews number about 5000, with small Jewish communities in Ioannina, Larisa, Halkida and Rhodes (dating back to the Roman era) and Thessaloniki, Kavala and Didymotiho (mostly descendants of 15th-century exiles from Spain and Portugal). In 1941 the Nazis transported 46,000 (90%) of Thessaloniki’s Jews to Auschwitz; most never returned.
In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the polytheistic religion of the Ancient Greek gods. Fringe revival groups claimed a victory in 2006, after a Greek court recognised the Ellinais group as a ‘cultural association with a religious goal’. All forms of pagan worship were outlawed by the Roman state in the 4th century AD, and were later renounced by the Greek Orthodox Church.
Women in Society
Greek women have a curious place in Greek society and the male–female dynamic throws up some interesting paradoxes. Despite the machismo, it is very much a matriarchal society. Men love to give the impression that they rule the roost but, in reality, it’s often the women who run the show both at home and in family businesses.
Despite sexual liberation, education and greater participation in the workforce, ‘mother’ and ‘sex object’ are still the dominant role models and stereotypes, which Greek women play on with gusto. Chauvinism and sexism seem to be an entrenched and largely accepted part of