Moving from Dublin and Galway to Athens for a moment – actors in and the producer and director of “Corpus Christi” have been charged with blasphemy.
A production of “Corpus Christi” in Athens was canceled this month after weeks of almost daily protests outside the theatre by priests and right-wing groups, including deputies from the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party.
Charges of “insulting religion” and “malicious blasphemy” have been filed after Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus lodged a lawsuit against those involved in the play, the officials said.
Our worst nightmare, eh? Fascists joining priests, priests joining fascists. Teaming up to stamp out everything that’s not fascist and priestly.
Dozens of demonstrators, including some from Golden Dawn, blocked the entrance of the theatre and clashed with police on the night of the play’s premiere last month.
Bearded black-robed priests holding crosses were shown on television tearing up posters promoting the play. A powerful institution, the Orthodox Church plays an influential role in Greek society.
The prosecutor’s decision to press charges against Corpus Christi was condemned by anti-fascism groups who said political instability in the country was pushing the conservative-led coalition to turn to the far right for support.
“It’s the bullies and the neo-Nazis clashing outside the theatre who should be put on the stand and not the actors,” said Petros Constantinou, head of the United Against Racism and Fascist Violence Movement.
Sparta defeats Athens all over again.
Present day Greece is very similar to post-World War I Italy. We’re already seeing the fascists screaming the same things the 1920s Fascisti were screaming. The Fascisti made common cause with the Catholic Church to combat socialist and Communist “social outrages.”
Laurence Britt’s Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism includes:
Gosh, I guess the priests didn’t get the memo:
Your religion deserves to be insulted.
and
Blasphemy should not be a crime.
Speaking of priests and fascists, is anyone else here old enough to remember the “Generalissimo Francisco Franco Death Watch” that consumed the American news media in the mid-70s? (Cue Chevy Chase.)
Anyway, I don’t know why anyone would be surprised at priests and fascists joining forces. They always have in the past.
To paraphrase Diderot, “Mankind will not be free until the last [fascist] is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
As others have already noticed, fascism and religion have often travelled hand in hand. I would go further, however. Religion is, more often than not, a form of fascism. It is only the more liberal religions of the last two hundred years or so that would have you believe differently. Until 1700 CE, religions were very fascistic, closely involved with the state, and looked to the state to protect their interests. Indeed, apostasy and blasphemy and heresy were all crimes, punishable in most cases by death or long terms of imprisonment. And the death penalty was not often administered in merciful ways. Indeed, punishment normally was meted out according to station, the lower orders being tortured the most. This fascistic relationship between religion and the state still holds true in most Muslim majority nations. To miss this is to miss too much.
“Our worst nightmare, eh? Fascists joining priests, priests joining fascists.”
Wow; deja vu all over again!! Germany, Italy, Spain, WW2 Yugoslavia, modern Russia………
One wonders how many of these protesters actually saw a performance.
HP #3
Francisco Franco is still dead.
Poor priests.
If only they’d read some sophistimacated theolology, they wouldn’t suffer under this silly misapprehension that religion has anything to do with politics.