The secularization thesis has always allowed exceptions. Where a religion acts as a guarantor of national integrity and autonomy in the face of a threat from either godless communism (Poland, Lithuania) or a powerful neighbor of a competing religion (Ireland) loyalty to the nation or the state may give the church added appeal. In this comparative study of Ireland and Greece, Halikiopoulou tries to explain why the social function of cultural defense has worked better to protect the Orthodox Church in Greece than it did to protect the Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland.

She finds the explanation in unpacking the notion of cultural defence to consider the relationship to modernization and the extent of the external threat. In the Irish case, the Church was party to a thoroughly reactionary vision of Ireland. Eamon De Valera's imagined Ireland was a pre-industrial Catholic utopia of nineteenth century social mores and turf-burning white-washed cottages. And post-independence the external threat from Protestant and then secular Britain was slight. The Church confronted modernization and lost hands down. The Greek Orthodox Church continues to benefit from its strong association with nationalism because the external threat to Greek integrity is still seen as strong and because it has not chosen to confront economic and social modernization. Ireland has shifted toward a more civic notion of nationalism that is independent of religious identity; Greece has maintained an ethic view of national belonging in which Orthodoxy still plays a major part.

The two case studies are presented in admirable detail. The comparative discussion of the Greek and Irish education systems is particularly helpful. Halikiopoulou adds little to the well-known Irish case but her account of religion and nationalism in Greece is an important addition to the literature on church, state, and nation relations.