ATHENS, May 3 -- When the Apostle Paul traveled here 2,000 years ago, he gave a sermon that helped sow Christianity in the seat of ancient European culture. But when Pope John Paul II comes here Friday on a trip to retrace the apostle's footsteps, he will likely find the local reception chillier.
Conservative local religious leaders, who adhere to an Orthodox Christian tradition that split with Catholicism almost a thousand years ago, have denounced the Roman Catholic church leader as an unwelcome theological interloper. They have mounted protests fueled by centuries-old grievances that have modern political salience in a Europe socially divided between East and West.
Although the Vatican has depicted the pope's brief trip partly as an effort to heal religious wounds, some conservatives have publicly labeled him a "monster." On Wednesday, more than 1,000 Orthodox priests, monks and followers took to the streets to denounce his visit, the first by any pope since the religious schism of 1054.
One hundred sixty monasteries will ring a death toll during the visit, the Athens News Service reported.
The leadership of the Greek Orthodox Church also has serious differences with Rome but has denounced the demonstrations, saying they mainly draw members of fringe religious groups. "These people . . . have no official relation with the church of Greece," said Haris Konidaris, a spokesman for Greek Orthodox leader Archbishop Christodoulos, the Associated Press reported. "Acts of fanaticism and zealots are very few."
The demonstrations have acutely embarrassed the Greek government, but they reflect a religious, social, and political fault line running through Europe, which has separated Orthodox and Catholic adherents and helped stoke armed conflicts through the ages. The most recent, the Yugoslav ethnic wars of the 1990s, pitted, among other groups, Catholic Croats against Orthodox Serbs.
Greece has long considered itself the keeper of the Orthodox faith, which predominates in much of the former Soviet Union, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania and parts of the former Yugoslavia. More than 97 percent of Greek citizenry has been baptized Orthodox, giving Greece virtually no experience with religious diversity.
The pope's visit on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning will be "an opportunity to give signs of friendship and trust," said the Rev. Johan Bonny, a member of the Pontifical Council on Christian Unity in Rome, who helped plan a series of speeches and a public Mass.
"It will be an invitation to continue the path of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue," which the pope has considered a priority for the past 40 years, Bonny said. If the pope can improve ties with the Greek Orthodox leadership, he may have a smoother visit next month to Ukraine, and perhaps make possible a cherished visit to Russia, Bonny added.
Orthodox leaders in both countries have already expressed opposition to his visiting. They decry what they see as overbearing efforts by the Catholic Church to win converts in formerly communist countries where the Orthodox church gained a semi-official status and in some cases took over Catholic property.
In Ukraine, the end of communism brought sporadic religious violence, as Catholics physically drove Orthodox priests from Catholic churches that they had occupied during the previous decades.
In Greece, the Orthodox Church last year refused the pope's request to visit, and instead demanded an apology for what it called Vatican-sponsored aggression and arrogance. The Holy Synod, the government body of the Greek church, relented only in March when the Greek government extended an invitation for a state visit; its vote was widely seen as historic, although it enraged conservatives.
Although Catholics compose less than one-half of one percent of the Greek population, Orthodox conservatives remain vocally embittered by Catholicism's claim that the pope is an infallible interpreter of theology and that Catholicism is superior to other Christian faiths.
The schism dates formally to 1054, when a French cardinal, Humbert, representing the pope in Rome, walked into the great Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, now Istanbul, and excommunicated the city's patriarch, who had forced some Latin churches to use the Greek language and liturgy.
In 1204, a substantial military grievance was added: the Catholic Church's fourth crusade overthrew the Orthodox-backed Byzantine emperor and sacked Constantinople.
To this day, the Eastern and Western churches have substantial theological differences, including whether to use unleavened bread in the Eucharist, whether to require that priests be celibate, and how to interpret the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
"The Orthodox view of the Catholic Church is often a curious melange of fact, fantasy, cultural prejudice, sublime theological misunderstanding, resentment, reasonable disagreement and unreasonable dread," wrote Duke University Divinity School professor David B. Hart in March.
"Both churches are so fearfully burdened by infallibility" that their squabbles have been extremely difficult to settle, he added.
Security during the pope's visit will be tight. He turns 81 later this month and will speak briefly at the Greek president's residence before making a courtesy call on Christodoulos, who has been sharply criticized by other church members for agreeing to meet the pope. The pope will also give a speech to Catholic bishops and preside over a public Mass on Saturday morning. Delaney reported from Rome.