Current debates about religion and human rights in Greece

Abstract

This paper addresses the topics of Religion and Human Rights in the Greek context. More specifically, it explores key Human Rights issues from the perspective of Religious Freedom, namely the legal personality of local religious communities, provisions on proselytism and places of worship, civil rights and youth engagement in the relevant debates. Furthermore, it highlights the dynamics developed between the State regulations, the religious communities and the Human Rights debates in Greece. In this perspective, it enhances as important the fact that Greece as an EU member State cultivated during the last decades a legal and political culture that belongs to the modern liberal democracies tradition. Despite this progress, a variety of challenges is to be faced by Greek society: the rapid changes in global geopolitics, the new migration waves, and the cultural and religious pluralism along with the social and political instability caused by the debt crisis bring to the forth discontent. In this sense, the overall challenge for the Greek society is to approach an understanding of human rights that may function as a framework that guarantees justice and equality for all.