This paper engages with an ongoing scholarly debate on where Orthodox Europe stands in relation
to (Western) European secularisation. It navigates between perspectives presenting Orthodoxy as
an exception to European secularisation on the one hand, and as an imminent participant in the
secularisation process via integration into European institutions on the other. Focusing on the
Greek case, the inquiry examines the extent to which ‘Europe’ (both culturally and politically) may
be considered to have a secularising influence on Orthodox Greece. Rejecting narrow and linear
conceptions of secularisation, the paper emphasises the dialectical, discursive nature of
secularisation which precludes generalisations about either ‘eastern’ or ‘western’ secularisation,
much less about their relation to one another.
To cite this article: Effie Fokas (2012): ‘Eastern’ Orthodoxy and ‘Western’ Secularisation in
Contemporary Europe (with Special Reference to the Case of Greece), Religion, State and Society,
40:3-4, 395-414
Read the paper here.