Letter from Greece

The robed and bearded priests of the Greek Orthodox Church exercise unquestioned moral authority from Edessa to Marathon. But Orthodox majorities attract Protestant minorities, and the Greeks are no exception.

Protestants who call themselves Evangelicals have been working and worshiping in Greece since the latter part of the 19th century. But in recent years there have been signs that the bishops of orthodoxy would like to put a lid on their Evangelical brethren. A permit to build a new church in Neos Mylotopos, near Thessalonica, was flatly denied; the government has requisitioned some property of an Evangelical church, and Evangelical Leader George Hadjiantoniou was arrested for "proselytizing" by distributing selections from the Scriptures.

Early this year it was announced that the Evangelicals would not be represented at the Evanston Assembly of the World Council of Churches in August (as they had been at the Amsterdam Assembly in 1948). In a letter to the Christian Century, Evangelical Moderator Hadjiantoniou last week explained why. "We are facing just now a real state of persecution on the .part of the Greek Orthodox Church," wrote Hadjiantoniou. "What makes the situation still more sad and perplexing is that the initiative in this has been taken, in part at least, by people closely connected with the ecumenical movement, such as the bishop of Thessalonica, [the Rt. Rev.] Panteleimon . . . who will be the leading member of the Greek Orthodox delegation to Evanston ... We do not believe that any ecumenical movement can prosper which betrays the sacred right of religious freedom. So long, therefore, as one member of the World Council of Churches persecutes bitterly another member, we don't feel we have any place in its conferences."

Wrote the Christian Century: "The World Council had better find out whether [the charges] are true or false, and take appropriate action . . . if it hopes to have the slightest moral authority when speaking on denials of religious liberty in Colombia, in India, or anywhere else."

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