A historical moment that shook the foundations of ecclesiastical influence in Greece. In March 1833, just a few weeks after King Otto's arrival in Nafplio, a special seven-member committee was formed under Prime Minister Spyridon Trikoupis, with the active participation of the scholar Theoklitos Pharmakidis. The aim of this committee is to work for the following months to present a comprehensive report on the state and pathologies of the Church, proposing solutions to the problems that have plagued it since the period of Ottoman rule.
In the previous years, attempts by the Patriarchate of Constantinople to interfere in the internal affairs of the rebellious state had caused significant unrest among the leadership and citizens of the country. The recorded conclusions of this report, unknown to the reading public until today, were shocking and debunked a series of national myths that were formed in the following decades, particularly regarding the relationship between the clergy and education in the context of preparing for the struggle.
At the same time, these findings led to the decision for the complete separation of the Greek Church from the Patriarchate of Constantinople, namely, the declaration of the famous Autonomy. An event that simultaneously signified, as a "necessary evil," the close entanglement of State and Church in our country, which ultimately has been – and continues to be – the source of countless problems in almost every aspect of public life.
One hundred ninety-one years after its communication to Maurer and the young Otto, the publication of the Report of the Seven from the Lux Orbis Series, with a preface by Professor Aristeidis Hatzis, highlights in the most characteristic way the particular political conditions of that time and especially the position of the Church, as an institution, in the consciousness of the first officials of the new Greek state.
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