Description

The place of religion in Greece’s public education system has been the focal point for intense debate in the last decade. The debate has seen contributions from a broad range of actors, including parents of students in the Greek public-school system, Greek political parties across the spectrum, the Orthodox Church of Greece, two especially vocal unions of theologians, the Greek Supreme Administrative Court, and the European Court of Human Rights. This lecture addresses the various relevant claims, concerns and actions of each of these actors and teases out ways in which the debate over religious education in Greece reveals perennial problems in the relationship between religion and national identity in the Greek context, and between church and state.

Effie Fokas is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and a Research Associate of the London School of Economics Hellenic Observatory. She was Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-funded project on grassroots impact of European Court of Human Rights religious freedoms case law (Grassrootsmobilise), based at ELIAMEP. Her publications include Islam in Europe: Diversity, Identity and Influence, co-edited with Aziz Al-Azmeh; Religious America, Secular Europe?, coauthored with Peter Berger and Grace Davie; The European Court of Human Rights and Minority Religions, co-edited with James T. Richardson; and over 50 articles and book chapters exploring religion at the intersection with politics, law, human rights, nationalism, and European identity.