8 posts tagged “greek orthodox”

I know that sounds ridiculous on the surface. Maybe it's ridiculous at its root; I don't claim to be an intellectual, just a reasonably intelligent woman living in the West in the 21st Century. I am the product of my upbringing, my community, my reading and myself, and so I cannot help but have my opinions steeped in my experiences.

It's slow at work today so I've been trawling Melanie Phillips' Spectator blog. Mostly because I once was briefly acquainted with her son, but also because I read something or other which referenced Israel and she was the first person who popped into my head.

I find her someone with whom it is difficult to agree to disagree. She is regularly either uncomfortably right or disquietingly wrong about whatever she is talking about. Even when she is making some of her more eye-opening (and by this I mean the eyes are opened and the eyebrows raised, not that she has convinced me of the truth of her words) and alarming statements, she is full of passion which can sometimes be taken for being embittered. She reminds me of Ashley's best friend Dan, who questions why people think he is vengeful simply because he doesn't believe in proportional response. In his, paraphrased from memory, words:

"If someone hurts you, if the little country messes with the powerful one, then you don't calculate how much to hurt them in return. When they took a swing at you and only left bruises, they still meant to hurt, to kill. So you don't just shove back; you obliterate."

I can't say I entirely agree with his viewpoint, and I'm not, at this point, going to go into why. It just illustrates that sense of bullish principle that I find in Phillips' writing as well.

As a Jewish journalist, one might expect a reasonable amount about Judaism and Israel. But the post that struck me (and lead to my title pronouncement) was one defending the rights of two Christian preachers - one, allegedly, a convert from Islam - who were seen out of an area of Birmingham where they were preaching by a Muslim PCO (Police Community Support Officer) on the grounds that it was a Muslim area and this was "hate crime". They were warned that if they came back and were assaulted, well, "they were warned".

Now there are a whole number of issues here.

1. What the hell is a Muslim area? There are Muslim countries but within a country that defends free speech (albeit nominally a Christian country) there are no demarcated areas. People can practice their faith wherever the hell they want.

2. Police should be dealing with the perpetrators, not the victims. If they think violence is likely to erupt, they should deal with the causes of that.

But that's a specific case. What it showed, more generally, is the dangerous gap between offence and defence.

At what point does the innocent, non-violent, perhaps hopeless practice of one religion become offensive to another? Nailing a pig's head to an Asian community centre as happened earlier this week? That's a hate crime. It's disgusting. It takes a particular element it knows to be forbidden and unclean to a particular faith and culture and forces it upon those people with the specific aim of hurting, offending and discouraging those people. Hence the "go home" signs that accompanied it. Intention has a lot to do with the hurt, and since nailing pig heads to the wall isn't really common practice in any culture it cannot be explained away by any other argument.

Had the two Christian men been trying to convert by preaching that the Muslim people in the area were 'wrong', I would also have taken a step back. Of course, sticks and stones, but we label other kinds of name-calling as offensive and abusive. They were not doing such a thing as far as anyone knows (I'm happy to be corrected on this point if anyone knows better). I'd still be inclined to leave them to it, and I'd still offer them protection because we have this wonderful thing known as "freedom of speech" (or we like to think we do) but I'd disagree with their aims.

In the end we cannot, if we have any faith in the land we live in, expect the law to take sides. There will be times, by the very nature of things, when people will clash over beliefs. The law must protect everyone, so it cannot be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Baha'i... etc. etc.

How can the law decide whether it is an offence, for example, for a Jewish person to hear words said on the street that they do not agree with?

Using the excuse that it is an offence under that person's faith's law isn't good enough. It cannot protect a person of another faith, so it's not strong enough as universal law.

As a Christian, I am not interested in living in a Christian country, although under John Locke's version of tacit consent I have agreed to this. In an ideal world, I would be interested in living in a country where I can practice my faith for as long as and as overtly as I choose. I would expect the law to curtail me only if I deliberately and premeditatedly offended or physically hurt another person.

Recently, with the furore over the Archbishop of Canterbury's words on including elements of Shariah law in the UK, I was watching a debate programme in which a Muslim man explained patiently that Shariah law protected women, allowed faster divorces, etc. To him I say: Great! It sounds like there are elements that ought to be present in a modern, egalitarian society. We can't have a religious law for a mixed population and Muslim women shouldn't be the only ones offered this protection. Let's campaign together to change the secular law to accommodate these excellent concepts.

Christianity is the modern whipping boy. In some cases, defensive, angry Christians, who completely misinterpret turning the other cheek (in my opinion), spring up to demand protection. Sorry, folks, but you don't need protecting. You really don't. I get just as irritated with the stupidity of some of the atheist arguments and roll my eyes just as hard when people spout that bullshit about religion having "killed the most people". (Tell it to Stalin, the great, murderous atheist of the 20th Century). My point is I have the choice of answering those arguments or refraining from getting involved in the debate. I don't need to loudly trumpet my offence because I'm too busy discussing it rationally with my friends, my family and my God.

At the moment I am highly irritated by the situation in Greece where two gay couples will be prosecuted for taking advantage of a loophole in the law that doesn't state the gender of those being married. They wed, and now they will be taken to court over it because the law was inadequately stated. And why would the government want to protect the inadquate law? Because they're all Greek Orthodox Christians. And they're legislating in a Christian way. I shake my head, and wait for them to catch up with reality.

When will people stop behaving like children? When will they realise that "fair" is not stopping other people from doing something you disagree with but allowing them to live a free(ish) life?

It's not that I don't know that all ethics is essentially based on what you agree with. But the things that we - almost universally - don't agree with are things that physically or materially disadvantage someone, and there's not a religion or ethical atheist group in the world that I can think of who would have a problem with protecting people against those crimes. We already have the universal agreement. Now can we have the universal agreement to disagree?

And why do I make the claim that I do in the title? Because in a world where there are no longer many places that are exclusively one faith, pushing back and forth over minor issues is only going to lead to more people saying "bugger this for a game of soldiers, religions are full of mentalists" and perpetuating the nonsense that is said about religions until the practice of all faiths is banned. In the case of many a rabid atheist, that's exactly what they want. I don't see why those of us who have faith need play into their hands by constantly wailing and gnashing our teeth. We must accept that if we want our own faith to survive, we must leave room for someone else's and be ruled by laws that only make reference to faith insofar as guaranteeing freedom of non-harmful practice.

Update: Boy threatened with legal action for saying Scientology is a 'cult'. Scientologists aren't the first religious types to try stamping all over free speech, but like most people protesting too much (like those Catholics who get outraged over Harry Potter) they end up looking rather ridiculous. This is not a new story, but I wanted to add Caitlin Moran's comments:

Aside from the fact that if we ignored our brains and filtered this story purely through our dumb animal emotions, it felt a bit as if Tom Cruise was about to throw a child in jail - which was obviously quite exciting - you do have to ask, what is happening to this country? Have we turned into a bunch of wet nuns? First, we should be thrilled that we've got at least one teenage kid up, fully dressed, philosophically engaged and able to spell. Secondly, I'm embarrassed that all the grown-up liberal countries such as Canada and Denmark are laughing at us.

During the course of planning, I've been trying to think of every possible thing that will make our start in this marriage easier, and generally add to our chances of making a really good go at things. I'm not particularly concerned that we won't, but we might as well address the issues that can shake that solid ground you think you stand on.

Children have been discussed ad nauseam (no morning sickness pun intended) from pregnancy timings to baby names to religion to how involved parents should be... childcare, housing, pets... you name it, we've covered it. Finances? Split down the middle, with a joint account that will serve as a bills-and-future-mortgage-paying account with us each retaining the rest of our salaries, etc in our own separate accounts. Since my parents are giving us the deposit for our first house next year, we've discussed what would be an equitable ownership split that reflects the fact that the main cash is coming from my family but also that he will be paying half the mortgage. It turns out on all these difficult issues, we're completely resolved (well, at least until they take an unexpected turn, I guess).

So, of course, I had to bring up the Last Will and Testament. At the moment, all I have to leave anyone is a bit of jewellery, my depressingly empty bank account and a six-year-old Toyota Yaris. Nice, but nothing worth murdering me for. Still, there are other wishes and requests that should go in your will, and one of those is where we will be buried...

Some time ago, we went on a date / footle / stroll through Highgate cemetary. The historical, overgrown, haunting site is the final resting place of the Rosettis, Karl Marx, Douglas Adams and a great many local residents in one of my favourite parts of London. Among all was a headstone, marked with two names but just one set of dates - obviously the other half of this devoted pairing is preparing to be buried by her husband. Against his name was a tiny, elegant Magen David. Against hers, a cross. Beneath their names were the famous words of Ruth:

Entreat me not to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.

On seeing this, I started weeping like a baby. Startled, Ash held me until I could explain.

I was crying because it had suddenly hit home that here was this wonderful man, with whom I fully expected to spend the rest of my life though from whom I'd be permanently parted in death. He would lie in Jewish grounds and I in Christian, separated by who knows what distance.

Of course it shouldn't matter. My body will be so much worm food, and if there is any sort of after death consciousness, presumably physical distance is no barrier to being reunited. But to fight tradition and culture to spend our lives together only to be symbolically parted again after death is like saying that, try as we might to believe it, we weren't right together.

I'm half-wondering if my father will make My Big Fat Greek Wedding's "apples and oranges; we all different, but in the end, we all fruit" speech at the wedding. It would be funny. I just also want it to be true. No, I know  it to be true. So I want it to be reflected in the symbols of our death (and isn't burial just a symbol for the living?).

So I was touched beyond words that Ashley has chosen to forego his right to be buried on Jewish consecrated grounds and will, when we get round to actually sorting out our wills, request to be buried in the local council grounds, as will I.

None of these things are, forgive the pun, set in stone. Should be divorce, we can revert to whatever prior choices we like. But as a gesture of a lifetime commitment, it doesn't get much more long term than pledging the circumstances of your burial to someone else.

This post was inspired by an incident that happened to a close friend (one of my bridesmaids) and made me think of some of the childishness and immaturity I've seen over the last few years. This is what I'd say if I were her.

Dear Girls,

You know, it's funny. I never suffered in junior school or senior (high) school from bullying or being treated disdainfully or badly. I was fat, I was clever, I wasn't particularly pretty and I didn't have a vast crew of friends. But the friends I did have were plentiful and wonderful - I still know a lot of them now - and the other girls did not exclude me; we simply had little in common.

So, with that kind of background, it shocks me that girls like you still exist. Girls where you put out the hand of friendship and it's accepted only on selfish terms, when it suits you. Most people, at this point, would probably make grand pronouncements of cutting people out of their lives. I'm Christian, though, and that comes with a sense of duty to try and not take things personally and turn the other cheek.

That's not to say you're not pissing me off; I'm not that good a person, you're pissing me off. It just means that I will keep trying to be a good person, and will remain open to your friendship should you ever attempt to bestow it.

It strikes me that a lot of the girls who behave like this were once excluded and quietly tortured in that way that only children can inflict on other children. Why they'd want to spread that behaviour around is beyond me, but that's often the case with any form of abuse.

Open up, relax, and stop worrying if you're cool or not. In the grand scheme of things, no-one will remember what you were like in your 20s, and thank God, because I've got news for you: we're ALL arseholes in our 20s.

Take care,

Alex

I think it's all going to get a bit heavy around here...

I was reading back through Patrica Volonakis Davis's blog and found the brilliant post entitled I Am Ann Coulter, in which she makes the clear point that calling yourself a Christian and acting like one have to go hand in hand if you're going to be anything like a genuine Christian.

That troubles me, but in a good way. For one, it's true, and for another it underpins the resolution I made for myself at the beginning of this year. Unfortunately, I've failed to meet it every single day.

I've come to the conclusion that once one gets one's head around the concept of forgiveness, one is a good Christian. Sadly, it's the most difficult thing to practice. Every single day I wake up and vow that today I'm not going to get angry at petty slights but save my righteous indignation for cruelty, ignorance and disrespect. Every single day I get up and promise that no matter what anyone says, does or believes, I'm going to not only treat them with peaceful calm, but train myself to actually respond with it.

It's a basic, unmistakeable tenet straight out of the Gospels that in order to attain forgiveness, one has to embrace it. I cannot love the people around me as truly as I wish until I can undo all bitterness and bitchiness from my mind and words.

Like I said, I fail constantly. Today and yesterday I had pretty uncharitable thoughts about someone who randomly seemed to stop talking to me a while ago and has since treated me with the bare bones of professional respect; I am now sitting here trying to compose a list of all the reasons why I should remember that her behaviour doesn't matter, all the ways in which my own falls short of the ideals and standards I hold up for others and all the good features she still has.

My friend D once told me that the best thing about me was that I saw good in other people and told them about it. I hope that I do this, but to me that's only half the battle towards being a good person and a good Christian. The other half is first seeing the good, making sure no compliment is backhanded, losing my instinctively critical nature and doing all this without trying.

Being a cynic is fun. Being sarcastic can be hilarious. Being streetwise is no bad thing.

I don't expect to become a saint; I'd just like to know I'm spreading more good than harm.

I don't know what irritates me more about this article; that the Greek Orthodox Church is getting involved in politics which have to be secular - because they affect non-religious people, whether you think that's right or wrong - or the really lazy piece of BBC journalism that led to this statement:

The government proposes to give common-law couples the same rights as those who have gone through legal or religious ceremonies.

It wants to harmonise Greek law to European standards.

European standards? What the fuck are they? Plus, the writers of this article do know that European society is based on a (secular) Greek model? Oh, and by the way, if you didn't know it already, BBC journalist, COMMON LAW MARRIAGE DOES NOT EXIST IN THE UK. It never has. Oh, and by the way, unless you also sign a register, religious ceremonies don't count as married under the law and that's the case in more than one country (just ask Eddie Murphy and his new "wife").

As cohabitees in the UK, you have no legal rights unless you create them by contract. Marriage protects you; cohabiting doesn't. I'm not saying that's a good thing, and I'd welcome couples who have no traditional, familial or religious imperative to marry getting the same rights as those who have conducted civil ceremonies. That's why I totally supported the creation of civil partnerships.

The Greek Orthodox Church has to come in for its own criticism about this. They consider cohabitation as prostitution - I have no problem with that. I don't agree, but that's between me and my understanding of my religion, and I'd be interested in talking to theologians on this issue. I just get frustrated when church and state collide; my personal ethics cannot govern an atheist, a Jew, a Sikh, a Ba'hai... you get the picture.

The central code of legal "morality" has to be based on something universal. It might be universal and a common religious principle, and that's great (for me!) but how can we have a hope in hell for an ecumenical future if a particular denomination - albeit the most common one in the country - keeps interfering?

I'm on a bit of a blogging roll recently; I was going to give it a rest until Illiask brought up something that has always unsettled and baffled me, and I thought my initial ideas about it would find a better resting place on (virtual) paper.

Greeks have always been brought up to be faintly suspicious of Jews. Now, this is a massive generalisation with all the provisos that entails; let's just put those aside for a minute to be re-examined later.

Politically, Greeks don't like Jews. Greece, at risk of losing crucial post-WWII, mid-Civil War* aid that was the only thing preventing many of its citizens starving to death, voted against the creation of the state of Israel. It stood pretty much alone, protesting the arbitrary creation of the state. Now, many Greeks then and now had enormous empathy for the Zionist cause - the need for a homeland is deeply ingrained in the descendants of those held under Ottoman rule for centuries - but the practical ramifications were a step too far. Also, with large expatriate communities in north Africa and the Middle East, there was a sympathy with Arabs and suspicion of the mighty US (if no tolerance of terrorism). My mother, for one, was born in Egypt; her brother was born there on the very day the state of Israel was created!

Although I believe that there is no going back now Israel exists, I rue the way in which it was created. The past is another country, however, and we need to press on to a peaceful future with Israel - there is no future for the region without it. I also can't wait to visit the country; I've been fascinated with it for years.

Greece has a shaky history with its tiny population of Jews. Mark Mazower's phenomenal book, Salonica: City of Ghosts, can explain this much better than I, but in the northern part of Greece relations have been strained since the war. Jews drafted in by the Turks to provide a financial middle class above the Greeks - they were encouraged to come to Greece after being expelled from Iberia - were all but obliterated by the Nazis, with most Greeks doing little to protect them. Salonica had been Greek for only 25 years; the hurt was very much in living memory. Compare the loss of 95% of the Jewish community in Salonica to 50% in Athens, free since the initial declaration of independence in 1821, pretty much. Greeks there protected their community as best they could from the occupying forces. To this day, Jews campaign to have the land around the University of Salonica marked as the site of a former Jewish cemetery but the authorities, embarrassed by the episode where Greeks helped destroy the original grounds, still refuse.

Religiously - well, put it this way. A friend of my mother's has a son who was seeing a Jewish girl for some time. She described it to my mother as "Yes, she is one of those who crucified Christ".  It's a joke, but a painful one.

I think, however, that the problems aren't either of these things really. Going back to those exceptions we put aside, I suspect most modern Greeks barely even know that period of history - I didn't, and I know there are gaping chasms in my knowledge - and would be horrified by it if they did. The political issues are long past the arguing point and into the practical stage. I think the ultimate problem is one of suspicion.

Jews are naturally suspicious of anyone who takes too much of an interest. They've been tortured, killed, discriminated against, targetted and hated for so long, that the rule - spoken and silent - is to stick to one's own. Greeks also do this, but they are slightly offended by anyone who doesn't want to actively "fit in". I see this in my parents, first generation immigrants, who complain when other religious groups don't try to do more to "integrate". It's true my parents both speak and write exemplary English, but as white, Christian Europeans language was pretty much their only integration challenge. It sounds simplistic, but I think Greek discomfort with Jews comes down to not liking the feeling of it being "them" and "us". Judaism is so culturally ingrained as to be treated, thought of, referred to as a race, rather than a religion.

I used to work in a largely Jewish office - guess where I met JB! - and one woman there said to me "if you converted, some people would accept you as a Jew but if Ashley did - well, he'd still always be a Jew". It summed up an awful lot. The same woman told me she felt like her daughter ought to marry a Jew because there were so few left that she felt duty bound to create more. Now, her daughter could marry a gentile and still have Jewish children; the religion is matrilineal, unusually, with some claiming that is because you can deny being a father but not being a mother. The underlying assumption there, though, was even if I converted I wouldn't quite be Jewish. She wasn't criticising us - she's fond of me - she was just speaking her mind. I've got news for her, though - there are as many Greeks in Greece as there are Jews in the world (the rest, the joke goes, are in Melbourne).

The debate on what a Jew is rages in the wake of court cases such as that against JFS, and just the other day JB's mother said she thought the Orthodox conversion process was "too much" - and she's officially Conservative, not Reform or Liberal. I suppose it's somewhat irrelevant to me now I've decided to stay Greek Orthodox, but it's interesting to see that my future children would never have been accepted fully by many Jews anyway. I can understand why and I'm not criticising them for going back to basics, but I suspect it's beliefs and attitudes like this which lead to Greeks - always the quickest to jump to the defensive - to be uneasy with Jews.

By bringing up our future children as both, leaving them to choose which - if any - religion they want to align themselves with as adults, we might not be producing more Jews and more Greek Orthodox people. Hopefully what we will be producing is part of a generation of people who seek the similarities, not the differences.

*No-one I know seems to realise Greece HAD a Civil War - despite Captain Corelli - and that it was particularly bloody and vicious. Perhaps if they did they'd come to understand something about Elia Kazan and 50s Hollywood.

Today's disclosure in the London Metro that state-funded Jewish girls' school Hasmonean has been charging parents a £50 "deposit" for extracurricular activities - an admission fee by any other name - makes the third bid of bad press I've heard about Jewish faith schools this week.

Hasmonean isn't alone among faith schools of any type or denomination in this practice, incidentally, and faith schools are a law unto themselves when it comes to funding anyway. The other two stories troubled me more.

Back in November, I discovered as I poked around the Londonist this week, JFS, JB's alma mater, got into trouble for giving preference to children of born Jews over children of converts. The fact that I would be unlikely to go through the Orthodox Jewish conversion process was another layer of complication that put me off - I would be pleasing and convincing no-one except the most liberal and they wouldn't mind too much if I stayed just what I was. JB himself is in practice very reform, up to and including breaking most of the food laws, and one of his closest school friends, a girl I adore, is the now atheist child of a convert. So this principle is relatively new, evidently, or they just didn't bother checking before. What made the whole matter even more stupid was the fact that one child in question was the offspring of a member of staff - the Head of English no less! Converts are good enough to imbue a sense of Judaism and impart truths about the faith but their children are not good enough Jews? JB was baffled at the post himself, saying he'd never heard the term "ethnic Jew" before.

JFS was found to have broken anti-discrimination laws and forced to change its official stance, but it isn't going to change the underlying message sent out to converts. Surely someone who has gone through the process of becoming  part of your faith and then wants to send their children to a faith school is just as valuable as a child who just happens to be born of Jewish parents who aren't particularly religious but feel faintly guilty that they're not really imparting a sense of Judaism at home? I'm not for a minute suggesting the average "ethnic Jew" is of the latter persuasion, incidentally, some are and many aren't, but that's my point exactly. The only selection criteria should be the genuine desire for a Jewish education. Beyond that, maybe a lottery is in order.

The Londonist also provided me with the last issue, a rather different one. Girls at Yesodey Hatorah put their principles where their pens were and refused to answer questions about Shakespeare in an exam on the grounds that he was anti-Semitic. Rabbi Abraham Pinter was proud of their principles and their stand, and so he should be. But by refusing to engage with Shakespeare these girls are missing a phenomenal opportunity. Instead of encouraging 11 to 14 year olds to spoil their grades, why not study the history of anti-Semitism in this country? Why not spin this off into projects that could help fight it? Why not compare the portrayal of Jews in Shakespeare to that of his contemporaries? If they're going to refuse to answer on Shakespeare then half the canon of English Literature is out too, most Russians, and a few other nationalities besides. Do not ignore the ugly parts of history as it refers to you; we continue, after all, to study the Holocaust for a reason. History must not repeat itself because those who suffered from it refuse to acknowledge it.

Faith schools can provide a phenomenal atmosphere and education. I worked in a Roman Catholic school, despite being Greek Orthodox, and thought it was the best school I set foot in throughout teacher training. I think JFS did well with JB; after all, he did go to Israel for a year after school, so they must have done something right. But those schools must look hard at the times they find themselves in and decide whether it is more important to be Jewish and enthusiastic or tick certain boxes and make a perhaps ill-conceived political stand.

This Monday was the beginning of Lent for those of us of the Greek Orthodox persuasion. A food-fest like no other, we fall over ourselves to think of elaborate and tasty ways in which to fast and deny ourselves a few luxuries.

Of course, like most modern Greeks  - especially most modern Greeks living in England - I only fast on Kathara Deftera "Clean Monday", our equivalent of Ash Wednesday, and during Holy Week, anyway. Naturally, I also make a big deal about it, as if being vegan for a mere six days is the most stressful thing to ever happen to me.

The fast, if you're not familiar with it, goes like this: no animal products at all, with the exception of certain types of sea food or creatures with ink instead of blood (cod roe, octopus, squid and prawns among them). Basically no blood and no luxuries are the order of the day. With all our nistisima (Lenten) foods, from gemista (rice-stuffed peppers and tomatoes) to hortopitta (veg pie made with seasonal greens), we enter it with gusto, completely forgetting the injunctions to leave each meal a little hungry and remember that we are fasting to remind ourselves of how much we have.

Last year was particularly tricky. My Jewish boyfriend, henceforth JB, and his lovely mother had me over for Pesach. The thing is, Greek Easter is always, always, always at the same time as Pesach, so there is an overlap. There she is, with three huge dishes of chicken, beef and lots of eggs in salt water, and there's me with my salmon, pretending that fish and eggs are okay because she's already gone to the trouble of making me vegetable soup when everyone else had chicken and I can't bear to put her to more stress four months into our relationship.

What was worse: "cheating" at a voluntary fast that I have already restricted to just a handful of days out of my Western idleness and lack of willpower, or making a kind woman who was welcoming me into her home and family run around me more than she already had?

I probably answered my own question there.

Still, this year, success! Pesach comes in at the weekend, pre-empting Holy Week and allowing me to indulge guilt-free.

Shit; I'm sure I can find something to be guilty about.