U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999 - Greece

Section I. Freedom of Religion

The Constitution establishes the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ (Greek Orthodoxy) as the prevailing religion; it also provides for the right of all citizens to practice the religion of their choice. The Government respects this right; however, non-Orthodox groups sometimes face administrative obstacles or encounter legal restrictions on religious practice. The Constitution prohibits proselytizing and stipulates that non-Orthodox rites of worship may not disturb public order or offend moral principles.

The Orthodox Church wields significant political and economic influence. The Ministry of Education and Religion supervises the Church, and the Government provides some financial support by, for example, paying the salaries of clergy, subsidizing their religious training, and financing the construction and maintenance of Orthodox Church buildings.

The Orthodox Church is the only religion in Greece considered by law to be a "legal person of public law." Other religions are considered "legal persons of private law." In practice a primary distinction is that establishment of other religions' houses of prayer is regulated by the general provisions of the Civil Code regarding corporations. For example non-Orthodox churches cannot, as religious entities, own property; the property must belong to a specifically created legal entity rather than to the church itself. In practice this places an additional legal and administrative burden on non-Orthodox religious community organizations, although in most cases this process has been handled routinely.

Two laws from the 1930's require recognized or "known" religious groups to obtain "house of prayer" permits from the Ministry of Education and Religion in order to open houses of worship. By law the Ministry may base its decision to issue permits on the opinion of the local Orthodox bishop. No formal mechanism exists to gain recognition as a known religion, but Ministry officials state that they no longer obtain the opinion of the local Orthodox bishop when considering "house of prayer" permit applications, that no applications have been refused during the period covered by this report, and that none are pending. A tax bill passed in 1997 created, among other things, three new taxes on churches and other nonprofit organizations. Leaders of some non-Orthodox religious groups claimed that all taxes on religious organizations were discriminatory, even those that the Orthodox Church has to pay, since the Government subsidizes the Orthodox Church while other groups are self-supporting.

Approximately 94 to 97 percent of the country's 10 million citizens adhere at least nominally to the Greek Orthodox faith. With the exception of the Muslim community (some of whose rights, privileges, and government obligations thereto are covered by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne), the Government does not keep statistics on the size of religious groups within Greece. Ethnic Greeks account for a sizeable percentage of most non-Orthodox religions. The balance of the population is composed of Muslims (officially estimated at 120,000); Protestants, including evangelicals (who state they are approximately 30,000), Jehovah's Witnesses (50,000), Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), Anglicans, Baptists, and nondenominational Christians; Catholics (approximately 50,000); Jews (approximately 5,000); and Scientologists (approximately 7,000). Approximately 300 members of the Baha'i Faith are scattered throughout the country. The majority are Greek citizens of non-Greek ethnicity. The Old Calendarists separated from the Orthodox Church in 1924 and continued to follow the Julian calendar. There are no convincing estimates of their numbers. There is no official or unofficial estimate of atheists.

The majority of noncitizen residents practice religions other than Greek Orthodoxy. The largest of these groups is Albanian (approximately 500,000 legal and illegal). An estimated two-thirds of these persons nominally adhere to Islam.

Several religious denominations reported difficulties in dealing with the authorities on a variety of administrative matters. Privileges and legal prerogatives granted to the Greek Orthodox Church are not extended routinely to other recognized religions. The non-Greek Orthodox churches must make separate and lengthy applications to government authorities on such matters as arranging appointments to meet with Ministry of Education and Religion officials and gaining permission to move places of worship to larger facilities. In contrast, Greek Orthodox officials have an institutionalized link between the church hierarchy and the Ministry that handles administrative matters.

Greek Catholics reside particularly in Athens and on the islands of Tinos, Rhodes, and Syros. Immigrants from the Philippines and Poland also practice Catholicism. The Bishop of Athens heads the Roman Catholic Holy Synod. CARITAS, an order of nuns providing charity services, and the Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa's order) also operate in the country. Both orders reported difficulty in renewing their visas during the period covered by this report, but the visas ultimately were renewed; the Government does not have a distinct religious workers' visa category. Legal recognition earlier was denied to the Catholic archdiocese of Athens, but was under positive review and reconsideration as of the end of June 1999.

Protestant groups constitute the second largest religious group after the Greek Orthodox Church. Some groups, such as the evangelicals and Jehovah's Witnesses, consist almost entirely of ethnic Greeks. Other groups, such as the Latter-Day Saints and Anglicans, consist of an approximately equal number of ethnic Greeks and non-Greeks. Non-Greek citizen clergy reported difficulty renewing their visas during the period covered by this report, but these visas eventually were renewed. As part of new obligations under the Schengen Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam, all non-European Community citizens face a more restrictive visa and residence regime than they did in the past.

The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which is still in force, gives Muslims in Western Thrace the right to maintain social and charitable organizations ("wakfs") and provides for the function of muftis to render religious judicial services.

The Muslim population, concentrated in Western Thrace with small communities in Rhodes, Kos, and Athens, is composed mainly of ethnic Turks but also includes Pomacks and Roma. Mosques operate freely in Western Thrace and on the islands of Rhodes and Kos. However, local officials delayed expansion of a mosque in Kimmeria, near Xanthi, for over a year, at one point prosecuting 17 Muslim workmen for ignoring a stop-work order. Under public pressure, officials relented in late 1997 and construction of the mosque was completed in 1998. Its minaret remained unfinished even after the building permit was approved; but the issue is one of local sensitivities rather than religious motivation, and it does not affect the operation of the mosque.

Differences remain within the Muslim community and between segments of the community and the Government over the means of selection of muftis (Islamic judges and religious leaders with limited civic responsibilities). Under a 1990 presidential decree, the Government appointed two muftis and one assistant mufti, all resident in Thrace. The appointments (effective in 1991) were based on the recommendations of a committee of Muslim notables selected by the Government. The Government argued that it must appoint the muftis because, in addition to their religious duties, they perform judicial functions in many civil and domestic matters under Muslim religious law, for which the State pays them.

Some Muslims accept the authority of the two officially appointed muftis; other Muslims, backed by Turkey, have "elected" two different muftis to serve their communities (although there is no established procedure or practice for "election"). Three times in 1998, the Government convicted one of the elected muftis for usurping the authority of the official mufti. Earlier convictions (eight over 3 years) against the same individual were upheld on appeal on four occasions. All of the respective sentences remain suspended pending appeal. The other elected mufti, who was convicted in 1991 of usurping the authority of the official mufti, has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, where his case is pending.

Controversy between the Muslim community and the Government also continues over the management and self-government of the wakfs (Muslim charitable organizations) regarding the appointment of officials as well as the degree and type of administrative control. A 1980 law placed the administration of the wakfs in the hands of the appointed muftis and their representatives. In response to objections from some Muslims that this arrangement weakened the financial autonomy of the wakfs and violated the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne, a 1996 presidential decree put the wakfs under the administration of a committee for 3 years as an interim measure pending resolution of outstanding problems.

Muslim activists complained that the Government regularly lodges tax liens against the wakfs although they are in theory tax-free religious foundations. Legislation to create a national land and property registry passed in 1996 and upon coming into full effect in 1999 requires the wakfs, as with all property holders, to register all of their property with the Government. The legislation permits the Government to seize any property that owners are not able to document; there are built-in reporting and appeals procedures. To date the Government has not sought to enforce either the liens or the registration requirement.

Although Jehovah's Witnesses are recognized as a "known" religion, in previous years the military consistently refused to exempt their clergy from mandatory military service. This practice was found to be in violation of Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights by the European Court of Human Rights in two decisions reached in 1997. In January 1998, a law providing an alternative form of mandatory national service for conscientious objectors took effect. It provides that conscientious objectors may work in state hospitals or municipal services for 36 months. Conscientious objector groups generally characterized the legislation as a "positive first step" but criticized the 36-month alternative service term, which is double the regular 18-month period of military service. Since January 1998, all Jehovah's Witnesses, both clergy and laymen, who wished to submit applications for alternative nonmilitary service were permitted to do so. In one case, an application was submitted late and the applicant was instructed to appear for mandatory military service. The applicant appealed this decision; the results of the appeal are pending.

Jehovah's Witnesses also noted two cases during the reporting period in which custody of a child was awarded to a Greek Orthodox parent, in part due to the fact that the other parent was a member of Jehovah's Witnesses. In September 1998, an Athens court awarded custody of a child to its father; media reporting stated that because blood transfusions were prohibited by Jehovah's Witnesses, should the child need one, the mother might object and thus endanger the child's health.

Evangelical parishes are located throughout Greece. Members of missionary faiths report difficulties due to anti-proselytizing laws. Church officials express concern that anti-proselytizing laws remain on the books, although such laws no longer hinder their ministering to the poor and to children.

Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints state that the Church has approximately 300 adherents in Greece, about half of whom are of Greek ethnicity. About 60 foreign missionaries arrive each year for 2-year terms. Church leaders report that their permanent members (nonmissionaries) do not encounter discriminatory treatment. However, police occasionally detained Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses after receiving complaints that the individuals were engaged in proselytizing. According to Mormon leaders, police detain their missionaries at least once every 2 weeks. The missionaries always are released the same day without being charged. In most cases, these Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses were held for several hours at a police station and then released with no charges filed. Many reported that they were not allowed to call their lawyers and that they were verbally abused by police officers for their religious beliefs. In February 1998, the European Court of Human Rights found Greece in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights for convicting Protestants of proselytizing in past cases. There were no proselytizing-related court cases during the period covered by this report.

Early in 1998, four teachers were reinstated (three to their original positions and one to an administrative position) after a 1997 investigation by the Ministry of Education and Religion found that they had not proselytized their students. The teachers are members of the Church of Christians, a nondenominational Protestant church.

Scientologists, most of whom are located in the Athens area, practice their faith through the Center for Applied Psychology (KEFE), a registered nonprofit philosophical organization. According to the president of the KEFE, the group chose to register as a philosophical organization because legal counsel advised that the Government would not recognize Scientology as a religion. In a step toward gaining recognition as a religion, Scientologists applied for a House of Prayer permit in October 1998. The application is pending at the Ministry of Education.

A 1995 police search of Scientology headquarters revealed a file of press clippings on Greek opposition to Scientology. The file was confiscated and 15 KEFE board members subsequently were charged with "unprovoked factual insult." In May 1999, an Athens court acquitted the 15 Scientology board members of the charges.

In February 1998, an appeals court upheld the 1994 conviction for usurpation of religious authority of a former Greek Orthodox cleric. The individual was defrocked in 1993 after asserting that he was a priest in a church not recognized as a "known" religion. The 1-year sentence was suspended pending appeal. He has since sought permission to operate a place of worship, but the Government asserts that he did not file a valid application.

The Jewish community numbers approximately 5,000 adherents; the majority are of Greek ethnicity and live in the Athens region.

In April 1998, a bomb exploded in front of the Athens office of the Central Board of the Jewish Communities in Greece. The Government investigated, but those responsible have not been found. In August 1998, a Jewish cemetery in Kavala was vandalized; an investigation into this incident has produced no results, as was the case with a 1997 vandalization in Trikala.

Religious instruction in Orthodoxy in public primary and secondary schools is mandatory for all Greek Orthodox students. Non-Orthodox students are exempt from this requirement. However, Jehovah's Witnesses have reported some instances of discrimination related to attendance at religious education classes or other celebrations of religious or nationalistic character.

The Government took no action to implement or repeal a 1991 law mandating that citizens declare their religion on new standardized identity cards based on European Union (EU) standards, which could be used for internal EU travel. Current identity cards contain a space for religion that may be left blank.

Overall, leaders of minority religions noted a general improvement in government tolerance during the period covered by this report, citing fewer arrests for proselytizing and the new conscientious objector law.

There were no reports of religious detainees or prisoners apart from the problems of temporary police detention experienced by Latter-Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses.

There were no reports of the forced religious conversion of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the Government's refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.

Section II. Societal Attitudes

Greeks tend to link religious affiliation very closely to ethnicity. Many attribute the preservation of Greek national identity to the actions of the Greek Orthodox Church during approximately 400 years of Ottoman rule and the subsequent nation building period. The Church wields significant social, political, and economic influence; it owns a considerable, although undetermined, amount of property.

In the minds of many Greeks, an ethnic Greek is also Orthodox Christian. Non-Orthodox citizens have complained of being treated with suspicion or told that they were not truly Greek when they revealed their religious affiliation. Non-Orthodox citizens have claimed that they face career limits within the military and the civil service due to their religions. In the military, generally only members of the Greek Orthodox faith become officers, leading some members of other faiths to declare themselves Orthodox. Only two Muslim officers have advanced to the rank of reserve officer. A human rights group reported that in Thessaloniki and in some villages, the municipality has refused to record the conversion of former Orthodox believers to another religion.

Members of minority faiths have reported incidents of societal discrimination, such as local bishops warning parishioners not to visit clergy or members of minority faiths and neighbors requesting that the police arrest missionaries for proselytizing. However, with the exception of the Muslim minority of Western Thrace, most members of minority faiths consider themselves satisfactorily integrated into Greek society. Organized interaction between religious communities is infrequent.

Catholic, Jewish, some Protestant, and officially-recognized Muslim leaders believe that they have a good relationship with the Orthodox Church and have an open dialog with one another. However, other non-Orthodox religious communities believe that they have been unable to communicate with officials of the Orthodox Church and claim that the attitude of the Orthodox Church toward their faiths has increased social intolerance towards their religions. The Orthodox Church has issued a list of practices and religious groups, including Scientologists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Baha'is, which it believes to be sacrilegious. Officials of the Orthodox Church have acknowledged that they refuse to enter into dialog with religious groups considered harmful to Greek Orthodox worshippers; church leaders instruct Orthodox Greeks to shun members of these faiths.

The Muslim minority in Thrace generally is isolated and economically depressed. Claims of discriminatory denial of Muslim applications for business licenses, tractor ownership, or property construction have diminished greatly in recent years. However, the development of basic public services (electricity, telephones, paved roads) in Muslim neighborhoods and villages continues in many cases to lag far behind that of non-Muslim areas. Muslim leaders also asserted that the Government routinely withholds permission from Muslims seeking to change their legal residence, which determines where they vote, from rural to urban communities within Western Thrace or from elsewhere in Greece to Thrace. They said permission to change legal residency from Western Thrace to elsewhere in Greece was granted readily, and charged that the practice was part of a government policy to encourage Muslim emigration from the region and to prevent the urban concentration of Muslims in Thrace.

The percentage of Muslims employed in the public sector and in state-owned industries and corporations is disproportionately lower than the percentage of Muslims in the population. In Xanthi and Komotini, while Muslims hold seats on the prefectural and town councils, there are no Muslims among regular employees of the prefecture. Muslims in Western Thrace claim that they are hired only for lower level, part-time work. According to the Government, lack of fluency in written and spoken Greek and the need for university degrees for high-level positions limit the number of Muslims eligible for government jobs.

The Treaty of Lausanne provides that the Muslim minority has the right to Turkish-language education, with a reciprocal entitlement for the Greek minority in Istanbul (now reduced to about 3,000). Western Thrace has both Koranic and secular Turkish-language schools. Government disputes with Turkey over teachers and textbooks caused these secular schools serious problems in obtaining faculty and teaching materials in sufficient number and quality. Under a 1952 educational protocol, Greece and Turkey may exchange annually 35 teachers on a reciprocal basis. The teachers serve in Istanbul and Western Thrace, respectively, but in recent years the Greek side limited the exchanges to 16 teachers per country due to the dwindling needs of the small and aging Greek population in Turkey. Muslim leaders in Western Thrace complained that the Government erected bureaucratic barriers to prevent the Turkish teachers from performing their duties for much of the academic year. More than 8,000 Muslim children attended Turkish-language public schools and an additional 150 attended 2 bilingual middle schools with a religious curriculum. Approximately 1,300 Muslim students attended Greek-language secondary schools. Many Muslims reportedly attended high school in Turkey, due to the limited number of places in the Turkish language secondary schools, which are assigned by lottery.

Government incentives encourage Muslim and Christian educators to reside and teach in isolated villages.

The law permits the Minister of Education to give special consideration to Muslims for admission to universities and technical institutes. The law requires universities and technical institutes to set aside places for Muslim students each year; 464 spaces were available in 1998. The admission exams were taken by 124 Muslim students, and 58 women and 54 men were accepted into universities and technical schools.

Section III. U.S. Government Policy

The U.S. Embassy has worked consistently to uphold the right to religious freedom. Embassy officers meet regularly with working-level officials responsible for religious affairs in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education and Religious Affairs. Officers from the Embassy and the Consulate General in Thessaloniki also meet regularly with representatives of various religious groups, including the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic communities. In January 1998, the Embassy brought leaders of various religious groups to the Embassy to discuss with visiting members of Congress the situations facing their faiths in Greece.

Employees of the Embassy's consular section have helped Baptist clergy get permission to visit all prisoners, not only those of the Baptist faith.

The Ambassador and embassy staff participated in the inauguration of the new Holocaust memorial in Thessaloniki and the newly located Jewish Museum in Athens.

In January 1999, the Ambassador held a reception for Archbishop Spyridon, head of the Orthodox Church in North America, to which religious leaders of all faiths were invited.

The Ambassador invites representatives of all faiths to social events; embassy officials meet with individuals of all faiths in the process of developing the annual Human Rights Report.