Ultimate decadence

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleἜσχατη παρακμή
3. Language term Greek, Modern (1453-)
4. lemma author Koutalis, Vangelis
5. lemma category Conflict - Ecumenism and dialogue > Westernism and anti-westernism - Culture and national identities
6. Publication date 12-5-2017
7. lemma work Heliopoulos, Giannis P. [Author]. Ultimate decadence
8. lemma manifestations Ο Ποιμήν
9. Keywords spirituality - Western culture - Enlightenment - technology - Church
10. Url Ὁ Ποιμήν, ἔτος ξθ΄ ἀριθ. 9-10
11. Citations
    1. <p>Heliopoulos, G. P. [Ηλιόπουλος, Γ. Π.] (2004). Ἔσχατη παρακμή. <em>Ὁ Ποιμήν</em>, <em>69</em>, 224-28.</p>
12. Lemma body

    1. Greek society, according to the author, has been brought to an unprecedented crisis of values, principles and institutions. The traditional Greek family, the Greek school, and the Greek faith, these three secure foundations for the social body have been outplaced by the one-sided technological, professional and theoretical learning which aims at fostering a new anthropological type, that of a European citizen, nurtured by the ideology of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.   

       The spiritual leaders of Greek society, such as the Academy of Athens and the University teachers, remain silent. In the eyes of the people, a multitude of substitutes have usurped the role of guide: ‘muddle-headed intellectuals’, journalists and celebrities.

       The material-technological facet of civilization has been detached from the moral-spiritual one, the latter being ignored and downgraded. Nothing is to be hoped for, as for the possibility of finding a way out of this crisis, from the state, the leading institution of the nation. Only the Church, the second leading institution in Greece, can embody hope.