Abstract
Having safeguarded its position in Istanbul, despite the sharp demographic decline of the Istanbul Greek community, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has emerged as a crucial actor of the Greek diaspora. The end of the Cold War and globalisation have provided essential opportunities and posed significant challenges. The resurgence of the Moscow Patriarchate in Orthodox ecclesiastical affairs, Greece’s diplomatic ambitions in the late 1990s and early 2000s and the Western need to develop bridges of tolerance and mutual understanding with the Islamic world have framed the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and affected its policy towards the Greek diaspora. Working sometimes together and sometimes independently from Greek authorities, the Patriarchate has operated as a focal point of diaspora activities, particularly in North America. This chapter explores the role of Orthodoxy and Greek national identity through a study of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s relations with the Church of Greece, the Moscow Patriarchate and Turkey and its role as an actor of the Greek diaspora. It also aims to reflect upon how the recent economic crisis has influenced the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s role and its relations with the Archdiocese of America and the lessons that it has produced on improving the management of Greek diaspora affairs.
Keywords
- Ecumenical Patriarchate
- Religion
- Orthodoxy
- Diaspora
- Greece
- United States
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- 1.
The Archbishopric of Ohrid and the Patriarchate of Peç, whose jurisdictions roughly represented the territory of the medieval Bulgarian and Serbian kingdoms, were liquidated in 1767, and all their dioceses came under the administration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
- 2.
Moskos came to point of arguing that Greek identity was bound to be submerged to an Orthodox one in the absence of new immigration waves from Greece.
- 3.
The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine was finally inaugurated by Patriarch Bartholomew on 2 November 2021.
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Grigoriadis, I.N. (2022). The Ecumenical Patriarchate: Bridging Greece, the Diaspora and the Orthodox World. In: Anastasakis, O., Pratsinakis, M., Kalantzi, F., Kamaras, A. (eds) Diaspora Engagement in Times of Severe Economic Crisis. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97443-5_10
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