The old calendarists: A social psychological profile of a Greek Orthodox minority

Abstract

The authors discuss the social psychological dynamics by which a minority group, faced with different levels of discrimination, moves from an initial reaction of outrage to a state of passive fright and, finally, to a feeling of futility and powerlessness. These dynamics and stages of accommodation to differential discrimination are applied to the historical experience of a Greek Orthodox religious minority, the so-called Old Calendarists, to which the authors themselves belong. The authors argue that the historical experience of the Old Calendarists suggests that minority groups, in their downward spiral toward powerlessness, become the victims of other social and political forces which reinforce both discrimination against the minority group and the minority group's perception of its own powerlessness.