The Full Catastrophe

by James Angelos

  Hearing this, I wondered how the mayor had ever been elected. Though he’d won the 2010 election by just three hundred votes, his victory in the midst of Greece’s deepening economic troubles indicated that many Greeks were craving a new kind of politics. Boutaris, who was supported by a coalition of left-leaning and centrist parties, fused the pro-business tendencies more common on the political right with an aversion to the right’s staid, nationalist inclinations. This was a rather unique combination in Greece, and people seemed willing to try it. Of course, it didn’t take much to be considered a radical improvement over the previous mayor, a man named Vasilis Papageorgopoulos, who was accused of having a severe embezzling habit. Papageorgopoulos, a former dentist and sprinter who won a bronze medal for his country in European competition and was nicknamed “the flying doctor,” had governed the city as a member of New Democracy for a decade. After Boutaris took office, his deputy mayor of finance—the first Jewish elected official in the city since the end of World War II—found that the city was deeply in the red and that the previous administration had apparently falsified the books. Two years later, Papageorgopoulos and two of his aides were convicted of embezzling around 18 million euros and sentenced to life in prison. The severe sentence, which preceded Tsochatzopoulos’s conviction, represented the first time in many years a Greek politician had received such a severe penalty for such a substantial crime. Some Greek newspapers optimistically depicted this development as the beginning of a new era in which Greek politicians were to be held accountable for their abundant wrongdoing, though that seemed to be wishful thinking. Papageorgopoulos maintained his innocence and appealed his conviction, saying he was the victim of political persecution. His prison sentence was later reduced to twelve years.

  Boutaris’s treasurer was able to balance the municipal budget within a few years of taking office. This achievement prompted the interest of Prime Minister Samaras, who, one city official told me, said to Boutaris: “I need that Jew in Athens.” Boutaris intrigued the international press with his self-proclaimed reformist agenda and many tattoos. Journalists, looking for something good to say about Greece at a time when all the news was bad, heaped praise on him. The New York Times profiled him with the headline “Greek Mayor Aims to Show Athens How It’s Done,” the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph with “Greece’s Vision of Hope,” Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung with “A City’s Last Hope,” and Toronto’s Globe and Mail with “This Greek Hero Slays Monsters of the Fiscal Variety.” Though the international press made him out to be a savior, at home the feeling was more ambivalent. Much of his electorate clearly still despised him, particularly religious conservatives, as the outburst at the Panagia’s welcoming ceremony had shown.

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  As the police hauled off the irate monks, voices in the crowd began to chatter and speculate.

  “Surely, Boutaris must have done something to anger them,” a little woman beside me said.

  “He didn’t let them come close to the icon,” one woman’s voice responded.

  “Well, if he did that, then they have a point.”

  “Get out of here, Boutaris!” a woman screamed.

  “Boutaris, you’re dirtying the place with your presence!” bellowed a male voice.

  I asked one man next to me, who told me his name was Nektarios, why the mayor was being heckled.

  “Because he’s an atheist and a devil,” he said.

  “Why a devil?” I asked.

  “He loves Atatürk.”

  As the chatter continued, a politician with finely parted black hair named Theodoros Karaoglou took the stage and began his speech as if nothing had happened. The icon’s arrival would “help stimulate religious and national feeling of our tested people,” he said. Greeks, he added, clung steadfastly to their roots, “and for that let’s not forget the titanic offering of our church to safeguard our national and cultural heritage.” State and church must “walk and struggle together to support all those who are suffering from the economic crisis.” There was no doubt how the crisis would end, he added. “Greece will get back on its feet. The Panagia is on our side.”

  I had met Karaoglou, the minister of the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace, a few days earlier in his plush, enormous office, located in the imposing building where the city’s Ottoman government used to be headquartered. It was also where the Ottoman military officer Hasan Tahsin Pasha surrendered the city to Greek forces a century earlier, Karaoglou pointed out. He told me his ministry had organized a massive celebration on a Saturday later in the month to mark the city’s liberation from Ottoman “enslavement.” Greek soldiers, seven hundred of them, would reenact the Greek army’s march into the city a century earlier, dressed in period garb, with many on horseback. They would march to the ministry, where the president of Greece would raise the same Greek flag erected there in 1912, when Greek forces took control of the city. The soldiers would then continue past a small church where the city’s bishop and two hundred priests would sing the Byzantine chant praising the Virgin Mary as the “Champion General.” The priests would also sing the Greek national anthem. The soldiers would then march on to the White Tower, where an enormous Greek flag—“the biggest that exists in Greece”—would be raised. There, soldiers would perform a twenty-one-gun salute, which would be answered with cannon volleys by a Greek warship offshore. “Now that we have a heavy climate,” the minister told me, “the goal for us is to produce a climate of national pride.”

  The Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace itself existed for reasons of national pride. It was the only federal ministry in Greece to represent regions of the nation, and persisted by virtue of the fact that it had the word “Macedonia”—the name of the Greek region in which Thessaloniki is located—in its title. A copyright dispute over the name Macedonia has inflamed nationalist fervor in Greece since 1991, when Yugoslavia divided into different parts, one of which called itself the Republic of Macedonia. For most Greeks, there can be no such thing as a country called Macedonia, or a language called Macedonian, because Macedonia is Greek and has been since antiquity. The claim on the name not only reflects an effort to rob Greece of its cultural property, Greeks believe, but could also lead to territorial claims on northern Greece. Furthermore, by claiming the name Macedonia, these former Yugoslavs could also lay claim to the greatest of Greek heroes, Alexander III of Macedon, also known as Alexander the Great. Greek concerns over the issue are somewhat understandable. Memories of battles to win and preserve its northern territory remain fresh in Greece, and nationalist politicians in Skopje, the capital of the would-be Macedonia, have certainly fed Greek anxieties by speaking of the “spiritual unification” of a greater Macedonia. Yet, one could argue, the response in Greece has been disproportionate to the threat. One day in February 1992, schools and government offices in Thessaloniki closed and about one million Greeks, according to some estimates—around one-tenth of the country’s population—protested their neighbor’s wish to use the name Macedonia. A demonstration of similar size occurred later in the year in Athens. Due to Greece’s continued objections, the United Nations refers to the nation that calls itself the Republic of Macedonia by the unfortunate moniker the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM for short.

  The ministry’s purpose, Karaoglou told me in his office, “is to send a message of national symbolism that Macedonia was, is, and will always remain one and Hellenic.” A second reason for its existence, he added, was to fight high unemployment in northern Greece. How exactly the ministry’s employees performed this latter goal, other than by persisting on the ministry payroll, remained during my visit a mystery to me. No one there seemed to have much to do. I saw huddled groups of employees sitting in folding chairs smoking cigarettes in the large corridors of the ministry building. Apparently, others also questioned its purpose. The ministry was relegated to a “general secretariat” in 2009 by the PASOK prime minister George Papandreou. The institution was promptly restored to a ministry after the right-wing prime m
inister Antonis Samaras came to power in June 2012. Samaras, during the height of the Macedonia naming dispute and protest, had split away from New Democracy and formed his own more nationalist party, Political Spring. That party’s sole purpose had been a hard-line stance regarding the Macedonia dispute, though later, after some of the fervor over the issue receded, he rejoined New Democracy. “When you close a ministry that has the name Macedonia in it, you send the wrong message,” Karaoglou told me. It’s like telling Greece’s adversaries on the other side of the border “that you don’t care so much.”

  After my meeting with Karaoglou, I called Boutaris to ask him what he thought of the ministry’s plans to mark the 100th anniversary. “I’m mad,” the mayor told me. First, he said, the ministry had no reason to exist. Second, its anniversary plans were “totally kitsch.” Boutaris said he would boycott the parade. After local newspapers later reported that the mayor called the ministry’s planned commemorations “fascistic,” Karaoglou felt compelled to respond. “It is obvious that the mayor and I have different understandings both of the importance of the 100th anniversary of the liberation of our city from the Turkish yoke, and also about how we should celebrate our historic national anniversaries,” he said. “And because historical forgetfulness harms our collective memory, I would underscore that a people who forget their history have no future.”

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  While the monks were berating the mayor, the bishop of Thessaloniki, a short man with a long beard, had a peculiar look on his face. He peered somewhat sideways at the commotion, resting both hands on his staff amid the other clerics onstage, his gaze not fully committed to the direction of the disturbance, which fell below the dignity of a bishop’s full attention. It was hard to discern the expression behind the eyeglasses and gray hair that covered much of his face, but I wondered if perhaps what I was noticing was a slight look of pleasure.

  Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki did not appreciate Boutaris’s talk about the non-Hellenic, non-Christian aspects of the city’s past. Nor did the mayor like the fact that the bishop treated his Sunday pulpit as if it were his own cable news talk show, during which he railed against developments in the country that indicated the enervation of its “Helleno-Christian” heritage. The bishop often warned in his sermons of a panoply of threats: territorial threats, whether from the Turks or from the republic that wanted to call itself Macedonia; the threat of allowing gay pride parades in the city; the threat of illegal immigration; the threat of European Union hegemony; the threat of Islam, which seeks to rule Europe.

  When Boutaris was still running for mayor in 2010, he said that Anthimos reminded him of the “mujahideen” for his fundamentalist views, and suggested the bishop spend more time helping the poor instead of buying new vestments. After these comments were published, the two men met during a service in the basilica housing what are said to be the remains of St. Demetrios. Boutaris approached Anthimos to kiss a gold cross the bishop held in his hand. Anthimos, unimpressed with the candidate’s piety, scolded Boutaris with a protruding index finger. “If you don’t recant,” the bishop said, “I will make a big effort to make sure you never see the mayor’s office.”

  The bishop and the mayor continued their public feud, to the great delight of the Greek media, which covered it closely. Whenever the two men were in the same vicinity, citizens watched in anticipation of a good spectacle. At one point, Boutaris suggested that Anthimos shave his beard and start a political party if he was so interested in sharing his political views. Yet, after the mayor was elected, the two men—unable to avoid one another in their public roles—did their best to tone down the quarreling and made an effort to keep friendly appearances. “The first person I greet is the bishop with a kiss on the cheek,” Boutaris told me of public events he attended with Anthimos. Of course, that gesture could have been perceived as a veiled slight, as the customary way to kiss a bishop is with a reverent peck on the hand. For his part, the bishop seemed eager to use his pulpit to rail against Boutaris’s agenda, though he refrained from mentioning the mayor by name.

  The mayor may have gone out of his way to invite Jewish tourists to the city, but one Sunday, the bishop warned the congregation about Jewish businessmen intending to buy real estate along the harbor in order to build big hotels. “Without bile, I say this,” said Anthimos. “Keep in mind, we love the Jews. We helped them in Thessaloniki and in Athens, and I’ve explained before we have a common origin in the Old Testament.” This seemed like a bit of an odd thing to say, given the city he was in. During the World War II occupation, in Athens and elsewhere in Greece, clerics and laymen did help Jews avoid the Nazis. But in Thessaloniki, things had obviously ended very badly. The bishop went on to warn of an academic conference highlighting the city’s Jewish history, coinciding with the 100th-anniversary celebration. He read aloud a list of the events’ sponsors, such as the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and other Israeli organizations. He raised his voice slightly to accent the words “Jews” and “Israeli,” in order to emphasize the Jewishness of it all. The city of Thessaloniki itself was also a sponsor, he pointed out, pausing for emphasis as if deeply disturbed, as if the city were a traitor for participating. “I hope you don’t one day remember I was telling you about this,” Anthimos said, suggesting that, by then, it would already be too late. The responsible authorities must clarify, he said: “What exactly is going on?” He then came to his conclusion: “The Jews are flirting with Thessaloniki.” He let the comment set in for a moment. “You tell me, ‘What does that mean?’ I’m not going to say it. You all understand. You understand it. We have Europe. We have the immigrants. We have the illegal immigrants. We have the threats,” referring to Turkish ambitions in the Aegean. He closed his speech by saying: “I cannot tell you more,” as if doing so might incur the mysterious wrath of the Jews.

  On another Sunday, the subject of the bishop’s outrage was a report that a Macedonian-language radio station seeking to spread “propaganda” was asking for a license to start operating in northern Greece. If this radio station was allowed to open, Anthimos said, “the youth and I and whoever else wants to” would go over there “in forty or fifty buses” and “turn everything into shattered glass and nails.” He added, “The job won’t get done otherwise.” Another time, he called the popularity of Turkish soap operas in Greece an “insult and challenge to our national consciousness,” and akin to telling the Turks “we’ve surrendered.” Once, after a visit to Athens, the bishop said he nearly “lost it” after seeing the number of migrants who had “blackened” the place. The migrants, many of them from Muslim countries, must be sent home, he said, in order to combat a Turkish plan to flood the country with Muslims and “Turkify” it. On another occasion, he sermonized on the growing danger from those undermining the sacred ideological pillars of the nation. This was a “leprosy,” he said, and it was evident in “attempts to spurn, to strip bare the miracle of thousands of years of the Hellenic-Christian culture of Byzantium.” It was a culture of astonishing men and scientists, he said, whose books have filled the libraries of all Europe. “It was a great culture, and it was our culture, and we are the continuation of that culture,” he said. “And here, some of our own within the Hellenic realm want to disavow this culture, or to name it something else.” Those who do so, he went on, “possess the leprosy of denial, or adulteration of our history.” He concluded with what seemed a direct rebuttal of the mayor’s efforts. “If we remain Greek and Orthodox, the economics will go better,” he said. “I believe we will not be destroyed.”

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  On the day of the Panagia’s arrival, the protesting monks were out of sight by the time Boutaris approached the podium. To my surprise, he was not booed. The mayor, clearly on hostile turf, was on his best behavior. He paused and looked at the clerics before beginning to speak. “Your Beatitude,” he said, nodding to the head of the Church of Greece. “Your All Holiness,” he said to Anthimos. “Your Eminence,” he sai
d to another cleric. The icon’s arrival “coincides with one of the most critical periods of the postwar history of our country and the hard times our people are enduring,” the mayor said, his head pointed down at the text he was reading, his voice weary and seemingly forced. By bringing the icon, the clerics had shown “love, encouragement, consolation, and concern with our city and our citizens, and especially for the infirm and afflicted, those whom the crisis has hit with devastating consequences for their daily lives and their families.” He finished by adding, “We are grateful for this gesture and reciprocate with respect and honor.” There was a smattering of applause from the crowd.

  After that, the Panagia was placed on a wagon hitched to the back of a camouflaged jeep for a procession through the city. The icon, flanked by clerics waving smoking thuribles, was led by the marching band, the men dressed like revolutionary bandits, officers in full dress whites with their swords drawn, and soldiers doing a poor job of marching in step. Hundreds more sullen-looking priests and monks trailed behind, and silent, darkly shrouded nuns carried lit candles, the wax dripping on their hands. Politicians in suits followed along with thousands of citizens as the icon was pulled along a street called “National Defense.” The procession passed the graffiti-tagged campus of Aristotle University, one of the nation’s most well-regarded schools, where slogans like NEVER AGAIN FASCISM and VICTORY TO THE STRUGGLE OF THE STUDENT WALKOUT were sprayed on the unkempt buildings. The campus is built on the site where hundreds of thousands of graves once constituted one of Europe’s largest Jewish cemeteries. The cemetery was destroyed during the Nazi occupation at the urging of Greek authorities eager to free up the huge swath of land for development.

  The procession went on, passing rows of unsightly apartment buildings, essentially concrete boxes with balconies, the common architecture of Greek cities. Residents emerged from the buildings to watch the icon pass, making the sign of the cross. Finally, the Panagia reached the Church of St. Demetrios and was carried past the green marble columns of the entrance and inside the sanctuary, underneath the high, open timber roof. It was placed before the altar, and a long line of pilgrims queued under the dim arcade and out the doors into the sunlight, waiting for what would be hours for a chance to make the sign of the cross before the icon and kiss the glass case covering it. Others waited to pay homage to the remains of St. Demetrios, kept in a small silver coffin beside a large icon depicting the scene of his martyrdom: several Roman soldiers thrusting spears into his breast. The church is built on the baths where his murder is said to have occurred, and the Roman-era ruins can still be seen in the crypt. Demetrios is referred to as the “myrrh streamer,” because a miraculous flow of myrrh is said to have emanated from his tomb. Many claim they can still smell it, though I was unable to detect any fragrance during my visit.