Accommodating Religious Pluralities: the Case of Greece
Accommodating Religious Pluralities: the Case of Greece

Author(s): Eleni Velivasaki
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
Published by: Scientia Kiadó
Keywords: Greece;diversity;multiculturalism;Balkans;silent assimilation;exchange of populations;religious rights
Summary/Abstract: The question of how to manage diversity has been central in today’s prominent debates on multiculturalism. The region of the Balkans has demonstrated a number of techniques and policies in dealing with diversity, varying from violent wars to silent assimilation and the unique technique of exchange of populations. In the case of Greece, the recognition of broad religious rights – what at first seems as a rather compatible method to manage diversity, considering all the human rights and tolerance requirements of the modern times – has been reserved for the only officially recognised minority of the country, namely the Muslim/Turkish minority of Western Thrace. Yet, what we experience today in Greece is the paradox survival of the neo-millet system by the sustenance of pro-modern community institutions and the recognition of special religious rights for a religious minority that has been gradually nationalised. An Islamic personal law system is applicable for the members of the minority, who may take their private law disputes of inheritance and family matters to the courts of special jurisdiction, the Muftis. This paper aims to examine the institutional solution of the “neo-millet system” and evaluate any positive results achieved by the accommodation of Islamic law as a separate normative order. For this purpose, I will briefly discuss the extent and input of Islamic law within the Greek legal system as well as the religious rights awarded to the minority. Finally, I will l attempt an assessment of the Greek example: is it a legal anachronism or an applied multiculturalism, a possible model for today’s European minority policies?

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