Information and Links Regarding Greece and Scientology, and the Greek Helsinki Monitor. Also a rebuttal of the notion that this was due to religious bigotry (includes an analysis of actual religious bigotry in Greece today). Note: this is a text file, not an HTML file. To access the links listed below from a web browser, use http://tribeca.ios.com/~nickz/cos.html, or cut and paste them. 1. Primary sources (scanned CoS and government documents) and critical information for 1996 and prior years: http://w4u.eexi.gr/~antbos/INTRO.HTM (Introduction) http://w4u.eexi.gr/~antbos/SCIENTOL.HTM (Greece Uncovers CoS) http://tribeca.ios.com/~nickz/disconnect.txt.greece (Greek Sea Org PTS Declare) 2. News articles (previously posted on Usenet) 1997-1998: http://tribeca.ios.com/~nickz/cosgr1297.nws (December 24, 1997) http://tribeca.ios.com/~nickz/apogevmatini.nws (January 4, 1998, Apogevmatini) The above documents detail the Scientology infiltration of the government and dead-agenting of opponents which for many years paralyzed all efforts to investigate the criminal actions of KEFE. Here are two URLs pointing to Helsinki Monitor reports on Scientology in Greece, which take a decidedly different view. The e-mail address in these documents, helsinki@compulink.gr, is the one to which I had sent the mail critical of Scientology which was forwarded without my consent to Scientology in Belgium, and which was discussed in previous posts. The IHF report is a collaborative effort, so that the section on Scientology may have been written by someone other than the author(s) of the rest of the document. 1. News Release: Positive and Negative Stereotypes in the Media http://www.duth.gr/maillist-archives/thrace/tl25/msg00100.html - size 21K - 19-Dec-96 2. News Release: 1997 annual IHF report on Greece http://www.duth.gr/maillist-archives/thrace/tl31/msg00160.html - size 51K - 21-Jun-97 Altavista information (c) DEC 1998. The above reports consider the actions against Scientology to be from religious bigotry, also mentioning difficulties experienced by one Roman Catholic congregation and a group of Jehovah's Witnesses as resulting from this attitude, which is specifically considered to arise from the fact that these are all minority religions oppressed by the majority Greek Orthodox church. I find it hard to see how this can be portrayed as religious persecution when KEFE insisted it was absolutely not a religion. Of course, KEFE was simply another branch of the Church of Scientology, and it is still listed on Scientology's directory of all their orgs on their web page (www.scientology.org). It is true that religious intolerance does occur in Greece, as in many other countries. It is also true that the "Church" of Scientology uses the tactic of labeling its opponents as religious bigots regardless of the reason for someone's opposition. It is very similar to the actions of the cult's president, Heber Jentsch, on U.S. television (Public Eye, January 7, 1997, CBS-TV, 9 p.m. EST) who, when asked why Scientology denied medical care to a woman who was dying, went into a tirade against psychiatrists (an unrelated topic). The actual intolerance in Greece can be subdivided into (1) that due to inter-Orthodox disputes and (2) that due to ethnic disputes. The closing of Scientology in Greece was not a result of either of these two categories; in fact, both the Orthodox church and Greek state were paralyzed by CoS legal maneuvers and dead-agenting until the Panhellenic Parents' Union demanded an investigation because their children were being imprisoned by KEFE (CoS) and not permitted to see their parents. This is what ultimately led to the raiding and shutting down of KEFE in Greece. Some of the individuals who campaigned against the cult were Greek Orthodox priests, particularly Fr. Anthony Alevizopoulos, who earned a "suppressive person declare" from the cult for his efforts, as if such things matter to non-Scientologists. These are the two areas in which actual religious prejudice can be seen in Greece: The first category can be seen with regard to a sect known as "Old Calendarists." These are basically "fundamentalist Orthodox" who feel that those who do not use the Julian Calendar will go to hell as a result and are socially very conservative. Since they came into being in the 1920's by not adopting the Gregorian calendar, they have been subject to having some of their churches closed, for example (Of course, not all Old Calendarists hold these views, but this is the official and common view held by this sect). The second category can be seen in instances of prejudice towards Islam which probably derives from the unstable relations with Turkey, the years of Ottoman occupation and the Cyprus situation. During the Ottoman occupation, the church was often the only venue where Greeks could use (and preserve) their language and culture, so these became intertwined with the religion. More recently, there was the burning of Izmir in the 1920's, where perhaps 2 million or more Greeks and Armenians were killed. Izmir, then known as Smyrna, was known as "gavur Izmir" (infidel Izmir) by the Muslims as a result of its predominantly non-Muslim population; the massacre was a retalation for Greek military actions near Ankara and also from simple prejudice (my grandfather escaped soon before this massacre and came to the United States at that time). This is not a justification of prejudice but merely an explanation. This prejudice can also be seen towards the Albanians, who are largely Sunni Muslim but also have Catholic and Orthodox minorities, as well as a small Jewish and Sufi population. Nowadays, IMHO, I think most Greeks want to live peacefully with Turkey, but of course adverse memories remain and for some this causes prejudice. The Cyprus situation also colors this since many Greeks have relatives in Cyprus. The prejudice towards Albanians is a different matter and reminds me of the reception many new immigrants got in the U.S., such as the Irish and the Chinese. It should be obvious that Protestants, Catholics, Jews and other religious groups are not subject to adverse treatment owing to either inter-Orthodox or ethnic disputes, and aside from the one Catholic church the report mentions, no other religions were identified as having been mistreated. (During the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II, Greeks risked their lives to hide Jews from the Nazis, and when one priest was ordered to submit a list of all the Jews in his town he gave them a sheet of paper with one name on it: his own -- this is now in the Holcaust Museum, Washington, DC). In summary, I think it is naive to consider the closing of Scientology in Greece as an act of religious prejudice, ignoring what actually transpired. Nick Zymaris nickz@tribeca.ios.com IC XC + NI KA