Greece stands out among European societies with regard to the way religion relates to social life. It has been one of the most homogeneous countries in Europe in terms of ethnic and cultural factors and it continues to present itself as such, despite widespread immigration over the past two decades from neighbouring Balkan and Eastern European countries and from the Third World. The continuing entanglement of religious and national identity is a particular feature of the country’s modern history, and has had ramifications in all spheres of life. These features must be understood in the context of Greece’s emergence as a nation-state in the nineteenth century, when it gained independence from the Ottoman state, which has left interesting residues (discussed below). Ultimately failing in its irredentist aspirations after a military defeat in 1922, Greece’s vaunted homogeneity was largely accomplished through the terms of the 1923 Lausanne Convention–a unique international agreement specifying a compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey. This was effectively a programme of mutual ‘ethnic cleansing’, which removed the bulk of the Muslim population from Greece and the Orthodox Christians from Turkey, leaving only a small population in each country as a recognised minority (see Hirschon 2003). The assumption of a common religious and national identity is firmly rooted in public consciousness, and to be Greek it is commonly assumed that one is also an Orthodox Christian (discussed below). It is a distortion to conflate these features; nevertheless it is true to say that contemporary Greek identity is a complicated amalgam of national, cultural and religious features. Greece’s continued homogeneity is reflected in current census returns, which indicate that over 90 per cent of the population is Orthodox Christian. Other distinctive characteristics should also be noted. First, Greece is reckoned to be a nation with a high degree of religiosity. This is revealed in the