Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Greek Orthodox church, to which 98% of the population belongs, is partly to blame.
ECONOMIST: Plans to build a mosque in Athens are in disarray
Many Greeks who arrive in Australia are turning to Costas Markos, general secretary of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne.
WSJ: Australia's Booming Economy and Shortage of Workers Attract Greeks
In Damascus, a Christian Mass marked the day at the Mariamite Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Syria's SANA state news agency reported.
"The Vatican is the house of deception and criminal activity, " shouted a Greek Orthodox cleric, Metropolitan Stephanos, through a bullhorn.
Mr Davutoglu is hopeful, for example, that the Greek Orthodox seminary on the island of Halki off Istanbul will soon be reopened.
The author William Dalrymple describes seeing Christians and Muslims praying together in a Greek Orthodox convent in Syria a few years ago.
But he also called for respect for minorities, declaring that the Greek Orthodox seminary on Halki, an island off Istanbul, must be reopened.
ECONOMIST: Turkey basks in the glory of a two-day visit by Barack Obama
Benedict began the day with a busy morning in Jerusalem's Old City, including meeting the patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches.
The government is talking of reopening a Greek Orthodox seminary on the island of Halki off Istanbul, a long-running demand of the European Union.
One tradition that is common to the Jewish, Hindu and Greek Orthodox religions is the breaking of something at the end of the ceremony.
One of the issues is that responsibility for its administration is shared between three religious authorities -- the Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Roman Catholic churches.
Iraq also has communities of Syrian Catholics, Syrian Orthodox, Copts, Armenian Orthodox, Armenian Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics, as well as Anglicans and Evangelicals.
Archbishop Demetrios marks his second decade guiding the Greek Orthodox Church and community in America, four decades as a bishop, and, recently, his 82nd birthday.
Snowe, 66, came about her independence through being orphaned at age 9 and sent off to an out-of-state boarding school run by the Greek Orthodox Church.
Since the town came under Palestinian rule in 1995, Mr Arafat has attended both the Western Christmas Eve Mass and the Greek Orthodox Christmas on 6 January.
He has been bestowed with custodianship of the Christian holy sites -- not only in Bethlehem, but in Jerusalem as well -- by the Greek Orthodox patriarch.
The Greek Orthodox church may also be told to stump up half of the wage costs for priests, despite earlier reassurances that the state would continue to foot the entire bill.
Turkey even appears to have colluded with the Russian patriarch, Kirill, to limit the powers of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Istanbul, Bartholomew I, usually seen as first among equals in the Orthodox hierarchy.
ECONOMIST: Turkey and Russia: Old rivals, new partners | The
Basilios Nassar, a Greek Orthodox priest from the central city of Hama, was shot and killed by government snipers in January while he was helping evacuate the wounded in clashes in one neighborhood, Christian activists say.
But as the war clouds gather and finally burst, the Muslim boys are taken off to hell-holes like Gallipoli, the Armenians are marched away to exile or death, and the Greek Orthodox are press-ganged into forced-labour units.
Even in the height of the hot Jericho summer, Christian pilgrims can be seen clambering up the Mount of Temptation to pray at the Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Temptation, built into the side of the mountain.
And in his speech to the Turkish parliament, he publicly called on Turkey to reopen the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary in Istanbul a message that President Obama and other senior administration officials have raised with their Turkish counterparts on numerous occasions.
On his first trip overseas as President, during his visit to Istanbul, he met with Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew, Armenian Orthodox Archbishop Aran Stesyan, Chief Rabbi of Istanbul Isak Haleva, Grand Mufti of Istanbul Mustafa Cagrici and Syrian Orthodox Archbishop Yusuf Cetin.
"With all due respect, the Patriarch, the Synod and the Patriarchate find your letter surprising and unacceptable since it constitutes an outright and inappropriate interference in their autonomy as a religious sect and in the religious freedom of members of the Greek Orthodox congregation, " it said.
In this vein, the ECI hosted Palestinian Greek-Orthodox pastor Naim Khoury from Bethlehem.
Also in support are Mormons, Missouri Senate Lutherans, and Greek and Russian Orthodox churches.
The Greek Catholics, who follow Orthodox-style rites but are loyal to the Vatican, re-established their church in 1991.
Visit Lycian rock tombs in the cliffs above the main tourist centre of Fethiye or the eerie Greek ghost town of Kayakoy, which was abandoned when its Orthodox people were exiled in 1923 during an exchange of minority religious populations between Turkey and Greece.
The omnipresent blue of Greek churches is so memorable that there are even a few Orthodox churches in my neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, that have mimicked the form, giving me and everyone else who passes or steps inside a slight tinge of longing for the Greek islands of their memories.
应用推荐