HOW POVERTY AFFECTS RELIGIOSITY – ASPECTS FROM THE GREEK DEBT CRISIS

Abstract

In this paper I argue for social ethics of poverty from a sociological and theological perspective: how poverty as a social and economic situation is disproportionate to the wealth that an organized society has referred to contemporary examples and how religiosity is actually affected by these standards. Poverty, as a status of limited economic and social activity, existed from the very moment the first human society was formed. By the time that wealth emerged as a crucial historical subject and as a key differentiating factor between the people, it has been consolidated in the consciousness and the collective unconscious of mankind, as well as the class stratification of society, together with contradictions and an ontological dimension of this differentiation. On the basis of the above, I will also refer to the differences between the social class hatred which triggers tensions, social anomalies and conflicts and in addition, solidarity, class cooperation and inevitability of the reciprocity of social dependencies, values that the Christian teaching, the Fathers of the Church such as St. John Chrysostom and St. Maximus the Confessor, and at last the very act of our Church, have highlighted, over the centuries. Furthermore, I will try to answer if there are any spiritual prerequisites for social peace, unity and prosperity in today’s globalized world. Can there be a substantial transformation, a spiritual “Metamorphosis” of societies in this direction? And at last, is money itself evil or is its usage that defines whether it’s bad or good?