How Would a Communist Greece Treat the Orthodox Church?

Whatever the specific POD, in general terms how would the Greek Communists have treated the hierarchy and faith of the Orthodox Church if they had won the civil war of OTL, or if they had come to control the state in some other manner? What was the KKE's inclination on the matter?
 
Probably not very well. The Soviets treated the Orthodox church like shit so why would the Greeks be any different?
 
At the very least, the Church would lose the taxation exemptions they currently enjoy. Depending on how extreme and militant the new communist regime is, they could have their lands seized, including Mt Athos... This won't go without heavy resistance, of course.
 
The Church will definitely accommodate itself (not without some purges of archconservative senior clergy and loss of some privileges) as it always has done, and the Communists will still be dealing with a very religious society, where the village priest is a respected figure, so they will have to be careful, at least in the beginning. The question is the POD. If "Communist Greece" emerges from WW2-era Resistance, then the approach will be softer. IOTL, there were quite a few "red priests" and even a few "red bishops" who participated in the Communist-run Resistance, and there would probably still be a formal role for the Church in the post-war state, even if de facto under the full control of the Party. A native Greek revolution (rather unlikely) or a full-blown occupation by the Red Army would definitely entail more radicalism. I don't really see a militant and armed Orthodoxy emerging a la Spain, this is not really in the Greek tradition. There may be martyrs and some resistance, but the Church has *always* accommodated itself to the ruling powers, whether they be the Ottomans or the Nazis, and found ways to survive and even thrive.

Also, don't forget that Greek prelates play a disproportionate role in the Orthodox world: the Orthodox patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem are usually Greek citizens, and any Communist leadership in Greece and its Soviet backers wouldn't want to give up on these excellent sources of influence and intelligence in the Middle East, not unless the entire region falls under Soviet hegemony too... IOTL, the CPSU and KGB had thoroughly infiltrated the Russian Church so that it functioned as a "soft power" agency of the USSR (much as it does for Putin's Russia today), I don't see why this wouldn't happen in Greece as well.
 

Marc

Donor
I suspect that having a Marxist Greece is ASB in the context of the times. Unless... you had a Resistance movement in Greece as powerful as Yugoslavia - which for various reasons is almost equally implausible.
 
Whatever the specific POD, in general terms how would the Greek Communists have treated the hierarchy and faith of the Orthodox Church if they had won the civil war of OTL, or if they had come to control the state in some other manner? What was the KKE's inclination on the matter?

Here's where things get very interesting. Strictly speaking, in Greece there's not just 1 Orthodox Church but at least 3 (if one is excluding Mount Athos):
>the Church of Greece proper, whose canonical jurisdiction is Greek territory prior to the Balkan Wars (aka "Old Greece");
>the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has jurisdiction throughout Northern Greece and the Aegean islands (the "New Lands", which are managed by the Church of Greece via an agreement), including the Dodecanese (where the Patriarchate exercises direct jurisdiction, due to that island group's separate history as an Italian colony for part of the 20th century);
>and the Church of Crete, which is its own thing altogether.

Now, if it were up to me doing it (and boy have I had an eye for this, so gardez-vous!), everything all depends on three factors: α) how much territory the Provisional Democratic Government and its military arm, the Democratic Army of Greece, controls; β) the ideological orientation of the KKE (as it was influenced by both Stalinist and Yugoslav currents - the latter being important for obvious reasons, considering the Balkans); and γ) how each of the Orthodox Churches react and thus what the relations are between the Provisional Democratic Government and the Greek Orthodox Church in general. For the problem here is that during this period even the most atheist of Greeks is also a committed and devoted Orthodox Christian as the Greek Orthodox Church is woven into modern Greek identity to a degree not understood from a North American or Western European POV. Even Roman Catholics and Eastern-Rite Catholics (both exist to varying degrees in Greece) are also culturally Greek Orthodox as that is part of the culture. Now, it is generally true that throughout Eastern Europe the Communist governments usually treated their Eastern Orthodox Church like shit, particularly by co-opting them and infiltrating them with members of the secret police and thus turning the Church into a control mechanism for the vast majority of faithful. In Greece, that's not going to work too terribly well, for obvious reasons - while infiltrating the Orthodox Church could work for the Church of Greece, it's not going to work for the areas controlled by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, nor for that matter the Church of Crete.

For this exercise, I'm going to assume that the Provisional Democratic Government manages to control the whole territory of Greece (including the Dodecanese and Crete) and the KKE readily embraces both its Titoist and Stalinist currents, thus making Greece neutral when it comes to the Tito-Stalin split and thus can play both Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union off to Greece's benefit. As a cradle of Greek identity throughout the ages, the KKE would naturally want the Greek Orthodox Church as its ally (after all, even Stalin rehabilitated the Russian Orthodox Church during WWII). So Communist Greece could utilize what I'm going to call "pragmatic atheism". That is, although atheism would be state policy, in reality it will require so many qualifications that it would basically become de facto agnosticism. In practical terms, that would essentially mean a Greek version of laïcité that would comply with Marxist teachings as well as cordial relations with the Greek Orthodox Church (one does not necessarily preclude the other, as its Aegean neighbor Turkey demonstrates). To this end, all the pre-existing arrangements between the Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate can continue, with only minimal interference by the state, as would the continued existence of the Church of Crete. There would obviously be some politics involved (as there always is when you have a state church like the Greek Orthodox Church), and as I stated earlier the Church of Greece would definitely be infiltrated (but not the Ecumencial Patriarchate's territories), but for the most part it would probably be a better situation than most Eastern Orthodox Churches in Communist territory. Where things would get tricky would be Mount Athos, which would require a lot more explanation than space would dictate, but the Holy Mountain is basically an independent republic under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, governed by its monasteries, with only basic representation by the Greek government as it borders Greek territory and all monks living on Mount Athos are either Greek citizens or are granted Greek citizenship upon arrival. That would have to require some delicate negotiation between Communist Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

That's the TL;DR version, positing a best-case scenario. What would actually happen would require a much longer post going into all sorts of detail that it would bore everyone to death, but even then I would still assume that the Greek Orthodox Church would still be much better off than elsewhere in Eastern Europe, although it would be much more complex and complicated.
 
More or less as the USSR did--formal freedom of religion is allowed but large number of "reactionary" clergy are arrested and put in camps or executed. Their places are taken by opportunist (or in some cases sincerely "progressive") clergy who are willing to subordinate themselves to the government, and help with propaganda (not only in Greece but throughout the Orthodox world) for the Communist "peace" campaign. In short, more like the USSR of the 1940's than the USSR of the extreme militant-atheist campaign of the early 1930's. This formal toleration and even cooperation will of course not prevent the government from attempting gradually to reduce the Church's influence and instill atheism in the population, especially the youth. But as in the USSR it will be a slow process, especially in the rural areas.
 
Here's where things get very interesting. Strictly speaking, in Greece there's not just 1 Orthodox Church but at least 3 (if one is excluding Mount Athos):
>the Church of Greece proper, whose canonical jurisdiction is Greek territory prior to the Balkan Wars (aka "Old Greece");
>the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has jurisdiction throughout Northern Greece and the Aegean islands (the "New Lands", which are managed by the Church of Greece via an agreement), including the Dodecanese (where the Patriarchate exercises direct jurisdiction, due to that island group's separate history as an Italian colony for part of the 20th century);
>and the Church of Crete, which is its own thing altogether.

Now, if it were up to me doing it (and boy have I had an eye for this, so gardez-vous!), everything all depends on three factors: α) how much territory the Provisional Democratic Government and its military arm, the Democratic Army of Greece, controls; β) the ideological orientation of the KKE (as it was influenced by both Stalinist and Yugoslav currents - the latter being important for obvious reasons, considering the Balkans); and γ) how each of the Orthodox Churches react and thus what the relations are between the Provisional Democratic Government and the Greek Orthodox Church in general. For the problem here is that during this period even the most atheist of Greeks is also a committed and devoted Orthodox Christian as the Greek Orthodox Church is woven into modern Greek identity to a degree not understood from a North American or Western European POV. Even Roman Catholics and Eastern-Rite Catholics (both exist to varying degrees in Greece) are also culturally Greek Orthodox as that is part of the culture. Now, it is generally true that throughout Eastern Europe the Communist governments usually treated their Eastern Orthodox Church like shit, particularly by co-opting them and infiltrating them with members of the secret police and thus turning the Church into a control mechanism for the vast majority of faithful. In Greece, that's not going to work too terribly well, for obvious reasons - while infiltrating the Orthodox Church could work for the Church of Greece, it's not going to work for the areas controlled by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, nor for that matter the Church of Crete.

For this exercise, I'm going to assume that the Provisional Democratic Government manages to control the whole territory of Greece (including the Dodecanese and Crete) and the KKE readily embraces both its Titoist and Stalinist currents, thus making Greece neutral when it comes to the Tito-Stalin split and thus can play both Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union off to Greece's benefit. As a cradle of Greek identity throughout the ages, the KKE would naturally want the Greek Orthodox Church as its ally (after all, even Stalin rehabilitated the Russian Orthodox Church during WWII). So Communist Greece could utilize what I'm going to call "pragmatic atheism". That is, although atheism would be state policy, in reality it will require so many qualifications that it would basically become de facto agnosticism. In practical terms, that would essentially mean a Greek version of laïcité that would comply with Marxist teachings as well as cordial relations with the Greek Orthodox Church (one does not necessarily preclude the other, as its Aegean neighbor Turkey demonstrates). To this end, all the pre-existing arrangements between the Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate can continue, with only minimal interference by the state, as would the continued existence of the Church of Crete. There would obviously be some politics involved (as there always is when you have a state church like the Greek Orthodox Church), and as I stated earlier the Church of Greece would definitely be infiltrated (but not the Ecumencial Patriarchate's territories), but for the most part it would probably be a better situation than most Eastern Orthodox Churches in Communist territory. Where things would get tricky would be Mount Athos, which would require a lot more explanation than space would dictate, but the Holy Mountain is basically an independent republic under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, governed by its monasteries, with only basic representation by the Greek government as it borders Greek territory and all monks living on Mount Athos are either Greek citizens or are granted Greek citizenship upon arrival. That would have to require some delicate negotiation between Communist Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

That's the TL;DR version, positing a best-case scenario. What would actually happen would require a much longer post going into all sorts of detail that it would bore everyone to death, but even then I would still assume that the Greek Orthodox Church would still be much better off than elsewhere in Eastern Europe, although it would be much more complex and complicated.

Excellent post, but there is one additional wrinkle, and by that I mean one more Church to throw into the mix—IOTL much of the Greek Communist base was composed of Slavomacedonians, some of whom followed the Bulgarian Patriarchate. Apparently there were plans to turn over much of Greek Macedonia and Thrace to Bulgaria under the Communists, but even if they didn’t they would certainly promote the Slavic minority and that would include their church.
 
I suspect that having a Marxist Greece is ASB in the context of the times. Unless... you had a Resistance movement in Greece as powerful as Yugoslavia - which for various reasons is almost equally implausible.

The Greek Communist resistant movement was very powerful in OTL, the agreement to divide sphere of influence between UK and USSR and the Stalin-Tito spilt doomed them as that allowed the Brits to stamp out The Greek Communist resistant movement with no Soviet intervention. What one need would either be Yugoslavia or Soviet intervention.
 
Excellent post, but there is one additional wrinkle, and by that I mean one more Church to throw into the mix—IOTL much of the Greek Communist base was composed of Slavomacedonians, some of whom followed the Bulgarian Patriarchate. Apparently there were plans to turn over much of Greek Macedonia and Thrace to Bulgaria under the Communists, but even if they didn’t they would certainly promote the Slavic minority and that would include their church.

Not just the Slavic community - thanks to history Northern Greece is chock full of minorities alongside the dominant Greeks (I'm thinking in particular of the Aromanians and the Thracian Muslims). There will be attempts to place them all Christians regardless of ethnicity in the New Lands under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but apart from that I could see minorities being better protected (relatively-speaking - this is still the Balkans, or Southeastern Europe if you prefer) under a Communist Greece.
 
I suspect that having a Marxist Greece is ASB in the context of the times. Unless... you had a Resistance movement in Greece as powerful as Yugoslavia - which for various reasons is almost equally implausible.
.... they did? EAM controlled 4/5ths of the country in late 1944.
 
You could see it going either way.

Zachariadis was a Stalinist and would probably have pushed for harsh treatment of the church. In the civil war the Communists sacked churches and attacked religion. However during the resistance EAM had strong links to local priests with many acting as organisers or underground contacts so if that current continued you could see the KKE accommodating the church to a greater extent than other communist party’s were willing to.
 
Thanks everybody! Sorry I was so vague about the POD and such, I was simply trawling for knowledge in a subject in which I knew several of the issues (the status of Mt.Athos, say), but could foresee few of the answers.
 
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