SCIENTOLOGY INFILTRATION
in the Greek Government A conflict was created between cyrcles of the Greek Government and the Orthodox Church after the Justice Minister Mihalis Stathopoulos, in a suprise and questionable move, ordered the religion to be removed from the new Identity Cards, "to protect religious minorities". Mr. Stathopoulos is not an elected Deputy. He is former Dean of Athens University, educated in Germany and this was the first thing he did when took office, in spite the multitude of other urgent issues. The fact that the new IDs would probably have a magnetic strip of stored data (which the holder could not read) increased skeptisism that something is behind this and a lot of hypocrisy is involved.

What outraged the Orthodox Church and almost all the public, was that this issue was not even slightly raised before the elections, the government was reassuring the Church that nothing will be done without prior discussion and the Education and Religion Minister Petros Efthimiou personally assured Archbishop Christodoulos on that. Moreover, there is a law passed in the beginning of the '90s, stating that religion and nationality must be written. The Church believes this is the first step of a chain of actions to de-christianize Greece, that will allow full freedom of movements to cults, etc.

Stathopoulos and other government supporters claim that if religion is included, discrimination could occur. However, they remain silent on the fact that no discrimination occured by the state for 80-90 years at least since this is a practice since the '10s and '20s. Prime Minister Konstantine Simitis REFUSED to meet with the Archbishop and simply stated that this is a fact and not discussed anymore. He also said this is mandatory for all European Union countries. This is NOT true, as I understand. Besides, the state can keep huge files on people without writting anything in their IDs.

Scientology's revenge The daily newspaper HORA (country), between June 11 and 12 revealed the relations between Scientology (former KEFE) and Stathopoulos, Efthimiou and the new Parliament deputy Andreas Loverdos. No more details surfaced. The newspaper wrote of "Scientology's revenge" after its KEFE center was shut down by Court order.

Efthimiou was defence witness in favor of Scientologists accused of monitoring and keeping files on politicians, judges, reporters, priests, etc. Loverdos was defence attorney. The court ruled they really did what they were accused but did not pass jail sentence because the legal action should have started within three months, something practically impossible, since it took many months, perhaps years, to have the overall picture of these activities. Efthimiou said the Scientologists had "noble motives" and if they are sentenced, this would be "ideological sentencing".

Stathopoulos has more important and long term operation in Scientology-influenced fields. He coordinated at least one PANIFE Conference. PANIFE is the "Historical and Philosophical Society" run by Takis Alexiou which attracted and united people and cult groups to create an interfaith group and attack the Church and State in order to force them stop opposing cult activity. KEFE's seized documents prove there was strong Scientology participation and even funding for these Conferences and the interfaith group was promoted by OSA as part of "ARM Greece Handling programme".

Stathopoulos was promoting severe anti-Church measures for many years and his appointment as Justice Minister surprised many people, since he is not an elected official. He admitted of coordinating PANIFE Conferences but said that Scientology was just one of the participants !!!!!!!

He did not answer personally, but through a "special associate".

Efthimiou said that he simply defended some friends and that Scientology, as far as he is concerned, is hostile in its means and beliefs. Well, he did not say these. I was prosecution witness and did not hear any of these. In fact, no defence witness said anything negative. And there is nothing such written in the minutes. Anyway, he is a politician and had to say them just for political survival.

Efthimiou also said something IMPORTANT, regardless if he truly did what he says and when he says. It is enough he says it:

"From the first days I took office, the Director General of Religious Affairs of the Ministry, Mr. Kontogiannis briefed me on the issues in his post and presented me the issue of Scientology's recognition as religion, based on their application. I immediately gave strict orders to Mr.

Kontogiannis, under no circumstances to accept this".

Perhaps he said these to avoid being anymore linked to the cult.

The point is that now Scientology would be impossible to be recognized as religion.

The seized documents show that Scientology promoted "Church-State separation", the "new Identities" issue, etc in order to weaken the Church's position in the Greek society and make sure the Church will not be asked by the State to evaluate if a group is a "known religion", in order to be recognized as such. They wanted to simply state so and the group be recognized as religion without any investigation.

New approach?

It seems that during the past few years, Washington was opening or cultivating paths within the government that resulted in openly Scientology-promoted measures. This must be a new covert approach to take over key posts and de-facto create conditions favourable for New Order operations in the Balkans.

What makes you sick is that some of those who took oath to serve the people in Greece, intensionally ignore and divide the people and do so in a fascist-like way.

- Tony Bosnakoudis - antbos@eexi.gr http://w4u.eexi.gr/~antbos/SCIENTOL.HTM

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