New Democracy sought to score political points against Syriza by releasing a statement yesterday demanding that Alexis Tsipras confirm or deny that he is an atheist given that, according to the conservative party, his party’s platform includes proposals to tax Greek Orthodox Christians.
“The Syriza official responsible for Religion, Mr Ioannis Amanatidis, revealed this morning on SKAI TV that the leader of the opposition Alexis Tsipras is an atheist. That is his right,” the statement said.
“However the Greek people need to know what Mr Tsipras believes and for that reason Syriza needs to immediately confirm or refute its Member of Parliament. It is reminded that the official Syriza programme foresees the taxation of all those declaring themselves as Greek Orthodox, as it was recently presented to the Greek people by Tasos Kourakis.”
“We hope that Syriza’s adversity towards Orthodox Christians to not be due to the fact that Mr Tsipras is an atheist.” the statement adds.
For its part Syriza has not addressed the issue of Mr Tsipras’s faith beyond Mr Amanatidis’s initial comments with the party releasing a statement accusing New Democracy of launching metaphorical ‘grenades’ against the party and involving “first the President of the Republic and now the Church in their plans. Where will Mr Samaras’s descent end?”
Furthermore Syriza MP Panos Scourletis, in an appearance on SKAI TV this morning, denied that additional taxation of Greek Orthodox Christians to fund the church amounted to an official platform policy of Syriza, saying that the proposal was as an alternative mentioned by Tasos Kourakis during a conference when discussing the models of church funding in other countries. Currently orthodox clerics are on the state payroll and the church enjoys various tax breaks and benefits, according to a system that many believe is anachronistic and lacking in transparency, with church leaders trading their support and influence for continuing favourable treatment.
The recent statement by New Democracy is clearly an attempt to create a feeling of unease around Syriza among more religiously minded voters. The issue of the church is a tricky one for Syriza. The party has often criticised as corrupt the institution which has traditionally had close ties with both PASOK and New Democracy governments and been implicated in a number of scandals, most notably the 2008 Vatopedi Monastery real-estate scandal during which high ranking monks were indicted for trading low-value property for high-value state owned real-estate at a cost to the taxpayer in the hundreds of millions of euros. However the church continues to exert significant influence in a country where more than 90% of the population declare themselves as Greek Orthodox Christians, particularly among more devout voters in rural areas who Syriza risks ostracizing.
New Democracy has also sought to portray itself as a defender of Greek Orthodoxy in order to stem its loss of conservative voters to far right neo-fascist party Golden Dawn. This is believed by many to be behind the decision to prosecute the blogger behind the fictional character ‘Elder Pastistios the Pastafarian’ which saw the satirical blogger sentenced to a ten month suspended prison term for the crime of blasphemy.