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...the period the most radical changes in the history of contemporary Orthodox Christianity. In Greece, the traditional matrix of Orthodoxy, a speedy process of modernization began in the mid-70s, immediately after the fall of the American-backed right wing dictatorship. Quite a similar process, though somehow slower, started in the early 1990s in rest of the Orthodox world, who got rid of a communist-led left wing dictatorship. There has been, first of all, a change in the overall attitude of citizens towards their Christian tradition, which certainly affects any missionary strategy in the post- Enlightenment, and post-modern Europe.
In the West, Europeans, in seeking their identity, recognize very reluctantly today their religious, and particularly Christian heritage. Especially the secular elite but also other citizens place stronger emphasis on the achievements of the Enlightenment. In contrast to this attitude, almost all East European countries with Orthodox affiliation feel the opposite. Almost all of them try to adapt quite reluctantly to a modernization process, and the majority of them almost identify their national identity with their Orthodox religion.
b. The ecclesiological background
From an Orthodox perspective, therefore, the issue in question has some theological nuances in addition, of course, to the obvious historical and sociological ones. In my view, the problem of the incompatibility between religion and modernism, and more particularly between the church and secularism, is rather an issue caused by the institutional expression of the churches in Europe. The incompatibility, therefore, is an...
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