An Unholy Relic in the Greek Constitution? On the Peculiar Obsolescence of Article 3 para. 3

“Thou Shall Not Translate” – A bizarre constitutional provision

On a constant basis, church-state relations are a prominent topic in the Greek news. Currently, the new leader of the main opposition party repeatedly emphasizes that he strives to advance “church-state separation.” As far as the desiderata for constitutional reform are concerned, relevant discussions usually centre on Article 3 para. 1 of the Greek Constitution(cited as “Article 3,” but usually referring particularly to Article 3 para. 1), which defines the Orthodox Church as “the prevailing religion in Greece”. Often, yet to a lesser extent, debates focus on Article 16 para. 2, which lists “the development of […] religious consciousness” as one of the goals of school education. Still rarer, the debates cite Article 105 dealing with the monastic communities of Mount Athos. Surprisingly, Article 3 para. 3 of the Greek Constitution is barely ever brought up in the debates. Yet, precisely this paragraph could – rather uncontroversially – be labelled as utterly peculiar and, above that, obsolete.

The 20^th-century historical background: Translating in the vernacular might cost lives

In its current iteration (within the 2019 Constitution), Article 3 para. 3 states:

“The text of the Holy Scripture shall be maintained unaltered. Official translation of the text into any other form of language, without prior sanction by the Autocephalous Church of Greece and the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople, is prohibited.”

At first glance, it seems surprising that the constitution regulates the “form of language” of a religious community’s scripture. Yet, there is a specific historical background to this provision, which dates back to the 1901 Evangelika(Ευαγγελικά, or Evangeliaka, Ευαγγελιακά) events in Athens. Back then, Athens experienced a significant social upheaval due to the translation of the Bible into modern Greek. Controversially, a translation of the New Testament’s four gospels into “demotic” Greek – the everyday vernacular, rather than the original Koine Greek or the official Katharevousa dialect of the day – was published as a series in the Acropolis newspaper. This led to fierce criticism from conservative factions and ecclesiastical authorities. The situation escalated when about 500 students protested violently: The offices of the newspaper Acropolis were ransacked, the Acropolis newspaper issues with the translated – or paraphrased – gospels were burned. Prime Minister Georgios Theotokis ordered an armed intervention that caused several human injuries, casualties, and police arrests. At the end of the unrest, both Prime Minister Theotokis and the Metropolitan of Athens, Procopius, resigned (for studies and reflections on these events, see indicatively: Kaiafa 2005; for eyewitness testimonies, see: Sotiriou, Matlis, and Leontaritis 1902).

Crucially and critically, after the unrest, the protestors’ demands for banning all unauthorized translations/paraphrasings of the Bible were codified in the Greek Constitution of 1911.

Constitutional revisions — and a cunning “official” addition to Article 3 para. 3

Although I do not want to delve much deeper into the historical events in question, it is worth to shed some light on how the constitutional provision evolved over time. For this purpose, I disclose a curious internal “short-circuiting” of the Greek Constitution that, in my opinion, emphasizes the differences between earlier constitutional iterations and the current version (indicated in bold).

When the aforementioned provision was introduced in the 1911 Greek Constitution, Article 2 para. 2 read as follows:

“The text of the Holy Scriptures shall be maintained unaltered. The rendering thereof in any other form of [Greek] language, without prior sanction by the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople, is absolutelyprohibited.”

Article 2 para. 2 of the 1952 Constitution incorporated only slight changes. It included the Autocephalous Church of Greece next to the Ecumenical Patriarchate as the ones being authorized to sanction translations:

“The text of the Holy Scriptures shall be maintained unaltered. The rendering thereof in any other form of [Greek] language, without prior sanction by the Autocephalous Church of Greece and the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople, is absolutely prohibited.”

The crucial yet seemingly subtle change in this development came with Article 3 para. 3 of the 1975 Constitution. This version, which basically remained unchanged up to this day, was enacted mere months before the government resolution of the Greek language question and the elevation of Demotic Greek, the vernacular, to Greece’s official language in January 1976. Article 3 para. 3 of the 1975 Constitution reads as follows:

“The text of the Holy Scripture shall be maintained unaltered. The official translation thereof in any other form of [Greek] language, without prior sanction by the Autocephalous Church of Greece and the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople, is prohibited.”

The crucial change with regard to prior versions does not lie in the abolition of an “absolute” (ἀπολύτως) prohibition in favour of a “mere” prohibition. Equally, neither the change from “rendering” to “translation” (ἀπόδοσις, μετάφρασις) nor the reference to “Scripture” instead of the plural “Scriptures” in prior versions is essential. Rather, the decisive normative difference lies in the fact that the Constitution now refers to an “official” – hence qualified – translation (ἐπίσημοςμετάφρασις in 1975’s Katharevousa, today επίσημη μετάφραση). In short, only the “official” translation of the Holy Scripture is regulated by the Constitution, not its translation(s) at large.

“It is official only when it is official” – or how to circumvent a constitutional provision

Now, what makes a translation an “official” translation, given that it is the Holy Scripture that is at issue? Presumably, there are two possibilities: Either (i) official church bodies (in our case, the Autocephalous Church of Greece and the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople, also called the Ecumenical Patriarchate) declare a specific translation as “official.” In this case, the official nature of a scriptural translation would be an intra-religious matter, even if the Constitution proposes to regulate it. Or (ii) the declaration as an “official” translation comes from the Greek state itself, rather than church bodies. The latter would be the case if one (somewhat perplexingly) approached the whole matter as a state issue. I will address both interpretive options.

Following possibility (i), I argue that the current, post-1975 iteration of Article 3 para. 3 of the Greek Constitution is a short-circuited constitutional provision. It cancels itself. In essence, it is tautological since it lacks any normative guidance and is void of descriptive or historical potency. This is because,

• if a mere “translation” of the Holy Scripture into any “other form of [Greek] language” is not prohibited after 1975;
• but an “official translation” thereof is prohibited; and
• if the sanctioning by appropriate church bodies – as an intra-religious matter – makes a translation “official”, and actually the sole permitted “official” translation,

then a constitutional provision declaring that “only official translations are indeed official” (whereas non-official translations are permitted as long as they are not flagged as official) would seem to lack a raison d’être or at least any normative function. It is not even descriptive in any meaningful sense. Since the definition of a translation as “official” (by virtue of it having been sanctioned by appropriate church bodies) has no impact whatsoever on “unofficial” translations – that is, any possible translation by anybody – and effects no actual difference or prohibition, such a definition would arguably be more akin to dictionaries or trivia cards than to constitutions.

Alternatively speculating, in line with possibility (ii), that it is the Greek state that renders a translation “official” and that this is the reason for the post-1975 iteration of Article 3 para. 3, also leads to an impasse as the very article explicitly rules otherwise, defining that it is church bodies rather than the state that render a translation “official”, without any involvement of the state in the process. Hence, we end up with a constitutional paragraph that is void of any meaning and thus obsolete.

Potential commentators sporting a conspiratorial quality of disposition might quip that this “short-circuiting” of Article 3 para. 3 in the 1975 Constitution might have been an intentional act by the constitutional legislator. By discreetly inserting the word “official” [translation], the normative value of Article 3 para. 3 was cancelled. There was thus no need to wholly dispose of the paragraph – and risk a public brouhaha in doing so. Assuming that constitutional revisions are not random, it seems there was a plan behind this manoeuvre. Yet, this constitutional change constitutes suboptimal practice. Furthermore, it would be challenging to argue that Article 3 para. 3 of the Greek Constitution retains merely historical significance as a subtle reminder of the 1901 Evangelika affair, precisely because such a reminder would be unwanted. Arguably, the last thing the Greek constitutional legislator would desire after the 1976 resolution of the Greek language question would be to retain an implicit constitutional reminder of Greece’s diglossia woes “for historical reasons” – and solely in Article 3 on “Church-State Relations”, of all places.. It should be borne in mind that the Greek language question was only conclusively resolved in 1976 and that Article 3 para. 3 heralds from a time long before this resolution. Still, it is surprising that, since 1975, four waves of constitutional revisions (1986, 2001, 2008, 2019) left Article 3 para. 3 untouched – despite its short-circuited, self-cancelled nature.

To recapitulate and conclude: The predecessors of the current Article 3 para 3 of the Greek Constitution emerged as a response to the violent 1901 Evangelika affair. The conflation of the controversies on the Greek language question with the issue of authoritative translations of the Holy Scripture had produced violent uprisings. Thus, prima facie, the provision under scrutiny here concerns Church-State relations and is explicitly labelled as such (by virtue of its inclusion under Article 3). Yet, in essence, the whole issue is more – and intrinsically – related to Greece’s (now obsolete) diglossia. After the seemingly subtle revision of “translation” (or “rendition”) to “official translation” in the 1975 Constitution and ensuing versions, which led to the short-circuiting and self-cancellation of Article 3 para. 3, the paragraph was stripped of any normative and descriptive value. Even its historical value may be questioned. Since constitutions should not become repositories for provisions devoid of content or shelves for obsolete historical artefacts, the continued inclusion of Article 3 para. 3 in the Greek Constitution is problematic. Therefore, in future constitutional revisions, Article 3 para. 3 should be abolished, and the constitutional text hence “tidied up.” Curiously, no one involved in the Greek church-state separation discourse formulates this as an explicit desideratum.

Addendum: Abolishing Article 3 para. 1 on Greece’s “prevailing religion” is widely considered the Holy Grail of constitutional reform on church-state relations. However, constitutionalist and long-time centre-left minister Evangelos Venizelos has persuasively argued that, in practice, Article 3 favours Greece’s Orthodox Church little more than Article 13 on religious freedom. In fact, Article 13 would perfectly suffice for consolidating the Orthodox Church’s prerogative and influence even after an eventual, hypothetical abolition of Article 3. Yet, this would be a topic for a different Verfassungsblog discussion.