THE NEW AGE OF GREEK ORTHODOXY: PLURALIZING RELIGIOSITY IN EVERYDAY PRACTICE

Eugenia Roussou

Owing to the long-established intimacy between Orthodox Christianity and the Greek socio-cultural identity, the Greek spiritual landscape has ste- reotypically been perceived as almost exclusively Orthodox. According to recent statistics, around ninety seven percent of the Greek population is – at least nominally – Orthodox (Alivizatos 1999: 25). In its everyday practice, however, Greek religiosity is pluralized. Nowadays, practices of ‘New Age’ and eastern spiritual orientation challenge the exclusivity of Orthodoxy as the autochthonous religion in contemporary Greece. Orthodoxy’s defences have dropped, and its concrete walls have turned into a porous religiosity. Greeks are not afraid to be spiritually creative. The challenge to their identity, through pursuing spirituality, has developed into a cultural actuality.1 I ethnographically explored the pluralized religiosity in Greece when I spent fifteen months, divided between Rethymno, a town on the island of Crete, and Thessaloniki, the second largest city of Greece, doing research on the practice of the evil eye.2 The evil eye (mati) arises from the widely

1 For the needs of my argument, ‘religiosity’ is used as a general term that captures the broad spiritual landscape of contemporary Greece, and which incorporates both ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ in its signifieds. ‘Religion’ is employed as synonymous to the prevailing organized religious institution in Greece, namely Orthodox Christianity. And ‘spirituality’ is used in order to signify non-institutional and more subjectivized practices of ‘New Age’ and eastern spiritual orientation. I do not analytically perceive religion and spirituality as con- tradictory. People in my Greek fieldsites have shown that religion and spirituality should be considered as complementary – the boundaries between them are blurred. At the same time, when I talk in the thesis about the ‘spiritual landscape of contemporary Greece’, or the fact that my informants are ‘spiritually creative’, the terms ‘spiritual’ and ‘spiritually’ stand for both (‘New Age’ and eastern) spirituality and (Orthodox Christian) religion, and their mutual interaction. 2 My evil eye research was conducted between August 2005 and November 2006. I have since returned to Rethymno and Thessaloniki, making sure that my ethnographic observations and analytic conclusions are still up to date. It has to be noted, however, that my informants’ quotes, comments and the data used in this article come from my fifteen months of fieldwork in Crete and northern Greece. I talked to a relatively equal number of shop owners, civil servants, artists, teachers, pensioners, students, housewives and young

74 eugenia roussou held conviction in Greece that everyday sensory communication and energy exchange between people can inflict symptoms of illness upon them (matiasma). Afflicted individuals are healed through a ritual known as ksematiasma. Performed predominantly by lay specialists, this ceremony contains numerous elements of Orthodox Christian symbolism.3 And, in addition to the spiritual beliefs and practices involved, people draw on a panoply of evil eye material objects (matakia), which are mainly used as prophylactic charms against any form of evil. My informants explain matiasma (evil eye affliction) by introducing ‘New Age’ ideas about energy and Christian ideas about possession by the Devil. They combine Orthodox prayers and reiki in the ritual healing of ksematiasma. They practise feng shui and yoga in order to prevent evil spirits and the evil eye from attacking them. They buy prophylactic charms that combine evil eye symbols and Christian religious figures and hang them on their walls and/or bodies. Through their engagement with the evil eye, Cretans and northern Greeks are contributing to the emergence of a novel perceptual, ritual, performative and material affinity between Orthodox Christianity and ‘New Age’ and eastern spirituality.4 The evil eye

professionals. In terms of age, the youngest of my informants were in their early/mid-twen- ties and the oldest in their late sixties/early seventies. They were mainly educated, and a large number of them were in the process of obtaining or have already obtained a university degree. They also seemed to lead a relatively comfortable life. Variations do occur. There were some Rethymniots and Thessalonikans who, although financially comfortable, only just managed to finish primary school. There were others who had obtained a university degree but their financial situation resembles that of a working-class person. With these factors in mind, it can be maintained that my informants generally belong to a middle class, which, however, is not homogenous but consists of multiple internal levels of social, eco- nomic and educational deviation. 3 The Greek Orthodox Church accepts the existence of the evil eye. According to the official ecclesiastic discourse, the evil eye is an act of the Devil, and priests are the only ones who possess the spiritual power to heal people from it. Although lay healers insist on the fact that they only use Orthodox Christian prayers during ksematiasma, the Church regards those healing rituals as satanic, since they are not performed by an official representative of the Church. 4 In this article, I follow Brown’s (1997: vii) definition and consider ‘New Age’ as ‘a diffuse social movement of people committed to pushing the boundaries of the self and bringing spirituality into everyday life.’ Burning sage, ritual aura-cleansing, using rocks and beads that are believed to possess mystical qualities, mediumship, the use of mystical forces for healing purposes, the channelling of energy, magic, the perception of the supernatural, and anything non-Christian constitute, according to my informants and in my ethnographic consideration, the fundamental ground of the ‘New Age’ phenomenon. ‘New Age’ and east- ern spirituality commonly share some of the above-mentioned practices. ‘Eastern spiritual- ity’, however, refers, throughout my analysis, specifically to the practices of yoga, reiki, and feng shui.