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More Than 1,000 Hold Rally to Protest Pope's Upcoming Visit to Greece
Waving Greek flags and wooden crosses, more than 1,000 demonstrators protested on Wednesday against an upcoming visit to Greece by Pope John Paul II.
With chants of "pope out, hands off Orthodoxy," the demonstrators including monks, priests and members of fringe religious groups demanded that the pope not be officially received by Greece's Orthodox Church.
John Paul is slated to visit Greece on May 4-5 at the start of a five-day tour of biblical sites that also includes Syria and Malta.
Church leader Archbishop Christodoulos has made repeated appeals for calm during the papal visit, the first time a pope has traveled to Greece in 1,291 years.
Ultra-religious groups, furious at the church's decision to invite the pope, have promised to stage street demonstrations during the visit of the 80-year-old pope.
"This demonstration is taking place because we are determinedly opposed to the visit of the pope to our Orthodox Greece," said Father Maximos, one of the organizers.
Many Greek clergy see themselves as the caretakers of the "true" Christianity and accuse the Catholic church of trying to extend its influence eastward.
The Orthodox split with the Vatican more than 1,000 years ago in dispute over papal authority and have accused the Vatican of perceived injustices dating as far back as the 1204 sacking of Constantinople by crusaders. The city, now Istanbul, was then the seat of the Orthodox Byzantine empire.
Many protesters clutched copies of the New Testament and signs reading "Out with the two-horned monster, the pope."
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