One of the main ixtures of his public ethnocentric and nationalist speech was the superiority of the Greek spirit and civilization and the general conlict with the West (Vassilakis 2006: 99-102). As he would oten stress, without Greece there would be no Europe, because even Europe’s name and civilization are Greek. Let it be noted that, when invited to address European audiences, during international conventions and conferences, the archbishop would not describe the West as atheist and materialist, but rather he would speak of the de-Christianization of Europe in its totality and of the dangers of Islam. The period that we have just examined is critical, because the harmonious cohabitation of the Church with the State was disrupted for the irst time. The Church’s speech grew more autonomous then, with obvious ultra-right tendencies, exactly because it had felt threatened by the modernizing political plan of Prime Minister K. Simitis’ government, which it regarded as a threat to its power. Judging from the result, the Church grew more scared then than was necessary. This fear, however, pushed the Church’s leadership to the adoption of an openly ultra-right political agenda, for the irst time ever in a glorious break with the Greek government. Christodoulos’ premature death in 2008 would reinstate the balance to the previous state of a conventional cohabitation. 5/ RELIGIOUS PANIC Ι: ISLAMOPHOBIA The racist and intolerant attitude of part of the Church towards Muslims and the religion of Islam, as well as towards the Jews, has deep roots in the Greek history. With Islam as starting point, Ottoman rule in the Greek region and the subsequent erroneous identiication of Islam with Turkey is the main reason for this attitude. The verbal racist attacks against the religion of Islam are frequent. In 1997, in a book by Archimandrite Dositheos Kastoris, which was published with a preface by current Archbishop of Athens Ieronymos, then-bishop of Thebes and Livadeia, it is mentioned that “in the course of the centuries there was no lack of false prophets ... of people self-proclaimed and not God-proclaimed. A typical example of a falsely called divine messenger, who was nonetheless very successful on the level of historical phenomenology, was that of Muhammad” (Kastoris 1997: 51). This kind of racist attitude against Islam culminated in the period before the 2004 Olympic Games, when the issue of the erection of an Islamic mosque in Athens came to the fore again – an issue still pending, by the way, as the similar issue of the construction of a Muslim cemetery is also pending. At the time, it was suggested that an Islamic mosque be constructed in Paiania, near the new airport. The reaction of ultra-right groups, local institutions and the Church was immediate. The local Bishop Nikolaos stated characteristically that “if the government wants to show to the international community that we are modern and civilized as a people, let it irst remove from Mesogaia, Koropi and Paiania the landills that infect our lungs on an everyday basis and humiliate our country internationally, and then build this Islamist center that insults our spirit and history”.124 124. 86 | See http://archive.enet.gr/online/online_print?id=21496004. ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG