ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an insight into how the Orthodox Church of Greece functions by examining similar phenomena in two different historical contexts: the 1920s following the First World War and the 1990s following the end of the Cold War. It focuses on the declaration of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece and its separation from the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1833 as another sign of political modernization aims to bring about the subsequent separation of church and state. The Orthodox Church of Greece had never particularly solicited the state in regard to the schools or other missionary charity foundations on Greek soil during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is under Archbishop Christodoulos that the Orthodox Church of Greece finally opened a permanent European Union representation office in Brussels and has built close ties with the European Popular Party (EPP).
