The actors and the Greek-Albanian director of the “Corpus Christi” theater performance will be tried for blasphemy after a complaint filed by Bishop of Piraeus Seraphim. The artists face criminal charges of insulting religion and malicious blasphemy. District Attorney of Athens prosecutes the troupe after the lawsuit of Bishop of Piraeus who claims ‘religion is being insulted’.
According to TA NEA, the bishop had filed the lawsuit accompanied by MPs of extreme-right Golden Dawn.
State broadcaster NET reported that the dictrict attorney has already taken testimonies by those complaining and that he watched a video of the performance.
At the same time, no progress has been made of the preliminary examination on the riots outside the theater staged by members of religious organisations and members of Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi).
The troupe was obliged to bow to the unprescedented pressure by above groups protesting outside the theater on a daily basis.
PS are we slowly get a fragance of Iran and a touch of Russia?
It is a shame! Greece having “Taliban” laws in 21st century and theocratic state in its constituition (1st article). Mesainic laws from a country that very recently came out of a dictatorship. How ironic for the Mother of Democracy! Pericles would be imprisoned today…
I don’t really see Greece as the mother of democracy. Weren’t there slaves around then who weren’t to share in any part of the democratic process plus the women wouldn’t have either? Sure Greece may have come up with an idea for a rough prototype of democracy but true democracy was only achieved through long hard class, race, and feminist struggles in various nations.
let’s agree it was the beginnig of democratic process.
I can agree with that wholeheartedly.
Actually in ancient times, Sparta was pretty fair to women. In fact, from a few books I”ve read on Sparta, they were taking care of the households while their military husbands had to live on the base. Which for that time was pretty good for women to basically fulfill the role of the man. So, I can’t speak for Athenians but certainly Spartan women seemed to be just as tough and capable as men.
I think from the very beginning of ‘married’ life women were taking care of cave/home/house/flat, cook and take care of children when the man/hunter had to be out for food and fight to keep enemies away. SO nothing much has changed for women since 1,000,000 years B.C.
KTG, I should have been more specific. This is basically what I was referring to with Sparta, quoting directly from my college History book on Sparta, which says,
“Women who survived the intense education married soldiers but since their husbands lived in barracks the wives retained a lot of freedom. They commanded their estates, moved around in public spheres, and contributed to the strength of Sparta as a whole.”
But in other cultures of the time, and even in some middle eastern societies today, women are not as free as ancient Spartan women were.
I am a big fan of Sparta and would have liked to live in that time for a few months to view history, and of course then come back home right away (LOL)
I’m sure the woman of Spart were very tough for you can’t get such a stoic culture from meek and cowardly women unless of course you have a culture where women are totally treated like animals and not allowed to have any influence on the male children. I’m sure Athenian women were tough too for women in general are tough and have always been.It is not easy to give birth or look after kids. Didn’t a woman in an ancient Greek play say would rather go to war three times than give birth even once?
The most influence to modern day democracy comes from the Iroquois:
http://www.iroquoisdemocracy.pdx.edu/
Hopefully, Greek judge will dismiss this as a waste of the court’s time.
You haven’t separated church and state have you? However, this play caused problems in the U.S. too where the church and state are divided. All these protesters and it was cancelled in one place initially due to concerns with security (there were death threats). I believe something does hurt the feelings of a religious community so much maybe people should be considerate of that pain and not allow such plays or shows or whatever based on that. I am all for gay people getting their rights including the right to civil marriages and the rights that come with marriage such as distrubtion of wealth after a breakup, adopting children,etc., but there is no need to hurt people through our expressions. Christians don’t normally go giving death threats in the U.S. and causing stuff to be cancelled.It is a sign that their religious sensitivities were really hurt.
I didn’t see the performance I can’t tell. But sometimes there are overreactions as well, like the old dispute about ID cards.
Jean, I agree. I think Gay people have the right to get married and be miserable just like the rest of us.
And as far as the USA, well, we do have some extreme anti-abortion christian wackos who have threatened peoples lives and killed them too, so it does happen in our beloved USA.
My human sensitivities are really hurt by religion, any religion. Does that then give me the right to picked mass, shout insulting obscenities at mass-goers and threaten the priests with physical harm?
More importantly, is that then an excuse for me to go and hang out with the people I really should be speaking out against?
You do have the right to protest against mass goers just not to threaten anyone. I think the death threats were wrong, and I don’t think the people producing this play in Greece should be jailed. However, Christians do feel really hurt by the portrayal of Jesus and the apostles as gay and they would be hurt by the portrayal of Jesus being sexual in any way for he was, according to Christianity anyway,a virgin. I believe that the modern nation state provides protection for more groups than any religion does and the feelings of millions of religious people should be taken into account, not through laws like blasphemy necessarily but just through consideraion. How would you like it if to try to change you as an atheist I made some play about atheists, protraying them in ways you wouldn’t find flattering? Some atheists have made atheism into a religion and hate religious people and religions so much that they are just plain old intolerant. Of course, I say all this with a lot of respect for you, Ephilant, for I like a lot of the attitudes you have.
@ Jean. First of all, I never said I am an atheist, that is a conclusion you jump to. I have a lot of Faith, and it have needed it on quite a few occassions. I do however not need a self-declared mouth piece to relate to the Divine on my behalf. Like everybody else, I can do that all by myself. Equally so, the Divine does not need a mouth piece to interpret what I need to know. The Divine is intelligent enough to make that clear without intermediaries.
Please tell me, why are people, not just Christians, so afraid of homosexuality? And why is it ok for Christians to be hurt in their feelings, while they themselves reserve the right to walk all over other peoples feelings if it suits their purposes?
It is high time that the faery-tale aspects of any religion are ditched and people start looking at the filosophy itself. It’s a universal message of love and compassion, not a message of love and compassion excluding homeosexuals, Africans, Muslims, Christians or whatever biggotted condition religious leaders might add to it.
The real insult here is that a religious leader suddenly elevates man-made laws (which is what the blasphemy laws are) to a God-dictat, and does so in the company of people he should be condemning for their attitude instead of giving them support by rubbing shoulders with them. That, if anything, completely disqualifies him as a leader in any capacity, religious or secular.
Fascism and religion. A very, very dangerous combination…
Facism and atheism could also be a dangerous combination with millions of religious folks to be persecuted. It is funny though that facists do profess to be religious. Apparently, the nazis claimed to be religious too.
There is a big difference between an atheist and a non-religious person. You assume that religion equals Faith. It doesn’t. Religion is a set of man-made rules imposed by those who claim to somehow have special powers that allow them to communicate with the Divine, while others can’t. They also claim the right to interpret what the Divine has to say. And the first thing they do? Accuse all the others claiming the same thing of being wrong…
Religion allows its leaders to claim the authority they say only the Divine has. Instead of promoting the freedom of Faith, religion crushes that freedom. You could even say that religion is fascism wearing a different suit…
You are right about there being a difference between an atheist and a non-religious person. Yes, I also jumped to the conclusion that you were an atheist (well, I did think maybe an agnostic). I’m really sorry, Ephilant. I don’t know why people fear homosexuality so much. I guess the same reason that some feared left handed people. Herd mentality, picking on the minority. Christians might walk on people’s feelings sometimes, but that doesn’t mean our societies should use that as a justification to not be considerate of theirs for some things at least. If tons of Christians get upset by something maybe that is indicative that whatever it is needs to be looked at.In my parts there are churches now that have gay priests. So things are changing to some degree. In Greece it may be more traditional of course.