In recent years, prophecies recycled through modern means of communication have proliferated in Greece and Cyprus, where conservative moral values and nationalist aspirations have been promoted as an answer to influxes of refugees and financial and health crises. Writing in Social Compass (March), Efstathios Kessareas (University of Erfurt) reports that the producers of such discourses—both clerics and laypeople—do not claim to receive direct revelations from God, but see themselves as “prophetologists,” active in interpreting and disseminating prophecies to the public. Their discourses refer to signs of the times, to specific prophecies received from various (late) holy men, and to a salvific divine plan for bringing mankind back on the right path, emphasizing the role of the Greek Orthodox nation. Current events, such as the pandemic crisis, are getting integrated into the prophetic scenario, “fueling contemporary conspirational thinking.”
Greek Orthodox Priests at Monastery of Saint John’s (source: Jakobthurn, Wikimedia Commons).
The consequences of crises and the perception of threats to religious and national identities have stimulated prophetic beliefs. Current events are understood as having been predicted a long time ago. Kessareas also sees some specific Orthodox factors making people receptive to such beliefs. “In the Orthodox cosmos of spirits, angels, and saints miraculous intervention is taken for granted. What is more, it is used as an explanatory framework for every historical event,” he writes. The Internet plays an important role in the circulation of prophecies to larger audiences, even among those not attending church. They “oppose secular culture by using the same means and strategies,” ironically contributing in various ways to the very secularization that they denounce, according to Kessareas. For “prophetologists,” the public stance of the official church does not go far enough, because it is too inclined to accept compromises. The fact that the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece issued an encyclical in 2022 against “false prophets” bears witness to “the proliferation of such agents within the ranks of the church.”
(Social Compass, https://journals.sagepub.com/home/scp)
