Addendum. The teaching of religion in France and Greece. Convergences and divergences, challenges and perspectives

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleEπίμετρο. Η διδασκαλία της θρησκείας στη Γαλλία και την Ελλάδα. Συγκλίσεις και αποκλίσεις, προκλήσεις και προοπτικές
3. Language term Greek, Modern (1453-)
4. lemma author Delli, Eudoxie
5. lemma category Ecumenism and dialogue > Education - Ecumenism and dialogue > Dialogue between religions - Culture and national identities - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning
6. lemma work Καλαΐτζίδης, Παντελής [Author]. Addendum. The teaching of religion in France and Greece. Convergences and divergences, challenges and perspectives
7. lemma manifestations H διδασκαλία της θρησκείας στο ουδετερόθρησκο σχολείο - Athens: Εστία [Hestia], 2004.
8. Keywords Judeo-Christian culture - modernity - Otherness - anti-Westernism - plural identities - Religious education
9. Citations
   1. <p style="text-align: justify;">Kalaitzidis, P. [Καλαΐτζίδης, Π.] (2004). Eπίμετρο. Η διδασκαλία της θρησκείας στη Γαλλία και την Ελλάδα. Συγκλίσεις και αποκλίσεις, προκλήσεις και προοπτικές. In R. Debray, <em>H διδασκαλία της θρησκείας στο ουδετερόθρησκο σχολείο</em> (pp. 69-101). Athens:Hestia</p>
10. Lemma body

    1. In the Addendum attached to the translated (in Greek) book of Regis Debray, Pantelis Kalaitzidis explores the historical origins and the impact of the two extreme versions of the teaching of religion in Europe (in France and in Greece). He provides a fruitful critic of both, proposing an alternative and more equilibrated model which sheds light to the value of the religious education in school programs, and exceeds its confessional and obligatory character, following the needs of Modernity and of multicultural societies.

       Based on the idea that the religious phenomenon shapes mentalities and identities, while it intertwines with many expressions of the Western cultural tradition (art, literature, philosophy, science, social structures, politics), the author emphasizes on the importance of the understanding of the Judeo-Christian core component of the European identity. He detaches the religious education from the institutional Church and the personal belief, and he rejects its confessional character, which seems to be incompatible with the needed openness to the otherness and the religious liberalism of modern societies.

       He underlines the fact that the legitimized basis for the teaching of the Orthodox religion must be grounded in its  cultural capital and the ecumenical contribution of Orthodoxy in civilization, releasing the religious education from the traditional boundaries of confessional segmentation.

       Furthermore, Kalaitzidis discusses the need of a mutual understanding and communication between different religious cultures in multicultural societies, as a remedy to fundamentalism and to the rejection of Modernity and Sciences. In this perspective, the religious education could pave the path for a deeper and creative understanding of identity without succumbing to confessional introversion, nationalism and Anti-westernism.