Professor Andreas TAKIS: “A State Religion Is Problematic for Both Church and State”
09.09.2024 (Caucasian Journal). Last month, Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party proposed to strengthen the constitutional status of the Orthodox Church and declare Orthodox Christianity as the state religion. Currently, Georgia’s constitution recognizes the country as a secular state, although Orthodoxy is the largest and historically dominant religion.
The current narrative of the ruling party attempts to fold the status of the church and the status of the government into the same institutional box, as custodians of family and traditional values. The opposition is asking whether EU membership aspirations can be squared with the ambition of establishing a “state religion.” One could counter this question: “Look at Greece and Cyprus,” where there is a state religion.
To address this question most competently, Caucasian Journal sought the expertise of Professor Andreas TAKIS, Professor of Jurisprudence at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Notably, Professor Takis previously served as the Deputy Ombudsman in Greece, a role closely tied to the defense of individual civil rights. His experience in this position allows him to speak to the tension between the church’s moral authority and the state’s power, and vice versa.
The interview was conducted by Dr. Ilya ROUBANIS, Government Affairs Consultant and Area Studies Analyst, and “our man in Greece”. Ilya and Andreas discussed the relevance of the Greek experience as context to conceptualize the political significance of the proposal before Georgians.
Ilya ROUBANIS: The incumbent Georgian ruling party is campaigning for re-election on a promise to raise the status of the Georgian church within the Constitution, thereby creating a “state religion.” As Greece already has a “state religion” and is an EU member state this would be a useful comparison. So, what is the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the state in Greece? How did this connection come up?
