The government’s proposal to revise a constitutional article (paragraph 1 of Article III) referring to religious neutrality received a bare majority during an initial Parliament vote on Thursday evening, meaning that the next plenum to arise from general elections will require 180 MPs out of the 300 to vote in favor of revision.
However, a second vote during this plenum is necessary for the article to be eligible for revision by the next Parliament, a vote that will come on March 13.
The proposal by the leftist SYRIZA government is for the article’s wording to be changed to “the Greek State is neutral in terms of religion. The prevailing religion in Greece is the Orthodox Church, which is in integrally united, in dogma, with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and every Orthodox Church that and adheres to the Apostles’ and Ecumenical Synod’s rules and ecclesiastical tradition.”
