ABSTRACT
Alexandros Papadiamantis's journalism has been exploited thus far in a thoroughgoing neo-Orthodox vein by N. D. Triantafyllopoulos 1996. And for Papadiamantis that critique is of the Modern Greek state in particular. One recurrent theme for Papadiamantis is the consolation that the Areopagus is sacred ground because the Apostle Paul preached there and Dionysius the Areopagite took his name from it. A telling use of these figures comes in a second short piece that Papadiamantis contributed to the Olympics album, Athens as an oriental city. The anti-Erastian voice we hear in this passage is strikingly similar to that of the Anglican Newman; and it again reminds us that for Papadiamantis the autocephalous Greek Church is at its worst a hydra-headed monster. The verdict might be disputed by modern historical scholarship, but the implication for Papadiamantis is clear and uncomfortable: the Greek Church lacks such powers of regeneration precisely because of the homogeneously Orthodox population of the Greek state.
