Greece is bankrupt and the world knows it. So does the Greek Orthodox Church (which is by no means bankrupt, and prays for ‘more Europe’). Is the secularity of Sunday trade a price worth paying for ‘more Europe’? Where is the economic morality in borrowing and borrowing to pay off concentric circles of never-ending debt? Man shall not live by bread alone. Nor can he live forever on someone else’s dough.
For the Greek Orthodox Church, Sunday is still special. It is the day when the Gospels are venerated among the people, and the Beatitudes are sung. It is communal: there are no abstractions. For the Orthodox, love is powerful and present. In their consciousness they carry the heritage of Xenophanes and Plato; mindful of their myth, yet fervent in their belief that the rites and practices of religion are necessary for the well-being of man and the smooth running of society. Secularity may present a kind of societal symmetry, but it can never transcend the world of sight or inspire awe. True religion involves moral and intellectual purification; ascent from lower to higher mysteries in order that the soul might apprehend and understand.
By all means, let the atheist Greek Prime Minister persuade his parliament that the Sunday is no longer sacred. They freely elected him, and, after all, the sabbath was made for man; not man for the sabbath. But let the Greek people know and understand that it was the EU – the secular Europe of the Enlightenment – cajoled by secular Germany in partnership with secular France, which contended that the conservative heritage of the Orthodox tradition was otiose, and that another cornerstone of Christendom must bow to the precepts of the euro-beast. They have no ears for the homilies John Chrysostom, and no eyes for the political vision of Basil the Great.
Alexis Tsipras and Angela Merkel may sing the same hymn of divine darkness in the choir of secular Europe, but the rich who neglect their suffering brothers and sisters will surely experience the pain of Dives in hell.
My note: within days, before our very own eyes, the system of the beast punishes Orthodox Christian Greece — like what it’s doing against Orthodox Russia — it babysits helps build up Islamic republic of Iran…baby let’s make a deal…beastly Ramadan deal…
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