Talk:Religion in Greece

Religious data not collated in censuses
It might be of relevance to note that the last Greek census to record religious affilliation in Greece happened in 1952 [] [], and it may well be where the "98% greek orthodox" figure comes from. In any case, the Greek state stopped recording religious affiliation thereafter (some might suspect exactly because the affiliation to the established orthodox state church was at its highest, but that cannot be proven). In any case, and inspite of the fact there have been 11 censuses since, not one has recorded religious affiliation ever again, so there are no "official" data, just a unanimous "98%" number from 70 years ago that gets bandied around. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.6.158.7 (talk) 09:34, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Religion in Greece
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Religion in Greece's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "religion2": From Greece:  From Religion in Russia:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 12:55, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe its the one about Greece which I will add now. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 14:13, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Discrepancies in the numbers
In one paragraph, it is mentioned that 81% of Greeks believe in a God, yet in a later paragraph it states that 95-98% of Greeks are Greek Orthodox. Something doesn't click here --174.93.163.156 (talk) 15:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * People are baptized into a religion at a young age. Whether when the grow up they are still religious or not is separate though related to their membership in the church. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 15:33, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

It is right. In Greece being a Christian Orthodox is part of the national identity, part of the country’s tradition. Believing in God is just a part of the identity of a Christian Orthodox. Greek atheists are not considered real Greeks and are opressed. Even here in wikipedia Greek users and Greek-Americans delete all references to atheism. It is also a rather personal and complex issue, one’s philosophy of life, one’s perception of the world, a pure neo-nazi orthodox world with zero tollerance of different aspects of the world. This differs from person to person. What is common for every Greek, with the exception of the very small religious minorities, is the cultural identity of the Greek-Orthodox. Unlike Americans, and most westerners, who have a different approach to religion, Greeks, when they answer that they are Christian Orthodox, they don’t necessarily mean that they believe in God. A typical Greek who doesn’t believe in God would nonetheless probably recognize the institutional position of the Church of Greece, its role at the nation’s history and would definitely celebrate Christmas and Easter, usually by visiting his village of origin, would definitely go to Church every Easter, would definitely follow the traditions connected to Easter, would definitely know some basic stuff about the Christian doctrines and the Bible that he has learned at School and would definitely identify with the Greek Orthodox Church. Even though most people have been baptized, even those (few) who haven’t would fit to this description. The only exception, apart of course from the foreigners, is those who belong to a religious minority. In order to understand that, one has to think that for thousands of years what we now call Greek national identity was simply called being Christian orthodox. This was the case regarding the citizens of the Byzantine Empire and this was also the case during the Ottoman rule. The Ottomans would not divide the subjects of the Empire according to nationalities, but according to religions. Even in 1923, the criterion for the population exchange between Greece and Turkey was neither nationality, nor language, but religion. Orthodox Christianity is the link that unites modern Greece with its past, it is an element connected with all major events in Greek history, is a quasi-synonym of being Greek. This special relation of Greece with Orthodox Christianity is what makes the latter rather a cultural than a spiritual identity. This explains why there are in Greece many Christians who would answer that they don’t believe in God. They basically answer that they are Greek.

A discrepancy does exist nonetheless regarding the fact that some religions of very few followers (ex. 2.000), are being described as "major religions". This is rather misleading for someone who doesn't have the time to read more than the introduction. In my view, the only real major religion in Greece is Christianity. Islam might also fit to this description, given the big number of immigrants that have arrived in Greece lately. But Hellenic Neopaganism is definitely not a major religion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.157.32.158 (talk) 21:54, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

irrelevant pic
In this case pic with mosque is irrelevant Mosques are not active in Greece.--Dactarianou (talk) 13:26, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Elder Pastitsios
I propose that the information on the case of "Pastitsios" is completely pertinent to the issue of religion (and religious freedom, or lack thereof) in Greece and that relevant information is added to the article. 46.12.123.57 (talk) 05:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Atheist Union
There is an unreferenced mention of "most Greek atheists not joining the atheist union because they don't want to self identify as atheists". Whence does this come from? As far as I know it is an unsupported belief of the editor (one, moreover, that tends to denigrate those that don't care to join this "atheist union"). Atheists may have all sorts of reasons to dislike the atheist union in question (ie because of the perceived preponderance of libertarians in there). So far as there is no relevant citation and/or research, it's simply an unfounded assumption. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.6.144.18 (talk) 10:17, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I've tagged the relevant sentence for a citation. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:37, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Pie chart data
I wonder what makes a pie chart that doesn't even count a separate percentage for the Orthodox majority more reliable for this article. I also wonder what makes pewforum.org more reliable compared to the data from CIA factbook [] and the official census, which by the way were removed from the pie chart some months ago without consensus.Alexikoua (talk) 20:55, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * True. I am not sure why this was done, but the previous and more detailed info should be restored. Personally I find it is strange that the detailed statistics are replaced with a more ambiguous pie chart which doesn't even show the Orthodox percentage. --S ILENT R ESIDENT  06:36, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree that the previous pie chart should be restored. Pew research results are based on a tiny sample group and should not be used for pie charts, and only merit a mention in the body of an article if it is deemed to be DUE by page consensus. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:16, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Pew Forum is a rather weak source, but the Factbook appears to be even worse. They do not tell us the source of their data or the year of their estimate. Official census data is generally the best choice. JimRenge (talk) 22:46, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Why don't we include newest pew forum june 2015-july 2016 data released on 10 may 2017? here is the link (sample around 1800, multi country report), very detailed informations http://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belonging-in-central-and-eastern-europe/ Download the full report--User:FrankCesco26 (talk) 21:27, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Please notice that these new Pew Research Center data are based on very small samples, and (just like their 2012 data, by the way) completely contradict the findings of the censuses of some of the Slavic countries (Belarus, Bulgaria, etc.). These surveys are not qualitative enough to match and replace the data from censuses (note that a census is the survey of the entire population of a country).--Wddan (talk) 10:46, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
 * There hasn't been an accurate census of religion in Greece (there isn't the government source for the 1991 one), so the article need to use the most recent and reliable data that is the Newest 2017 report of Pew Research Center. Note that for religion in Italy the sample was ONLY 1120. The sample for Greece by Pew Research 2017 (data got in 2015) is 1,465. So it can be used.--FrankCesco26 (talk) 12:45, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
 * ... And, as has been discussed with you on other parallel articles, compromising reliably sourced data with WP:SYNTH / WP:NOR is misleading for the reader. We are not under any form of obligation to stay on top of the most recent polls (et al) just because editors want to update information. Stats from years ago are still used in all manner of articles about countries/nation-states until such a time as reliably sourced data of an ilk usurps the old data... and there is consensus amongst editors that the new source is on par with the old source. Could we please stop this shmozzle and restore the old pie chart, then relegate the Pew data to an appropriate section (and such a reference should be kept appropriately brief). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:36, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Information And Statistical Data
Hello, I recently found something that I'd like to discuss about. The information in the given article is partially false / outdated; in general, this article doesn't seem to be matching its Greek equivalent, which as a matter of fact; is correct. I, myself attempted to fix the issue based on the Greek article that I mentioned above, however, all of my corrections eventually got undid as "they were based on Original Research and unreliable sources".. I find the digression of these two articles unreasonable and confusing. I'm looking forward to discussing and resolving this whole absurdity.Aeluroides (talk) 19:51, 5 September 2017 (UTC)


 * We are not allowed to use articles from en Wikipedia or its Greek version as sources (WP:CIRCULAR). The edit history of the Greek article shows that there is edit warring about the statistical data, the article has been protected today by admins. Your changes of statistical data on en wikipedia were reverted because they were unsourced or not supported by the source given. JimRenge (talk) 14:43, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The reason behind the edit war on gr Wikipedia was the digression between the article and the Pie-chart, not any sort of uncertainty or unreliability in the article itself. The paragraph which refers to statistical data hasn't changed a bit in the course of months; only the Pie-chart got edited recently to suit the statistical data in the article. Indeed; the gr article has been protected today, but not for the reasons you mentioned. It got protected so it can be safe from further vandalization by Greek Orthodoxs who simply dislike the facts.Aeluroides (talk) 17:27, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Your arguments are null and void on English language Wikipedia. We use reliable sources, not personal points of view for content. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:12, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
 * My arguments are not null.. If you're really using reliable sources then explain to me why there's a digression between same articles of different languages.Aeluroides (talk) 09:01, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Religion isn't the highest order hypernym of all metaphysical worldviews
Not all metaphysical beliefs are religions or religious because they don't necessarily include the supernatural = magical teleological violations of logic with degrees of anthropocentric bias from a fully personhooded God to an impersonal divine field but still ethicoæsthetically anthropobiased. 2A02:2149:8B7A:4B00:7D66:432D:67CF:B412 (talk) 17:25, 8 February 2024 (UTC)