National centres and the Greek diaspora

1. The Race (Genos) of Hellenes, both within its ethno-linguistic geographical boundaries and in the Diaspora, for three thousand years now, has been intensely religious. Through religion emerged literature, poetry, drama (tragedy and comedy). Our ancestors honoured their gods with magnificent monuments, statues, myths and hymns. They established religious struggles and sacred associations (Delphi, Delos, Bassae, Dodoni, Eleusis).
2. The priests did not lead, they did not shepherd the Ancient Greeks.  There was never in ancient times a class of clergy, priesthood (there were classes of aristocrats, oligarchs, a class of sages, teachers, artists, sophists, philosophers).
3. Along with the religious attitude of the Hellenes, during the same period the Greeks remained highly politically aware. They bequeathed to the world community the idea of popular sovereignty, of democracy, where the politician functioned only as rapporteur and proposer, leaving to the people the right to decide. They also introduced the institution of political “punishment” worldwide. 
4. Religion and Politeia were the two fundamental regimes of values, which guided the evolution of Hellenism, highlighting over time a parallel dual power, but without this dual power becoming or evolving in the classical period, into diarchy or even synarchy.
5. In Greek antiquity, the dual relationship of coexistence did not have a dualistic sign, and this is because the priesthood did not function at that time, as a social order of power, and most importantly the priests were not successors of any God, but their servants. With the prevalence of Christianity, an outcome of Asian theology, a religion based on succession, dualism, as a model of power, brought the regimes of religion and politics,  sometimes as forces that were inherent and co-existent, and sometimes as opposing each other.
6. The Greeks of the Diaspora joined the state status of their host countries as equal citizens; however, maintained their socio-cultural devotion to the two national centers of power of Hellas, both to their national delegation and to the Archdiocese, especially after 1908, when the Church of Greece handed over its expatriates to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This decision of 1908 institutionalized the diarchal loyalty of Hellenic Diaspora to the two centers of power, the Greek and Cypriot, but also the Ecumenical Throne with His representatives. Both centers were hierarchical: Greece with an elective parliamentary monarchy, and the Greek Orthodox Church with a strictly conservative administration based on the rule of the Episcopos (Bishop).
7. Since then, the State and the Church have remained inseparable and often allies, but sometimes opponents and rivals, wounding the cohesion of Hellenism in the Diaspora. Self-cantered and arrogant church leaders often abused and exploited Greece’s weaknesses  by imposing coercion and harassment against dissenting diplomats, representatives of the two national centers, as well as community leaders in the Diaspora.
8. On the other hand, weak national representatives accepted the assumption by the Church of policies that exceeded and offensively surpassed the jurisdictions of ecclesiastical spiritual authority and potentially called into question the competence of the State over its expatriates in the Diaspora.
9. Thus, we had a constant conflict, a tug-of-war between prevailing ecclesiastical egoism and ethnic arrogance and a weak state diplomacy, which attempted, on the one hand, to preserve the credibility of a European country and the Balkan leadership and, on the other, the desire of diplomats to maintain good relations with the primate hierarchs who might decide on their professional development.
10. The representative Hierarchs of the Ecumenical Throne since 1924, and the career national delegation since 1926, in Oceania, saw their role, each on their own behalf, as sovereign leaders forming their own alliances (clergy-oriented, consular-oriented), even their own prayer temples, forming their own outreach cadres, their own courtiers, often overlooking or even defying the authority of the other,  with the aim of each claiming sovereignty over expatriate Greeks and Cypriots, motivated by self-interest and personal interest, often, indifferent to the cohesion and unity of Hellenism.
11. Both, directly or indirectly, pretended or arbitrarily claimed to be the legitimate representatives of Hellenism of the Diaspora. Both called each other’s authority into question. Some plagued Hellenism in long-lasting civil ruptures that led to schisms and regimes of unsociability, dragging their followers into division and courts. It was an exterminating struggle for power and colonization of the Hellenism of the Diaspora.
12. This state of division caused by the dualism of power experienced a temporary decline in the years that followed due to the wars (1939-1949) but was exacerbated after 1959. The appointment of the fourth Metropolitan, Ezekiel Tsoukalas, had the consent of both the Karamanlis Government and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Evangelos Averoff, in the policy and program of weakening the influence of  historical Communities by establishing ecclesiastical Communities/Parishes under the control of the Metropolis.
13. The unification of the historical Communities into a Federation gradually led to a rupture and Schism, resulting in the declaration of the ceremonial mysteries of the Federation of Communities void and invalid, with tragic legal and social consequences for the Diasporic Diaspora. However, despite the initial consent of the Greek state, its national representatives, who were living through the schism, mostly sided with the Communities. Archbishop Ezekiel, in response, asked for the help of the dictatorial government and the Cyprus Church in order to recall Greek diplomats.
14. Finally, with the restoration of democracy, the Archbishop was recalled, to be elected as his successor, Archbishop Stylianos Harkianakis, the Difficult. The dualism of power continued in various phases from then until 2019, with the death of the Archbishop, who valued the authority he enjoyed, as absolute, and given by God. He declared that his jurisdiction and suzerainty over the flock,  it was not only spiritual, and that he was primarily the Ethnarch of Hellenism, as in the stone years.  Any of the national representatives who questioned his absolute and monosemantic authority, was treated by the Archbishop with solitary social confinement and public profiling, even exclusion from Holy Communion (Ambassadors Konstantis, Veis, Xydas to mention a few).
15. Greece maintains a decadent and inadequate care for the approximately five million expatriates and hundreds of thousands of Philhellenes, doing injustice to its historical role as a diasporic nation, with the most important settlement history in the world over the last 3000 years. For tourism, economic betterment, foreign policy, the Metropolis rightly and confidentially invests millions in money and makes tireless efforts to win investors,  tourists, markets and allies. 
16. The role of the Orthodox Church in preserving the national identity and the social cohesion and  solidarity of expatriate Hellenism has been and remains, invaluable over time.
17. However, the lack of clearly delineated institutional structures, the incoherent, soft and undefined dualism of State-Church power, the loose or even non-existent, state (Constitutional) definition of responsibilities and relations between the National Metropolis and the Greek Diaspora, causes obvious dissatisfaction and chronic rupture regarding who is nationally, politically the competent and mandated body for expatriate Hellenism in the Diaspora.
18. The historical communities of Greeks that functioned were basically ethnocentric and religious centers with the aim of preserving the ideologies set and shaped by the pioneering post-war immigrants. The ecclesiastical-centric communities that followed after 1957, and which were then transformed into Parish Communities (1978-2024) and eventually evolved into Parishes with appointed councils and Church-controlled roles and duties.
19. After 1980, with the emergence of the middle bourgeoisie, coinciding with the end of Greek immigration to Australia, the fourth type of organization of the Greek communities was founded, the secular/popular (secularist) with socio-economic and cultural goals. The new organisations, moving to the wider spectrum of Australian society, detached from the Australian state roles and services aimed at the social welfare and care of migrant groups, which ensured them economic self-sufficiency and therefore duration and stability.

*Professor Anastasios M. Tamis taught at Universities in Australia and abroad, was the creator and founding director of the Dardalis Archives of the Hellenic Diaspora and is currently the President of the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies (AIMS).