ATHENS – With the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA attacking the Church of Greece for opposing a Macedonia name giveaway to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) – linking it with the extremist Golden Dawn, charged with neo-Nazism – President Prokopis Pavlopoulos has come to the defense.

Speaking in the town of Pyrgos in southern Greece, Pavlopoulos noted the Church’s role in preserving the country’s history and language during hundreds of years of occupations and being a bulwark against enemies, while Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has had shaky dealings and came to power wanting separation of Church and State.

“Whoever – whether religious or not – looks at history objectively, is obligated to recognize the role of the Church,” he said, adding that this “role was and continues to be decisive for the course of our people and nation through history,” Kathimerini reported.

A former education minister from SYRIZA also sought to have religions other than Greek Orthodoxy taught in schools and for religion to be taught in a secular fashion, but that led to his ouster as Tsipras, needing the Church as his popularity plummeted, forced him out.

Archbishop Ieronymos also agreed, after initially declining, to let clerics attend a protest rally opposed to government plans to let the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) keep the name Macedonia in a new composite.