From the very outset of the war, the Greek Orthodox Church, led by
telegenic Archbishop Christodoulos, adopted a strong anti-Western rheto-
ric while closely identifying with its Serbian “brethren.” The leader of the
Greek Church not only voiced his “complete solidarity with the heroic Or-
thodox Serb people,” he also condemned the air strikes as “a brutal violation of ideals and principles of democracy and freedom by the mighty of the
earth that have unleashed the storm.”7
The archbishop saw in the Western intervention in Kosovo “an attempt to eliminate the Orthodox element from every corner of Europe.”8 Repeating standard Serb propaganda claims, he claimed that Kosovo was the cradle of the Serb nation, and that NATO’s attacks, while being carried out “under the pretext of trying to impose justice,” in reality “aimed to exterminate the Serbs.”9 According to Christodoulos, the aim of NATO and the West was not only to exterminate the Serbs but also to eliminate their religious monuments. Speaking at the Saint Panteleimon Church in Athens, the archbishop referred to the “hate against Orthodoxy” that presumably motivated the NATO attacks. He then went on to state that “the target of the attacks were the Orthodox monasteries” in the region.
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