ABSTRACT
This chapter places the Greek and Irish cases within the confines of the secularization debate in order to illustrate the limitations of the secularization thesis in explaining the contemporary role of religion. It begins with a short overview of the debate itself and argues that existing literature on fails to provide an adequate understanding of the Greek and Irish cases. The chapter proposes an additional dimension to the existing explanatory framework by focusing on a theoretical perspective at the core of which lie nationalism and national identity. It is useful to divide the indicators of secularization into two broad categories: religious participation; and institutional differentiation. Scholarly explanations focus on the crisis or failure of modernity therefore challenging the core premise of the secularization paradigm. The impact of modernization on the social significance of religion will not always be the same in every case and secularization is likely to develop in different patterns depending on specific historical circumstances.
