The banned book – by Kostas Apekas – that sheds light on the Church and the Left

The Left, Socialism and the Church

A book comes many decades later to shed a lot of light on the Church's conflict with the Left. The emergence of socialism in Greece was not necessarily associated with the rejection of religion or a strong anti-clericalism. On the contrary, from the end of the 19th century until the foundation of SEKE, in 1918, the socialist intellectuals of the time combined the social message of socialism with the social message of Christianity. In the founding text of SEKE, for the first time in Greek political history, a series of democratic liberal and radical demands concerning the relationship between the church and the Left, the state and society are actually formulated by a party.

Specifically, point 11 of the positions of the declaration states the request for "freedom of all religions without the need for an official religion". In addition, the need for "religion to be recognized as a private matter and the church as a private institution" is emphasized. In the same direction, as far as the Church and the Left are concerned, the issue of prohibiting "clergy to teach in schools" is raised, the "enforcement of notarial acts" to be carried out "under the local administration". In addition, the "repeal of all public laws for ecclesiastical and religious purposes imposing taxes" is proposed, while finally the request for the establishment of "civil marriage" is formulated. However, the related demands will not reappear in any official text even though the party is moving towards more radical tendencies.

The Left and Lenin open a new way for the separation of state and Church

We will have to wait for the end of 1926 and the publication of Lenin's article "Socialism and Religion, Separation of Church and State" for the demand for separation to be formulated for the first time. This article should be considered an intersection of the communist literature and practice around the issues concerning the Church and the Left. The fight against religion and in favor of atheism as well as the separation of the state from the church is openly proclaimed. The Communist Party recognizes the importance of "top-down" propaganda through an "educational enlightenment" of the workers, but focuses primarily on the labor experience itself which will enable the workers to become receptive to the propaganda. For this reason, it is primarily aimed at distinguishing the state from the church and personalizing religious sentiment.

The KKE does not deal with the ecclesiastical issue in its conference texts.

Gradually, however, anti-clericalism will begin to intensify in Rizospastis's editorials. The sexual abuse of children by priests is commented on with titles such as "the orgies of rasophores" (1928), "the wonderful cooperation between the police and the church" (1929), the central role of the priest in the affairs of a village, and the financial exploitation of villagers through responses with titles such as "the works of the representatives of the god" (1929) or "the lackey priests of the rich" (1930). In fact, during the confrontation between the Venizelos government and the Holy Synod on the issue of church property, he will be positioned for the first time on this issue. In particular, it will support "the immediate expropriation of all monastic property without any compensation at all".

Communist anti-clericalism in Greece and the attitude of the Left towards the Church

Arch-Marxists also took up the question of religion. In the documents confiscated from the archio-Marxist Red School in the district of Agia Fotini in Thessaloniki in January 1931, a rough 24-page historical essay titled "The church organ of the upper class" was found, which recounts the history of the church from the Byzantine era until then. A series of articles on "Motherland, religion, family" will be published in the newspaper Pali ton Taxones. In them, the basic enlightened and anti-clerical point of view of the communists of the time is presented, which we will also find in Kostas Apekas. According to her, in the social conflicts of the Middle Ages "the Church always played a reactionary role on the Left".

The bourgeoisie is characterized as revolutionary and progressive, especially in France carrying out an "unrelenting struggle against religion" as it sought "the overthrow of the feudal regime".

Through the book it seems that the hostile attitude of the bourgeoisie (with an emphasis on the Left) towards religion (by extension the Church) did not last long, however, because, when the proletariat was established "as an autonomous and independent social class", the bourgeoisie will choose to to ally "with the oldest hostile social groups", i.e. "the remnants of feudalism, Church", to "counter the proletariat which was becoming more and more threatening". Therefore, "the transformation of the bourgeois class from a revolutionary class to a conservative class also brings about the continuation of the support of the Church by the State". This exact scheme is formulated for the first time in the case of the Hellenic Church.

By 1930, the basic anti-clerical communist agenda was formed, which in the following three years was sharply sharpened. Articles about the immorality of priests dominate, commenting negatively on homosexual acts, the sexual "corruption" of girls or the relationship of priests with usury activities. Rizospastis publishes a signed letter of a worker which denounces the indolence of 19 monks of Mount Athos at the expense of a child. Clergy therefore appear as immoral and often as criminals. Financial scandals and the delinquent profile of the priests are emphasized with phrases "to the great representatives of God". Sometimes the correspondents tell stories of rebellion against the priests when they demand animals as additional taxation. In the archio-Marxist newspaper Pali ton Taksones, a correspondent from Corfu describes how "the rasophores parasites suck the blood of the poor peasant".

In addition, he resorts to "folk tradition" which "states that for 50 years 400 monks had set up an ambush and beat the villagers of Trypi with their whips in hand".

"They locked them up in a gooey dungeon and then passed them their wives and feasted on them." It is clear that the correspondent from Corfu denounces a fact that he knows empirically and then refers to a series of anti-clerical rumors that have spread throughout Greece. In this way, the widespread and non-political popular anti-clericalism is politicized and linked to the communist reading of ecclesiastical matters.

The zenith of the conflict in the "Church and Left" dipole

In the two years of the escalation of communist anti-clericalism, i.e. 1932-1933, the newspaper Rizospastis begins to look for ways to theorize criticism of the Church and the Left. In April 1933, i.e. close to Easter, Rizospastis will publish Lenin's article on "Socialism and Religion". All the fixed patterns of communist anti-clericalism are theoretically based on this.

In the context of the exploitative society "religion is also a spiritual pressure that weighs everywhere and always on the popular masses". At this point Lenin uses the well-known phrase of Karl Marx, "religion is the opium of the people", and tries to explain it. Religion "is a kind of spiritual drink, with which the slaves of capital get drunk and forget their human nature and their demand for a relatively human life." However, he believes that this era ends with the Russian revolution. Socialism by offering the workers science and the "struggle for a better earthly life" "liberates [...] them from belief in a transcendent life".

Lenin then describes in the book the position of the Communists (and the entire Left) towards religion and the Church, and emphasizes the enshrinement of religious freedoms. It is worth noting that he does not support compulsory atheism by a state for its citizens, but that " religion is an individual matter." At the same time, however, he explains that communists can regard religion as an individual matter vis-à-vis the state, but not vis-à-vis the party. Therefore, he declares communist atheism as a "typically" choice of communists.

Communists must become atheists. At the same time, Class Struggle publishes a corresponding article entitled "Communism and Religion".

In this it is emphasized that "religion and especially Christianity, which is the highest form of religion in the hands of capitalism, is a strong weapon for the slumbering of the oppressed masses". Communist newspapers mean a declaration of war not only on the church, but on religion as well. In December 1932, a relevant article by Kostas Apekas was published in Rizospastis.

In fact, they owe their opposition to this "proclaiming it openly and at every step". Therefore, "the revolutionary proletariat of Greece and its party - the KKE - must open wide the front in the religious sector of bourgeois ideology". The members of the KKE are therefore called upon to lay the foundations in the country "for a broad anti-religious struggle, much more so now that capitalism and its state have more and more means to emphasize religious sentiment."

Changing attitude of the Church and the Left

In 1936 the articles, responses to orgies and violations of priests and attacks on church and religion have disappeared in Rizospastis. The anti-clerical discourse is absent. Now church and religion are seen as an integral part of popular culture and the Communist Left decides to use it rather than fight it. This shift will be combined with the changes in the approach of the nation and 1821 by the KKE around 1936, but will mainly be expressed during the EAM movement.

From the foreword by Kostas Paloukis, Dr. Recent History

More information on the "Church and the Left" issue can also be found in the book "The True History of the Church"

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We are moving into times where the darkness once again spreads its shadow menacingly over humanity, in every aspect of our lives: political, social, religious... In our country these phenomena appear magnified, a fact that has clearly influenced a series of factors that they adversely affect our particular temperament and culture.

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