Onward, Christian Soldiers

Aside from the approval of the King, the first thing Greece's new military rulers sought was the blessing of the Greek Orthodox Church. Premier Constantine Kollias and the chief Ministers were sworn into office by Chrysostomos, the Primate of Greece, and one of the new government's first decrees was an order solemnly commanding Greece's young people to attend church. Last week the junta's reforming zeal turned on the church itself. With a curt de cree, the government dismissed the 86-year-old Chrysostomos and the twelve bishops of the Holy Synod, the church's highest governing body. In as the new Primate went Archimandrite leronymos Kotsonis, a professor of canon law who happens to be personal chaplain to King Constantine. The government also replaced the bishops with churchmen of its own choice.

Though the spectacle of soldiers meddling in ecclesiastical affairs was unpleasant, the fact is that the Greek church, which commands at least the nominal allegiance of 96% of Greece's 8.5 million people, has hardly set a high moral tone. It was rocked in 1962 by the charges that its newly elected Primate was a homosexual; he was subsequently deposed. It was shaken two years later when a bishop was dethroned for committing adultery with his housemaid. In 1965, after the bishops became embroiled in a violent public scramble for wealthy sees, the civilian government of Premier Stephanos Stephanopoulos stepped in and ordered the Assembly of Bishops to stop shuffling the sees to the highest-bidding bishops. The junta justified last week's invasion of church affairs on the grounds that it was trying to make the church more attractive to Greece's young people.

No Beards. In temporal matters, the junta took the first step toward a return to parliamentary rule by creating a 20-man commission of jurists and professors to revise the new constitution. It formally charged the military's archenemy, Andreas Papandreou, 48, with conspiracy to commit high treason as the leader of the neutralist Aspida plot. As it ordered his trial, probably within the next few months, the junta gave assurance that it would not demand the death penalty. The new government also released from confinement Andreas' 79-year-old father, former Premier George Papandreou, and promised soon to set free at least half the 6,000 or so suspected Communists who were rounded up in the early hours of the April 21 coup.

The junta, however, showed no mercy to the beatniks who normally swarm into Greece each summer in search of fun and inexpensive living. From now on, declared Interior Minister Stylianos Pattakos, no traveler will be allowed to enter Greece if he has a beard, scruffy clothes, or less than $80.

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