Olga Constantinovna of Russia - Evangelika Controversy

Evangelika Controversy

Being an Orthodox Christian from birth, Queen Olga became aware, during visits to wounded servicemen in the Greco-Turkish War (1897), that many were unable to read the Bible. The version used by the Church of Greece included the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and the original Greek language version of the New Testament. Both were written in Koine Greek while her contemporaries used either Katharevousa or the so-called Demotic version of Modern Greek. Katharevousa was a formal language that contained archaicized forms of modern words, was purged of "non-Greek" vocabulary from other European languages and Turkish, and had a (simplified) archaic grammar. Modern or Demotic Greek was the version commonly spoken. Olga decided to have the Bible translated into a version that could be understood by most contemporary Greeks rather than only those educated in Koine Greek. Opponents of the translation, however, considered it "tantamount to a renunciation of Greece's 'sacred heritage'".

In February 1901, the translation of the New Testament from Koine into Modern Greek that she had sponsored was published without the authorization of the Greek Holy Synod. The price was set at one drachma, far below its actual cost, and the edition sold well. To mitigate opposition to the translation, both the old and new texts were included and the frontispiece specifically stated it was for "exclusive family use" rather than in church.

At the same time, another translation was completed by Alexandros Pallis, a major supporter of a literary movement supporting the use of Demotic in written language. Publication of the translation started in serial form in the newspaper Acropolis on 9 September 1901. Almost immediately Purist theologians denounced this version as a "ridiculing of the nation's most valuable relics" while a faction of the Greek press started accusing Pallis and his Demoticist supporters of blasphemy and treason. Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople denounced the translation, adding further fuel to the opposition. Riots, peaking on 8 November, were started by students of the University of Athens, partly motivated by conservative professors. They demanded the excommunication of Pallis and anyone involved with the translations, including Olga and Procopios, the Metropolitan bishop of Athens, who had supervised the translation at her personal request.

Troops were called in to maintain order, and conflict between them and the rioters resulted in eight deaths and over sixty people wounded. By December, the remaining copies of Olga's translation had been confiscated and their circulation prohibited. Anyone selling or reading the translations was threatened with excommunication. The controversy was called Evangelika, i.e. "the Gospels question", after the word Evangelion, Greek for "Gospel", and led to the resignation of the Metropolitan bishop, Procopius, and the fall of the government of Georgios Theotokis.