The 4th of August regime, from August 1936 to April 1941, is most often brought closer to the authoritarian and paternalistic model of Salazar’s Portugal – or Franco’s Spain- than to fascism or nazism stricly speaking. This article focuses on a critical aspect of the Metaxas Regime: its relationships with religion. The enhancement of Christianity by the political authority, which is an often noticed point, does not in fact represent a real discontinuity with respect to earlier administrations. The religious tolerance of the Metaxas governement, its peculiar management of religious minorities – in the European context of the late 1930s – are examined in all their ambiguities. The look taken at this XXth Century’s regime crystallizes still current debates and historiographical tensions in Greece, all the more sensitive as they meet the issue of the State and Greek population’s attitude faced with the Shoah.

Written by Isabelle Dépret

 

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