Whatever Happened to the Greek Church?

It is Sunday morning in Vatousa and the village is filled with the sound of the priests commiserating the death of Christ. There is a loudspeaker outside the church which broadcasts the ceremony, which has little talking, and a lot of musical incantations. If this is not enough to wake the dead, the next door neighbor is listening to another priest broadcasting from a cathedral in Athens or some radio station on Mount Athos or somewhere else holy. The dueling priests create a buzzing sound like thousands of bees, raising the vibration of the village and carrying it, cafeneons and all, up to heaven. And it makes me wonder where the church is in the whole economic crisis drama we are going through. They have become like the friend who does not come around when he hears you have lost your job because he is afraid you might ask for the money he owes you.  Lonely widows have left fortunes to the church to the chagrin of their children. The church has billions in property and more in gold, stocks, bonds and cash, all of which came from the Greek people and priests and monks whose investment prowess would make a Wall Street broker envious. The Greek people have handed their souls to the Orthodox Church. Is it too much to ask for the church to pay off the debt and help rebuild the infrastructure of the new Greece? It is a question of value. What does the church believe is more valuable? Their investment in the souls of the Greek people or their financial investments? And what were they planning on doing with all the wealth they have been hoarding? Taking it to heaven with them? I mean they must have been saving and investing for some purpose besides just accumulation, right? You save money for when you NEED it. Was there ever a country that needed money more than Greece does right now? And since there is no separation of church and state in Greece isn't the debt of the Greek people also the debt of the church? Is there some reason that this subject has not been brought up and that instead of getting the money from where it is, in the bank vaults of the church, it is being taken from where it isn't, from the wallets of the Greek working class?

Of course there is a reason. If the government even hinted at the church helping pull Greece out of this mess, the church would take their money out of Greek banks so fast that they would collapse overnight, and deposit it in Swiss and Cypriot banks where much of it is anyway.

Now I don't want to give you the impression that I am against the Greek church, or any church. They all have their purpose. They give comfort to those of us who don't want to think very deeply about things like God and Jesus Christ, and we leave our Salvation in the hands of the priests so we can go on with what we like to do during the week, giving God a couple hours on Sunday and religious holidays. Its a good deal for us. And if in the end we feel guilty, like we did not do enough to get into heaven, we will give a good portion of what we own, or all of it, to the church. But since the church can't really tell anyone that their entrance to heaven is assured, this would be an excellent opportunity for them to pay us all back for the gifts they have received from us for the last.... well, two thousand years. Pay off the Greek debt. I bet they could do it and still have enough money and property left over to renovate every monastery on Mount Athos and furnish them from IKEA. And if the Greek church rescued Greece then wouldn't the Catholic Church save Italy when their economy defaults? I mean they don't want to appear less compassionate than the Orthodox, do they? And you know what this will all lead, right? A rescue of the State of California by the Church of Scientology!

And with the wealth of the churches we will create heaven on earth!

These ideas all came to me in the last two minutes in a flash of cosmic consciousness.
God IS great, isn't he?
If he spoke to Greek priests, bishops and popes too, we might all be saved.