In order to overcome the economic and sociopolitical crisis.

Fellow citizens of Greece, we have come to a critical crossroad nationally. The specter of default and economic collapse has replaced the illusion of prosperity and consumer welfare, which had been cultivated by the dominant political forces of our country. The ruling oligarchy has emerged the solution of subordination and compliance with the demands of out-of-Greece centers of power. At the economic level we are being presented with the “solution” of precipitating the living standards of the people and transforming the country into a colony through a clearance sale of all state assets to foreign hands. Moreover, the combination of heavy taxation and recession will lead to a sell-out of whichever private property, still in Greek hands, to outlanders. Thus, the country’s creditors, with the pretext of indebtedness, pursue in the same manner to seize all our resources “for a plate of lentils”.

The true nature of the crisis The crisis in today’s world and our country, gives the impression of being mainly economic with social, political and moral implications. But in reality this crisis is solely a spiritual crisis which is within ourselves and thus creates the crisis in human relations and economy . “Within us we have killed man, before our guns kill. Within us is born the thief, before we do the theft. Within us the world collapses and then we take the downhill. ” This position, literally couched in our Manifesto issued in the years after the dictatorship, remains timely today as ever, despite the cosmogonic events which have occurred in our country and in the world. During the Cold War the world was dominated by the competition of capitalism and communism as rival ideologies, military-political coalitions and social systems. Christian Democracy, in 1953, when founded by our late Nikolaos Psaroudakis, argued that the ideals hiding behind the occasionally protruding capitalist and marxist ideology, were those of the materialist worldview, the primacy of material interests against any other priorities. Materialism by nature deifies the selfish individual interests and greed, undermines public interest and social solidarity, and trasfigurates man from the Purpose to a means and therefore materials along with material wealth are transformed from a means to the Purpose!!!

Materialism root of social injustice Since the time of the parable of the rich fool Materialism has been the dominant ideology of the exploiters and the ruling class. It is not a coincidence that during the 18th century, atheism was developed within the ruling classes and passed on to the lower classes during the French Revolution and beyond only in the cases where the leaderships of the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestants and, in some cases, the Orthodox Churches abandoned the people in order to agree with the oppressors’ side. But in reality:
– Freedom, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty ” (Galatians 5:13), “Slavery condemns man, whose nature is free and self-determined, and legislates against God’s law , upsetting His natural law. “(Saint Gregory of Nyssa)
– Equity,”But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: “(Corinthians 2, 8:14)
– Social justice, “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth” (James 5:4)
– Equality and brotherhood of peoples, the elimination of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender and origin, “3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. “(Galatians, 3:28 )
– Respect for authority to the citizen,”the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister”(Matthew 20:28)
– The requirement to care for the socially excluded, the poor, the sick, immigrants and prisoners, “25:34: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 25:35: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 25:36: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” (Matthew 25:34-36)
– Human rights in general, as the ideal put forward by the social-idealogical coalitions in strife, are not a fabrication of the Enlightenment and its ideologies. Instead they are the legacy of Christian teaching in world culture. It is for this reason that human rights are left without content when cut off from their Christian roots and efforts made to implement them in a materialistic framework .

In contrast to this, during the Greek liberation struggle of 1821, the declarations of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment functioned as the natural consequence of the Christian Orthodox conviction/spirit of our freedom fighters and the Greek people in general.
This position held by Christin Democracy was proved triumphantly with the collapse of the so-called “real socialism” in Europe. The dictatorships of the communist parties attempted to impose earthly paradise and all they achieved was to maintain class separation, social injustice, state terrorism and violation of individual rights. On the other hand in the West, the so called “liberal” schemes protruded freedom for securing economic freedom as an excuse for a promiscuous operation of the market and the elimination of all forms of protection of labor rights.
The dictatorship of the Communist Party of China managed to survive in the context of the globalized economy by functioning perfectly complementary to the most brutal form of capitalism! By flooding the world with very cheap products, thanks to the inhuman exploitation of workers, the Chinese Communist regime has worked against its own people and is the crucial driver for the dismantling of labor gains and the welfare state in Western Europe. So did the other Communist regimes which after their collapse left devastated economies and workers with hunger wages. Consequently, the position of Christian Democracy formulated decades ago, completely vindicated, that capitalism and communism are actually not opposite but complementary to one another instead.

Back to the “gunboat policy” Cold War and the balance of terror were succeeded by a policy of promoting regional conflicts. The military-industrial complex, that fueled at first, the equipment for World War II and then the Cold War, seeks new pretexts to justify its existence with selective military interventions. This is done in combination with the interests of the sole remaining superpower and its allies, with the main arm of NATO which has lost its reason of existence after the end of the Cold War. Nowadays the absence of the bipolar Cold War climate has brought the smaller states to a difficult position because they can no longer take advantage of the competition between two superpowers . This is valid until a new reliable dipole appears on our globe.

The decline of Greek society Our country in recent decades, experienced a sense of rising living standards and an illusion of financial strength, culminating in the Olympic Games in 2004. But behind the façade of consumer welfare hid a deep decline marked by the growing political, social and economic dependence on the dominant forces of the European Union and the degradation of any productive activity combined with the apotheosis of easy money. The amounts of money that came to Greece in the form of EU funding, instead of being invested in infrastructure, were at the best squandered to benefits and were finally returned back to where they came from, in the form of imports of consumer goods from other EU countries. Much of it ended in the form of bribes and excess profiteer in the pockets of the greedy and kleptomaniac oligarchs (which remained, unfortunately, unquestioned by the citizens, who had in the meanwhile been transformed into political customers). The institutions and officials of the EU participated and therefore their complicity is undeniable. The introduction of the Euro deepened the dependence of the economy and accelerated developments that were launched by our accession to the then European Economic Community. Our local industry products could not stand the competition of the cheap imported EU goods and the agricultural sector was abandoned at a great extent. In result the country became an “unfruitful fig tree,” with a disintegrated productive activity. Any remaining economy activities survived upon the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor.
Most of the staff of public services and the broader public sector were appointed with spoils rather than merit and efficiency for the sake of public interest in mind. Further aggravated by the enormous extravagance and bribes in the benefit of the economo-political kleptocrats, who uncontrolled, imposed choices reaping huge amounts from investments and commissions in defense, health care and all other areas.

The Euro system that created the crisis The fact that other eurozone countries also face problems proves that today’s miserable economic situation in Greece is due to the intensity of inequality, in favor of the strong eurozone economies, created by the Euro system. The economically weaker countries of the periphery saw their markets flooded with cheap products from the powerful states. In turn they could not compete with their own products, resulting in a shift of wealth from the periphery to the strong economies. Consequently, the so called “lazy South” is a malignant and naive tale of the strong euro zone states, in order to justify their excessive profiteers at the expense of the weaker economies and their purpose to raise their profits even more by making these countries literally “tax vassals” with reduced national sovereignty, stripping them from their assets at bargain prices. The so-called “rescue programs” are not acts of charity, but measures taken by the powerful to preserve the Euro system, which operates as a transfer mechanism of wealth from the periphery of the Eurozone to the powerful economies. The states of the Eurozone are the only in the world that can neither control their central bank (the ECT) nor borrow from it. The ECT can lend only the banks and not the states, leading governments to become prey of the markets and the speculators who control the markets. Bankers have also become autonomous in an institutional level and dictate policies of governments in accordance to the protection of their own interests. The Euro system facilitated the emergence of the crisis caused by market players’ attempt to control and dominate the world economy. Today’s EU has come to a point where it functions as an uprooting mechanism for the postwar concept of European Consensus rule of law and accentuates the imbalances in favor of the economically strong.

The European Union Current developments in the EU confirm the estimates of Christian Democracy’s position that, the EEC in the beginning, and EU today, was formed and exists to serve the powerful capital and not the peoples. Therefore, our stay in the EU will increase the colonization of our country and will aim at our complete alienation by the dominant forces of the EU. For these reasons, we are obliged to scribe an exit strategy from the EU through a referendum and proceed to cooperation agreements with all countries. This should be done on the basis of our national interests within the context of a different policy with multidimensional perspectives. As long as we remain in the EU, we should struggle together with other European nations for the rights of the peoples and to capsize the promiscuity of the capital.

Crisis and Greek pathogenesis Today, the “Memorandum” and the “Loan Agreement” with their onerous conditions, ask the Greek people to pay. A large part of the debt’s bill, however, is due to the huge profits, either illegal or seeming legitimate, of an oligarchy, which aquired its wealth the last thirty years through its privileged access to the political system.
The ruling oligarchy managed to redeem the complicity and tolerance of a large portion of society with spoils and benefits to selective groups. The citizen became tolerant to the wrong being done both on himself and his fellow-citizens with the naive expectation that at some point an opportunity might be given for him too to benefit from the general wrongdoing. By this way social injustice and the exploitation of man by man perpetuated, because instead of struggling to overthrow the system, citizens tended to support and sustain the system. Unfortunately large sections of the population joined, more or less, in this morbid and nihilistic attitude. Thus, corruption perpetuated in the dominant political world, since the majority of citizens, instead of voting according to a political program and ethos they seek to benefit personally from illegal services by politicians or the appointment to a permanent position in public services through favoritism as opposed to public interest. We have come to a downstream where involvement with the commons has become a profession rather than our duty. How could corruption not dominate policy when, whoever wants to strive selflessly without concern of any personal gain, is expelled from his social and professional circle as a naive? As a result of this situation, those who manage to “survive” in politics are either incapacitated, unable to excel in any other field of life, either descendents which inherit their family’s political clientele or individuals with self-interest incentives. To this deadlock contributes the dominance of the two-party system where two parties alternate in power, without any real difference in their policy proposals. Add to this the fact that the executive power is uncontrollable and has flexibility systematically and arbitrarily to control the legislature(Parliament) and the judicial power, by appointing its leadership.

Spiritual crisis In a world dominated by neo-liberalism and the globalized economy, the recognized personalities of the bourgeois political world and the most authoritative economists accept that drivers of the recent and earlier crisis is greed of capitalists, which operates over and beyond all reason. This fact alone demonstrates the spiritual roots of this and also all previous crisis of the system. Therefore the current crisis, which threatens our country with collapse if “earth and water” are not given to the creditors, is a consequence of the spiritual problem of man. Today it becomes more obvious than ever, that the roots of the crisis in global and national levels are in the fall of mankind and hence the greed and selfishness of people. It is obvious that without spiritually reborn people determined to get from the “I” to the “we”, as general Makriyannis said, there can be no rebirth of the society. The struggle for personal survival of each one is a material problem. But the fight for the bread of our neighbor is a spiritual problem which no materialistic ideology can solve. People expect from the shepherds of the Church to stand as guides and supporters in these critical times so that there will be a universal resistance to the barbarisation and disintegration of the social and spiritual life. And yet, the orthodox body of the Church, clergy and people, let us strive and let us pray to resurrect parishes that will be true Christian communities of solidarity.
Attempted deconstruction of orthodox moral and spiritual resistance of the people. For many years there has been a constant effort to alter the consciousness of the Greeks at the spiritual and cultural level. These attempts have especially aimed at the alienation of the people from their Orthodox Tradition. Whatever one believes, it is an undeniable fact that Orthodoxy is a key component of the identity of Modern Hellenism. A variety of decision making centres is struggling fiercely for the marginalization of the Orthodox Church and the distortion of history in order to eliminate the offer of our Church to the Greek nation and to other peoples. Can the lobbies of international capital dictate and assimilate violently the identities of the peoples? As long as the communist rival existed, the ruling class used Christianity as an annex to their ideology, just as the so-called “Christian Democracy” parties of the West did. But now that they do not have such a need, they show their true face. The liberal part of the bourgeoisie seeks the marginalization of the Church supposedly in the name of human rights and rationalizing legislation. The far right /nationalist wing too late (after 2000 years!) found out that Christianity is incompatible with Hellenism and turn to listen to neo-pagan sermons. Obviously, the alienation from Orthodoxy opens the way to the prevalence of fascist and inhuman ideologies that would have never been accepted by the Greek people, if the Orthodox faith remained strong. Moreover, the attempted forgery of history in school textbooks and the media by certain historians’ cycles is no accident. The Byzantine past and the Romeikos identity (Greek-Orthodox) of today’s Greeks is being degraded. When the Revolution of 1821 is brought to the subject, it is presented not as a rebellion to regain the lost political freedom of the Greeks, but only as a product of European Enlightenment. All this result in the cutting of the Greek people from their Greek-Orthodox roots and legalize the 400year Ottoman occupation. For this reason the constant repeated long rebellions of the enslaved Greeks against the terrible oppression of the conquerors are being concealed. For the ruling class who wants to cultivate submission to the current despots (our creditors), the fighters of 1821, as a model of resistance, uprising and struggle against tyranny, are “negative” models and therefore denigrated and their contribution degraded. For similar reasons, the contribution of the Church is being degraded, since the foreign rulers and their local backers continue to seek its marginalization, just as General Makriyannis denounced in concrete terms, more than a century ago, when the modern Greek state was established.

The political and social model of Christian Democracy Christian Democracy, since its establishment, is fighting for the implementation in practice of the principles of Orthodox Christian teaching in society. Had, and still has, as a social model the communities of early Christians, who with their free option had all in common, since all material goods are gifts of God. Freedom without social justice is a gift without gift for the wronged, and automatically repealed, since only the powerful have the means to make use of it. In parallel whoever attempted, through force and illiberal means, to create “paradise” with the vision of a just society, turned society into hell instead. In order to achieve a society of freedom and justice, we strive for the spiritual awakening and rebirth of each and every human. This can only be made on the basis of the Orthodox Christian teaching, from which come the “It is more blessed to give than to receive. “(Acts 20:35) and”the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister ” (Matthew 20:28) Many of our brethren think that a ritualistic and pietistic observation and respect of certain rules and religious obligations is enough. Some weep in church for the poor every Sunday, while the rest of the week they either create poor or tolerate creating poor. But nothing can be done so, unless we make our Christian teaching the way of our daily life, unless we struggle so that the unity and community of the eucharistic gathering extends beyond the four walls of the Church and impacts across the whole society where we live, in the direction of freedom, social justice, the removal of exploitation of man by man. “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. ” (James 2:24). We are expecting the Hierarchy of the Church to act as the guide and standard, away from any lack of transparency or separation from the people of God.

The responsibility of every citizen Today’s crisis has shown the moronism of those deemed “smart”, who proclaim that nothing is done “with the cross in hand” and that only individualists float; because the crisis is mostly a result of the atomistic and selfish spirit which prevailed, during the last years especially, thereby sinking all of us today. Those who lived with the illusion that it was to their benefit to be indifferent to the public interest on one hand and to show exclusive interest to their individual, their union’s or their class’s interests on the other, wake up suddenly and unpleasantly. They discover that the tolerance and complicity in social injustice and in the corruption of the political system are paid dearly. The representatives of the political and economic kleptocracy not only feel that they sat at the nape of the people taking advantage of the tolerance and complicity of a large part of the people, but they are also fond of reminding us that “all we profited” or “together we ate them (the money)”, as said the former deputy prime minister mr. Pangalos. It is obvious, of course, that a few oligarchs became rich at the expense of the total society. But they succeeded this by buying out the tolerance and complicity of much of the citizens (who are now called to pay the account) with minor benefits, favors and false promises.
Twenty years ago, the Serbian people had living standards similar to ours. But Serbia collapsed financially within days and then suffered heavy defeats in her national issues, both because of the people’s resistance against the New World Order and secondly because the political leadership, at best, didn’t realize the international power relations and got trapped by its own illusions. Today Greece is liable to suffer the same. Due to its political and cultural peculiarities, Greece has always been “a black sheep” and a target for the international establishment. Along with other countries of the European periphery, it has been erected before the firing squad of the dominant forces of the European Union. Today we have to chart a course that combines determination and responsibility, understanding and utilizing the international balance of forces. We must combine the struggle for defending our national sovereignty and dignity with the prudence required, not to pursue irresponsible policies, not to fall into the traps of international imperialism and cause worse destruction. The exodus from the crisis cannot be done without sacrifices. But the burden should be distributed equitably and well spent. The austerity measures imposed, not only are unfair and onerous for our people, but also deepen the recession and deaden the market and the economy in general. It is the duty for all citizens to fight for the overthrow of its foundations of the existing political system responsible for the decline and social crisis, with the emergence of new healthy political forces of values to take over the government. During these critical moments we are living, Christian Democracy addresses a call for the spiritual awakening of every citizen, to the struggle for a new human in a new society, with direct objective the resistance against the attempted dismantling of the welfare state and against the overthrow of the national sovereignty of our country.

The 7th Congress of Christian Democracy
Athens, 2011 November 22-23