Religious Populism and Political Culture: The Greek Case

Abstract The article examines how the relationship between religion and politics is played out in the case of contemporary Greece. In particular the aim is to describe and account for the recent politicization of Orthodox Christian discourse, following the decision of the Greek government to exclude reference to religion from identity cards. This issue dominated the public sphere in 2000-1. The analysis mainly focuses on the populist character of the discourse articulated by the Church of Greece and Archbishop Christodoulos. It also explores the implications of the phenomenon of religious populism for debates around Greek political culture.