And this admission is not a recent invention of some "independent" authority, but established situation in Greek Education, whenever non-religious or non-religious were found at the same desks.
The spirit of tolerance and respect for diversity, which ruled and rules the Greek State and the Orthodox Church, imposed not only the exemption of hetero-religionists and non-religionists from the Religious Studies course, even if they were Roman Catholics, with whom the differences in the subject matter were minimal, but he went ahead, for decades, in the assumption by the State of the expenditure for the payment of theologians for the children of religious minorities, where they existed.
In Syros, in fact, since his decade 1960, they serve in the Schools of Secondary Education and PCatholic Theologians, in which another lesson is thus taught, that of mutual respect and truth, of real secularism; not of this, which seeks to eradicate religion, but one that respects believers of every denomination and religion!
No one was waiting, sure, that, 1800 years and more, after the cessation of persecutions, 194 years, after the overthrow of the Turkish rule and 25 years after the resounding collapse of the regimes, who envisioned the end of all religion, trivializing, displacing, torturing and raping to death exterminating its functionaries, and with particular fury the ministers of the Orthodox Church, we will face a similar situation…
Not even a little, not much either, in the name of "democracy"(!) and "irreligion" (!) it is forbidden to talk about religion, is "sensitive"(!!) personal data, taboo subject, which we are not allowed to talk about in Public Schools, in violation of the article 16 of the Constitution, which sets as the purpose of education "the development of the national and religious consciousness of the Greeks", and of the article 1 of the current Education Law 1566/1985, which mentions as the purpose of Education "for the students to be possessed by faith in the genuine elements of the orthodox Christian tradition";
Sure, the Orthodox Christian does not "study" his faith but experiences it as a personal "walk to Emmaus", the end of which is the perfect knowledge of God. But neither can one claim with certainty that the Religious Studies course guarantees the creation of true Christians.
Nowadays, Nevertheless, of the radical reversal of the scale of values, in which the human person is trivialized, human dignity is degraded and in which we must preserve our National identity, in the midst of globalization, and the maelstrom of multiple crisis, in which our Motherland has fallen, and no-of course- with the responsibility or fault of Orthodoxy, the Religious Studies course, the ultimate lesson in moral life, it must, instead of shrinking, to improve and expand, and for reasons of national survival.
"We are saved through the Church", which the wise jurist Nikolaos Sharipoulos shouted at the Second National Assembly, the 1864, it was not a momentary moment of religious outburst, but a finding of timeless significance and power.
Why, according to the sober historian N. Svoronos "...The Church remains from the 10th to the end of the 17th century the guideline of the Nation. Leader of the national resistance in all its forms...participating in all rebellions, even directing them"!
Her, exactly, of the Church the doctrines of faith, the history and the timeless towards the slave and free Genus, in war and in peace, continuous offering teaches the Religious Studies course, imparting moral consciousness and pure patriotism to the youth.
That is why the Religious Studies course in Schools is - it must be, and if not, to become- not just a general religious education course, but a lesson, which will trigger internal searches, a true guide to spiritual and moral appreciation.
If we want to be called and be Greek….
† Dorotheos II of Syros and Mykonos
("DEMOKRATIA" newspaper, Saturday, 3 October 2015)