Les évêques orthodoxes et le politique en Thrace grecque à la fin du xxe siècle

• Main Author: Isabelle Dépret
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre d'Études Balkaniques 2015-03-01
• Series: Cahiers Balkaniques
• Subjects: Orthodox higher clergy; Thrace; Greece; End of the 20th century; Religion and politics
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/ceb/5848

In this article, we examine the role of religious elites in Greece, especially in a border context. Western Thrace, near Bulgaria and Turkey, remained multidenominational after 1923 and offers a specific configuration which is a both constraint and possibly resource for the local Christian orthodox higher clergy. Focusing both on bishops’ carriers and on a period of interdenominational tensions in this area, we will stress that these “traditional” authorities rely on several sources of legitimation, and maintain complex relationships with other regional leaders. The case of Thrace highlights, maybe in an acute way, the expected cultural, symbolic and even political functions of the Orthodox Church –and its leaders–, in 20th Greece’s border areas.