Hat die Orthodoxie mit der tiefgreifenden Finanzkrise in Griechenland seit 2009 etwas zu tun?

The Religious Foundations of the European Crisis

“…Schäuble called his conditional approach to solidarity ‘European solidarity’, Varoufakis called it ‘fiscal waterboarding’ (Addley, ). In 2011, a Greek minister wrote in an Athens based newspaper about the Troika that ‘we are dealing here with idiots and Protestants, hence there is no solution’ (cited in Makrides, , p. 373). A member of the Greek parliament complained in the newspaper ‘about the dogmatic, Lutheran thinking of the Germans’ (cited in Makrides, , p. 373).…”

“…Greek public intellectuals with a former Marxist background have rediscovered Orthodox Christianity and fuse Orthodox, Marxist and nationalist ideas with ancient Greek philosophy to a new synthesis that they call ‘neo‐Orthodoxy’ (Makrides, ). Front men of this movement are Kostas Zouraris (deputy minister of education) and Christos Yannaras (philosopher and theologian) (Koumandaraki, , p. 41).…”

“…Both have the status of public intellectuals in Greece and have established an astonishing presence on national TV, in the internet and in print media (Yannaras has a regular column in the newspaper Kathimerini and has written approximately 30 books; Louth, ). They are addressed with the title ‘teachers of the Greek nation’ (Makrides, , p. 392).…”

“…‘Apophatic’ means that nothing in life is unambiguous or clear‐cut and therefore statistics and the like should not be taken as carved into stone but instead ‘approximated’ (Makrides, ). In a series of public interventions Zouraris and Yannaras juxtapose the inflexibility, conventionality and legalism of the northern European approach to the Euro to Greek values and trademarks like flexibility, spontaneity and candidness (Makrides, , p. 373). According to this view, Greek policy‐makers did not cook the books to enter the Euro, but approximated whether their country was fit for entering the monetary union.…”

“…Yannaras argues that Greek people do not ‘identify with the slavery of permanent production’ (cited in Makrides , p. 392). They work to live instead of live to work.…”