Mass media: Confidence in Greek Church eroded due to recognition of OCU
Greek media reports that confidence in the GOC among the Greeks has slumped from 80% to 36%. Journalists believe the “Ukrainian issue” to be one of the reasons.
On October 23, 2019, the Greek publication “Orthodoxos Typos” published data on the falling level of public confidence in the Greek Orthodox Church and analyzed the causes of this phenomenon.
The authors of the publication cite the words of the Greek Orthodox journalist Georgios Papatanassopoulos, who emphasizes that "the Church of Greece has lost its correct, vital and saving character." According to him, the social role of the Church "has been downgraded".
The publication agrees with the words of the journalist and illustrates them with data on a significant drop of the Greeks’ confidence in the Church of Greece: “Our Church, together with the army, in the past became the main pillar of Greek society. The Church gained over 80% of Greek citizens' trust in this regard. Unfortunately, today this trust has fallen to 36%, which means that every third Greek does not trust the Church! If this is not a national tragedy for the future, then what is it?” the newspaper writes.
The authors call "the exploitation of the Greek Church by Constantinople in the "Ukrainian issue" among the reasons for such a rapid fall in the rating.
As reported by the UOJ, previously Bishop Irinej (Bulovic) of Bačka of the Serbian Orthodox Church said that the inclusion of the name Epiphany Dumenko in the diptych of the Greek Orthodox Church is the last step before the abyss of an even more dangerous split in Ecumenical Orthodoxy.
