P. Funke, M. Haake (eds.), Greek Federal States and Their Sanctuaries: Identity and Integration. Proceedings of an International Conference of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” held in Münster, 17.06.–19.06.2010, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stut (original) (raw)
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A new role for the church? Reassessing the place of religion in the Greek public sphere
2008
_______________________________________________________ iii 1. Introduction _______________________________________________________1 2. A 'master' narrative on Orthodoxy, Greek and beyond _____________________3 3. The Greek historical and political context _______________________________8 3.1. Historical contingencies in the religion-national identity link ____________9 3.2. Legal framework of church-state relations __________________________13 3.3 Agency -1998-2008 _____________________________________________23 4. Reassessing the place of religion in the Greek public sphere _______________29 5. Conclusion _______________________________________________________35 ABSTRACT ABSTRACT ABSTRACT ABSTRACT This title is borrowed from a 1999 article by Nicos Alivizatos, in which he considered whether the election of Archbishop Christodoulos ushered in a new role for the church vis-à-vis the Greek state. Ten years on, in the aftermath of the election of a new archbishop -Ieronymos -it seems fitting to revisit the question and, in so doing, to reassess the place of religion in the Greek public sphere. nationalism and church-state relations and to focus attention, instead, on what are indeed operative factors in these 'problem areas' identified in many Orthodox contexts.
This article focuses on three interrelated themes in the study of ancient Greek religion, looked at through the material evidence from the sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia on the island of Poros, Greece. First, I look at the so-called polis model and its applicability to an interpretation of Kalaureian material related to the cultic life of the sanctuary from the point of view of the 'historiography' of Greek religion. I then discuss the historical context of the archaeological material, with particular emphasis on the topic of the sanctuary as a known place of asylum particularly during the Hellenistic period. Thirdly, I examine the archaeological material related to eating and dining and its potential connection to the demarcation between sacred and profane activities and between sacralised and profane space in the sanctuary, with special interpretative attention to the significance of border(s) and boundaries. Drawing attention to these issues may help us understand the dynamics and interplay between 'official' and 'private' aspects of ancient Greek religion, within both the tradition of the scholarship of ancient Greek religion and the so-called 'archaeology of cult'. In this article I discuss the interpretation of the archaeological material related to religion and cult at the sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, on the island of Poros, Greece. My approach encompasses three distinct but interrelated aspects for studying the social and physical demarcation of ritual and sacred space at the sanctuary. They are the following: 1) Mapping the important parameters for the conceptualisation of ancient Greek religion. In this case study the role of the Greek city-state, the polis, as a signifier of official and private cultic activity is discussed. 2) Investigating the histori-1 I am grateful to Arto Penttinen for reading the manuscript and commenting on it. I also wish to express my thanks to anonymous readers of the text for their suggestions, as well as to Paul Ewart for his language advice.
see also: Mnemosyne 66.2, p.359
Abstract: In this research, Christina Williamson studies the phenomenon of major outlying sanctuaries which accompanied the second rise of the Greek polis in Asia Minor in the Hellenistic period. While such ‘extra-urban’ sanctuaries in the Archaic world are typically interpreted as frontier shrines marking critical borders of civic territory, Williamson argues that the situation in Hellenistic Asia Minor is much more complex, as the Greek polis model took hold in landscapes that were already highly socially articulated. Drawing on a wide range of archaeological and historical sources, she examines in detail the processes of transformation that took place at the shrines of Zeus Labraundos and Sinuri in the landscape of Mylasa, and Hekate at Lagina and Zeus at Panamara in the outer limits of Stratonikeia in Karia, as they were turned into major civic centers. Using theories taken from the cognitive, social and spatial sciences, Williamson contextualizes these transformations in light of their effect on society and interprets them with regard to polis formation. In doing so she shows that instead of their proximity to borders, it was their capacity to foster social cohesion, territorial integrity, and civic identity among hybrid and dispersed communities that made them so vital to rising poleis.