171-192

The popular cult of the Three Hierarchs

• Βαρβούνης, Μανόλης Γ.

Basil the Great, John Chrysostomus and Gregory of Nazianzus are the most important theologians and Fathers of the Church of the fourth century AD. The impact of their teachings and their charities was so great that many popular customs were developed in their honor or in connection to them in the whole of the Byzantine Empire, from Greece proper to Thrace and to the farthest regions of Asia Minor. The author explores and analyzes those customs, many of which have survived to the present day, to show that the cult of the Three Hierarchs was (and remains) a living and genuine phenomenon, and not an ideological construct, despite the fact that the day of their common commemoration as protectors of education (the 30th of January) has in fact been utilized by the Modern Greek state as a means of indoctrination of pupils and students in the frame of the so-called “Helleno-Christianic” civilization.

• Philosophy, Ethics and Religion

• Religion and the humanities
• Θρησκεία
• Λαογραφία