US State Department religious freedom report on Greece

Source : www.athensnews.gr

by (ANA-MPA)

The burnt-out Jewish Synagogue in the old city of Chania, Crete, 25 January 2010. Two British men have been arrested and two Americans sought in connection with arson attacks on the medieval synagogue.

Making sense of God and Islam – frequently asked questions answered

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Many people do not know this but Islam did not start at the time of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) – it started at the time of Adam and Eve.

Muslims believe that there is only one God in this world, the same God that Abraham, Moses and Jesus worshipped.

What is your belief about God?

Muslims believe God is one and that He created the heavens, the earth, human beings, animals – everything in this universe.  He has no partners and there is no object worthy of worship except Him.  This means Muslims do not believe that a stone, a tree, a cow or a human being is God and they do not worship any of these.  In other words, Muslims cannot fathom Jesus being God or part of God.  This would go against the very nature of monotheism – of God being strictly one. He does not need anyone but we need Him.  He is the most merciful, He sees everything, hears everything and knows everything.  And nothing is comparable to God.

So why do you call Him Allah?

When Muslims use the word ‘Allah’, that does not mean a different god, a moon god or a cow god.  Allah is just the Arabic word for Almighty God in English or Theos in Greek.  Arab Christians and Jews also say ‘Allah’ because it means God.  We prefer to say ‘Allah’ because it accurately means ‘the God’, i.e. the One God without any partners because if you say God in English, some people might think we are talking about Jesus.

Why are there so many religions?

Muslims believe that all of the prophets from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, David, Solomon to Moses, to Jesus and Muhammad etc. (peace be on them all) came to teach the people the exact same message – that God is one, without any partners and to submit your life to God.  This is what we call Islam because the meaning of the word Islam is “submission”, i.e. submit to the will and law of God.  So, in this sense, we believe that all prophets were following Islam, or ‘Muslim’ – someone who submits to God.  Islam is more than a religion, it is a way of life.

Each time a prophet came, some people believed in his message and they established the religion (Islam).  Then after some generations, the original message was lost and people started creating their own religion, mostly creating partners with God (ex. a cow, human etc.). So then God would send the next prophet to bring them back to the original message of Islam and the cycle would continue.

So, this is why Muslims believe in all of the prophets and all of the books, which are the spoken word of God– the Torah, the Gospel, the Quran, etc. and also believe in God’s angels and the Day of Judgement.

You can say Islam is the pure Christianity that Jesus taught and the pure Judaism that Moses taught before some priests, rabbis and people changed it to manipulate their followers and control them.

If God created us, would He leave us to figure things out on our own?

Just like most mothers would not leave their babies to the streets to take care of themselves, God would certainly not leave his creation without taking care of them.  But how does God provide us with this guidance if we cannot hear Him?  Through the Quran and scriptures He left us with full instructions on how to live the best life in this world and in the afterlife and through the prophets He sent us to teach us the guidance.

Because submission to God is a way of life and not just limited to a religion that you practise once a week, the guidance of instructions from God must cover everything in our lives such as the spiritual, emotional, economical, social and family aspects etc.

So, when people ask Muslims why Islam is strict with so many rules, they do not view it like this.  They consider these guidelines as ultimate guidance in living the best life.  Imagine you were lucky enough to have the richest man in the world mentor you on how to succeed financially, the best family counselor in the world mentor you in family and marriage aspects, the world leader in civilization and politics guide your country on how to be the most advanced nation and the wisest spiritual mentor guide you in gaining the closest relationship to God.  Would you consider those rules and restrictions in your life or guidance?

What is the purpose of my life?

And the biggest guidance is to answer a question that most human beings ask themselves at some point in their lives – What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here?

God gives us the answer to this in the Quran.  The purpose of our lives is to worship Him and to submit our lives to Him.  Read that sentence again.  The purpose of our lives is to worship God and to submit our lives to Him. 

We will be asked about this when we die and are resurrected on the big judgement day.  We will be questioned about everything we did and if we followed God’s guidance and did good deeds.  God will reward those who submitted their life to Him will punish those who did not and this is the ultimate justice system.

Free will or not?

God knows everything that we will do but He gives us a chance to live out our lives and gives us the free will or choice in order to provide evidence to us when we are on the Day of Judgement.  In this way, on that day, no one can provide excuses that God’s verdict is not fair.

This is a glimpse to what Islam is so that when you ask a Muslim a question about Islam, you can keep in mind that he or she will answer you from this context.

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photo credit: NPCA Photos

Greece: Religious minorities – second class worshippers…

Source: Enet

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“If the religious leaders stand to the level of the circumstances, then not only will they prevent the use of religion for other purposes unknown to their mission, but they will promote specific proposals of a flourishing inter-religion cooperation. Such a perspective that can develop through the inter-religion dialogue, is most certain that will be supported not only by the international organizations but from the political and spiritual leaders of all peoples,” was writing at “E” the Prime Minister George Papandreou when he was minister of foreign affairs on January 29, 2002.

Today in Greece the problems of the religious minorities remain unsolved. At the meetings that have the representatives of religions and dogma, most of the time they are focused on the problems that they face with their relations with the Greek state than between them.

Thousands of immigrants

Despite of the fact that the population of “others” has increased dramatically in the last two decades of thousands of immigrants mainly from the Muslim countries, nothing has been done to solve the problems of the religious minorities.

Despite the promises and commitments of the governments of Pasok and Nea Dimokratia, none of the claims has been solved. “E” is recording the problems that Muslims, Catholics and Jews face, who most of them are Greeks and are treated as second class worshipers.

CATHOLICS

They manage without any financial support

Dramatic changes to the Church of Greece brought the massive entering of immigrants in our country

Until recently the Catholics were a small religious minority that counted about 50.000 Greeks and a small number of western Europeans that were in our country due to family or professional reasons. Today only in Athens is estimated that the Catholics are 150 to 200 thousand, while more small Catholic communities of immigrants have appeared at several places in Greece. According to the rules of the Catholic church, those fresh-arrived worshipers, no matter what nationality or origin they have, they do not form their own bishopric, but they belong to the local Catholic bishoprics and parishes. Thus a new status is created for the local Catholic church, a multi-national and multi-cultural congregation at the bishoprics and parishes, where the Greek Catholics are a minority any more (in Athens the proportion is one Greek to nine foreign Catholics).

A number of problems concern the national Catholic church related mostly to the newly-arrived worshippers. And as Greek language is not their primary language, more priests are called from Poland, Iraq, Philippines, Albania, Africa who they find it very difficult to settle and work legally in Greece.

Father Theodoros Kondides, the Abbot of Jesuit monastery in Athens talks to “E” concerning a big challenge, and he clarifies that “the Greek Catholic church attempts to create a Christian community with heterogeneous worshippers regarding their origin, but they are united by the same faith and they belong to the same ecclesiastical body”.

Father Kondides refers also to the financial problems that his church faces in Greece. The church’s income he states, “comes from membership fees and from the exploitation of the real property. They cannot depend on aid from the Hellenic state nor from abroad as Greece is considered a “rich” country – member of the EU and for any support the priority goes to the needs of the poor countries”.

Permanent malfunctions

Permanent malfunctions faces the Catholic Church and due to a not complete and vague legal acknowledgement and a public management, which often is negatively determined towards the “foreign doctrines” and offers very limited financial means. The result is between others that a significant number of ecclesiastic monuments or buildings which is a part of the cultural heritage of Greece as well (in Tinos, Athens, Corfu etc.) not to be able to have maintenance, and they gradually are destroyed. Regarding to this issue two questions to the minister of culture and tourism Pavlos Geroulanos applied recently the parliamentarians N.Alevras (PASOK) and F.Kouvelis (SYRIZA). At both questions it is mentioned the fact that the Catholic church is making constant claims to the related ministers for a long time, asking to intervene to restore the Cathedral Church of St. Dionysius at Panepistimiou Street, that had serious damages at the earthquake of 1999. By not receiving any answer the Catholic Archbishopric expresses their fears that the funding is not approved because they concern a Catholic church and not an Orthodox one.

JEWS

Target of attacks and vandalisms are Jewish places

A veil of silence covers the history of the Jewish community of Greece and only recently the state intervened in order to honor the memory of the oldest organized religious community in our country.

On 2004, with the intervention of the foreign minister of that time George Papandreou the 27th of January was set as a day of memory for the victims of the Holocaust by law 32/18/2004. The first historical report for the settlement of the Jews in Greece lies around 350-250 B.C. Since then the Jewish population increased dramatically in Greece. During the Judaic wars (66-70 AC) 6000 Jews were participating according to testimonies to the construction of Corinth Isthmus.

In the 12th century, it is said that Jews settled in Corfu, Arta, Patrai, Nafpaktos, Corinth, Thebes, Khalkis, Thessaloniki, Drama and elsewhere. Jews also lived at islands Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes and Cyprus. Those Jews that were called “Romaniotes” integrated in the Hellenic culture, and it is characteristic that they were writing Greek texts using the Jewish alphabet.

A mass immigration stream happened in the 14th century when Jew refugees from Spain and Portugal settled in Greece. The settlement was mainly in Thessaloniki and at cities of Thessaly where the Sephardim Jews brought their language –Spanish-Jewish – and their own customs.

Between 16th and 18th century the Israelite community of Thessaloniki was one of the largest in the world. Significant were also the Israelite communities at Rhodes and Crete.

When the new Greek state was founded on 1830, the Jews enjoyed equal political rights with the rest of the Greeks, on 1882 the Jewish communities were acknowledged as legal bodies.

In the beginning of 20th century, about 10000 Jews lived in Greece. After the Balkan wars (1912-13) and the liberation of the North Greece, Epirus and Aegean islands, Crete (1908) and Chios, the number of Jews reached 100.000.

After the 2nd World War when the Italians (1940) and the Germans (1941) attacked against Greece, 12 898 Jews joined the Hellenic army forces.

During the German occupation (1943-1944), by applying the “Final Solution”, the Nazis launched a systematic persecution of the Jews through Greece by tracking, arresting and exiling them at the internment camps in Poland. Eighty six percent of the Jewish population (more than 67.000 people) was perished during the Holocaust. After the end of the war the Jews that survived and returned back to Greece were only 10.000. This population decreased even more due to the migration of many Jews to Israel and USA.

Today in Greece live about 5000 Jews, organized in nine communities.

Despite of the fact that the Jewish community is fully integrated in the Greek reality, anti-Semitic incidents occur often. Target of attacks and vandalisms are often Jewish places (synagogues – monuments – cemeteries). These concern very much the Jewish authorities that ask from times to times from the state to take measures – but with no response – as the enforcement of the anti-racist laws and the protection and guarding the Jewish places. The abolition of anti-Jew customs as the burning of Judas and anti-Jew references to the Eastern Anthems also concern the community. “The matter of anti-Semitism keeps concerning us. In Greece seems to exist the tendency if racist discriminations other circles there is a anti-Semitic spirit,” states the president of the Central Jewish Council of Greece Mr. Moses Konstantinis to “E” and adds, “There are example cases where cleric, political factors find an opportunity to manifest similar feelings. The trial of the abusive and calumnious of the Jews, and supporter of Nazism K.Plevris was an example. The trial that lasted about two years with all phases with different judges revealed to the public opinion district attorneys that the Jews were deliberately attacked and the final verdict (votes 4-1) to not-guilty of the accused made the district attorney of the supreme court to recantation in favor of the law considering that “the five member interpreted and applied incorrectly the relevant law (927/1979) in order not to validate legally anti-Semitism” Mr Konstantinis also refers to the permanent claim without response of the Thessaloniki community where they ask compensation for the destruction of the Jewish cemetery during the German occupation (today in this place is located at the university) and to the salaries of the rabbis that ask to come from the state budget as already happens with the salaries of priests of other religions.

MUSLIMS

The mosque and the cemetery, promises that are not fulfilled

The mosque and the Muslim cemetery remain two of the promises that gave the governments of PASOK and ND the last decade but they have not fulfilled them.

The construction of the mosque is anticipated through two laws.

The first was of the foreign ministry and on the occasion of the Olympic games of 2004 that took place in Athens and was referring to the construction of a worship place for the Muslims at Peania. But the law is not always a law, as often happens in Greece, and the plan was abandoned after the reactions of the residents of the area and the Church authority. It is characteristic that the bishop of the area on August 2004 had confused the matter of the mosque with the rubbish dump. He referred that time with a written statement “if the government wants to show to the international community that we are modernized as a folk and civilized, let them move away the rubbish dumps from Mesogeia, Koropi and Peania that infect our lungs everyday and humiliate our country internationally and then they can build the Islamic center that insults our spirit and history.”

The second law was voted in 2006. It was announced by the Minister of Education and Religions, Marietta Giannakou, and was referring to the construction of a mosque at Eleonas. For a number of reasons the mosque issue had no luck so far.

Regarding the Muslim Cemetery the development was similar

30.000m² at Shisto

The Church had given a field of 30.000m² at Shisto area in 2005. However after about four years the Muslim Association of Greece that was motivated this, was informed through the answer that was given on May 2009 the Deputy Minister Ath. Nakos that “ the area that was offered by the Church of Greece for the construction of the Muslim cemetery was judged by the authorized services as unsuitable for zoning a cemetery.”

After that, with a decision of the Holy Synod, another field was given again in Shisto area. But until now there is no development at all.

The Muslim Association of Greece addressed once more to three ministers of the new government of PASOK to remind them of the chronic problems.

The first letter dated October 26, 2009 that sent addressed to the education minister Anna Diamandopoulou and after they describe what has happened – and not happened – the last years they underline: “According to the latest formal briefing we had from Mr. Angelos Syrigos, special secretary when minister was Euripides Stylianides, the Ministry of Finance had laid out 15 million euro for the construction of the mosque from the state expenditure fund as is mentioned at “Giannakou law” of 2006 and the only barrier was the relocation of the supermarket of the Navy Base from the area and this was under the authority of the Ministry of Defense. We offered to gather this amount for the relocation that is 5 million euro in order to start the project but our proposal was not accepted. As we realized and as the ministers changed, nobody knew what really should be done and no one was in charge any more.”

The second letter dated October 29, 2009 addressed to the vice president of the government Theodore Pangalos and between others they illustrate a numbers of issues that are really serious: “Many times the ‘imams’ of the mosques project all the time the word ‘sin’ in order to cover their ignorance, cutting the bridges that would lead to the integration with the society. So they find in Greece a fertile soil to act without any control and this is something they could not do at their countries of origin. Also there are several that manage the unofficial mosques that they do not wish the construction of a formal mosque because they will lose their privileges, the influence groups and the fees of the worshipers from the alms money.”

The third letter dated November 11, 2009 addressed to the Minister of National Defense Vangelis Venizelos. In the letter the attitude of the former Minster Vangelis Meimarakis is being denounced, “He showed in fact a great unwillingness to solve this matter”, they refer and later they report, “To our personal live discussion he did not give us a clear aspect nor he directed us to someone in charge from his ministry in order to solve this matter.” The only one who has responded so far is the minister of Defense Vangelis Venizelos who by his associates, according to sources, asked to be filled in not only for the mosque issue but for everything that concern the Muslims that live in Greece.

Thomas Tsatsis – Elisabetta Casalotti

tsath@enet.gr – casalotti@enet.gr

Q/A: Why do you think you are different?

Question:

Hello everybody, I’m a Greek Orthodox Christian, and I wanna ask you, why do you think you’re different? I think we all are the same we are all humans and Greeks, and we’re not supposed to count each other different, I was shocked to see Greek Muslims think they are not Greeks or make their own websites as if they were different, I’ll tell ya, we’re all Greeks, athiests, Jews, Musilms or Christians, the most important thing to believe in Allah only! I speak Arabic very fluently, for Muslims who want help in this language, and I know a lot about Islam, so anyone needs help, I’m here : mesow@hotmail.com.

Answer:

Mesow, welcome to the group and thank you for asking us this important question.  Yes, we have some similarities, but we are different. 

• human beings  (same)
• Greek culture (same)
• beliefs (different)

If you watch our video or browse through our blog posts, you will find undoubtedly that our posts are very different than what another Greek blogger would publish because we share different beliefs and therefore live different lifestyles.  Hence, the need for our unique website.

Mesow, let me ask you this, if you believe in Allah (one true God) only, then why are you not a Muslim?

Note: others are free to comment as well.

For all you polytheists out there, get a load of this

[digg=http://digg.com/political_opinion/For_all_you_polytheists_out_there_get_a_load_of_this]

A few days ago, I stumbled upon a Hellenic polytheist forum (yes they do exist!) where someone insisted (without proof) that Jews, Christians and Muslims worship different gods, so of course I had to chime in to correct this misconception.

Religion must come with proof, so this one is for you.

The word, Allah, is the perfect description that Arabic Jews, Arabic Christians and Muslims (of all cultures) use to refer to God.  For proof of this, all you have to do is go to Arabic lands and talk to people of these three faiths to see it.  You can also look at the Christian Bible to see that they translate God as Allah in Arabic.

In fact, before English was officially used in 1066AD, what do you think people used to refer to God? It would be impossible for Moses, Jesus or Muhammad (peace be upon them all) to say the word God because English didn’t even exist then!

As for the etymology of the word, we can break it down to root letters, which is very similar in Hebrew, Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke -peace be upon him) and Arabic.

Note: Christians do believe in the Creator, Allah, but attribute partners or idols to Him.

Did Jesus say Allah?  See for yourself!

Note: for the Passion of the Christ movie, they went to the only place in the world where people still speak the language of Jesus – Aramaic in Syria.

As for the meaning, it literally translates to “the God”, referring to the only One true God.  This word is very unique (unlike English) because it has no gender (cannot be made male or female) and it cannot be made plural. 

In other words, this meaning rejects any human characteristics like god or goddess and also shows that there are no other gods that exist purely from the uniqueness of the word “Allah”.

How amazing is that?!

Note: for more information, visit http://www.godallah.com.