Greek Diaspora in Germany: Church as the Ecclesia’s Forerunner and Point of Reference

Abstract

Tradition can be the cultural lifeline between Diasporas and the national body, as a process of transmission of social institutions that regulate behaviour. The linguistic-religious sense of identity is documented in the Greek Diaspora, which, during the era of stateless Hellenism preserved its distinct self-perception. Continuing the tradition of choregia, in the form of euergetism, Greek diasporic communities organised their lives around their church, as through church attendance they could satisfy both their religious and linguistic sentiment. A similar pattern was observed in the Greek mainland with the semiautonomous villages within the millet system, rendering the concept of community and village as synonymous in the Greek language. The paradigm of Greeks in Germany, however, represents a departure from the common typology. The temporariness of settlement, linked to their Gastarbeiter status, resulted in a variation under which, instead of having the community building the church, the church build the community. That sets apart Greeks in Germany from prior diasporic paradigms. The Greek paradigm of individualistic collectivism however, permits the modernisation of tradition. Through the process of interrupting old customs, Greeks in Germany salvaged those elements of tradition, which allow them to maintain their cohesion without being isolated from their modern surroundings.