Greece, January 2, 2024
Photo: slpress.gr
The Greek Orthodox Church faced a record number of attacks in 2023, according to a new report from the General Secretariat for Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs, and Sports.
According to the “Report on Incidents against Religious Sites in Greece,” in 2023, 591 incidents were recorded against the Orthodox Church, representing 97.20% of the total 609 incidents recorded that year.
The recorded attacks include vandalism, break-ins, thefts, robberies, sacrilege, grave desecration, tomb raids, arson, and other desecrations.
The Orthodox Church “is the only religious community that has been targeted twice by attacks with explosive devices intended to cause not material damage but human casualties. From what is known so far, the motives of the first attack were purely political, as the perpetrators came from anarchist circles. The perpetrator of the second attack came from far-right conspiracy circles but also had religious motives, as he turned against the Holy Synod, which he believed had ‘betrayed’ Orthodoxy,” notes the General Secretary of Religious Affairs in the Report’s introduction.
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