The Hellenic Studies Initiative at the University of Toronto supported by the Hellenic Heritage Foundation, organizes a lecture offered by the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy,
Centre of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies
Title: Religion and Education in Greece
Date/time: Wednesday, November 11th, 2020 from 4pm to 5:30pm EST.
Speaker: Dr. Effie Fokas, ELIAMEP
(Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy and
London School of Economics Hellenic Observatory)
Opening Remarks: Professor Phil Triadafilopoulos,
Department of Political Science, University of Toronto
Register:
https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/ceres/event/29692/
Registration is free, but you must register to receive
your own zoom link.
Abstract:
The place of religion in Greece’s public education system
has been the focal point for intense debate in the last decade.
The debate has seen contributions from a broad range of actors,
including parents of students in the Greek public-school system,
Greek political parties across the spectrum, the Orthodox
Church of Greece, two especially vocal unions of theologians,
the Greek Supreme Administrative Court, and
the European Court of Human Rights.
This lecture addresses the various relevant claims, concerns and
actions of each of these actors and teases out ways in which
the debate over religious education in Greece reveals
perennial problems in the relationship between religion
and national identity in the Greek context, and between church and state.
About the speaker:
Effie Fokas is a Senior Research Fellow at the
Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and
a Research Associate of the London School of Economics Hellenic Observatory.
She was Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-funded
project on grassroots impact of European Court of Human Rights
religious freedoms case law (Grassrootsmobilise), based at ELIAMEP.
Her publications include
Islam in Europe: Diversity, Identity and Influence,
co-edited with Aziz Al-Azmeh;
Religious America, Secular Europe?,
co-authored with Peter Bergerand Grace Davie;
The European Court of Human Rights and Minority Religions,
co-edited with James T. Richardson; and