Prophecy and power The politics of popular eschatology in contemporary Greece

This thesis examines the role of religious prophecy in contemporary Greek Orthodox Christianity and its influence on politics, culture, and national identity. Prophecies, framed as imminent revelations of the End, circulate through charismatic monks, media, and popular culture, shaping responses to legislation, conflict, war, crises, and genocide. Drawing on discourse analysis, structural analysis, and ethnography, the thesis shows how prophetic narratives both critique the realities of neoliberal austerity and governmentality and mobilize nationalist sentiment, legitimizing systems of oppression, exclusionary politics, and ethnoreligious authority. It further highlights how charisma are constructed around religious figures who act as mediators between the people and God, positioning themselves as voices of revelation and popular will. Far from marginal, prophecy functions as a powerful meaning-making practice that binds past, present, and future within conspiratorial and apocalyptic logics, shaping social and political life in Greece in a world imagined as perpetually at the cusp of the Apocalypse.