Religious education is mandatory for all schoolchildren at primary and secondary level in Greece. In Papageorgiou and Others v Greece [2019] ECHR 790, the issue arose once again of the right of parents to withdraw their children from religious education classes.

Background

In July 2017, the applicants had asked the Supreme Administrative Court to annul two recent ministerial decisions establishing the religious education programme for the 2017/18 school year. The applicants identified themselves as Orthodox Christians, and  complained, inter alia, that the new religious education programme for 2017/18 sought to “transform the course from an Orthodox confessional one into a ‘religiology’ course” in breach of Articles 4 and 13 of the Constitution and the applicable relevant legislation [14].  Continue reading →