The Political Discourse of the Church of Greece during the Crisis: An Empirical Approach

Abstract

This article presents the analysis of an empirical study that explored the political discourse of the Church of Greece (CoG) during a specific period of the Greek financial crisis, that is, from January 2015 to January 2019. The analysis is based on official texts of the CoG, reports in two daily newspapers, and the results of a quantitative content analysis. Through our analysis, we explore three main questions. The first focuses on the types of issues (‘agenda’) raised by the main representatives of the CoG; the second focuses on the framing used concerning these issues; and the third focuses on how the agenda and frames interact with regard to the CoG’s active (discursive) role as an ‘established church’ and/or a ‘public religion’. Our findings indicated that the CoG intervened in a considerable number of issues not strictly related to religion or the Greek financial crisis. Moreover, the main framing devices of the CoG’s discourse varied from identity to conflict frames, while its discourse reflected its self-understanding as both an established church and a public religion.