When the Rev. Ioannis Melissaris puts on his long black robe, and then another black robe over it, and then a tall black hat to top it all off, he knows that he is honoring tradition and has no problem with that.
But he also knows that he is going to swelter, and maybe stumble, and possibly snag a sleeve in a car or bus door. It has happened to Father Melissaris, a Greek Orthodox priest here, too many times already, and, he said, "I can't deal with it anymore."
On the beach, he said, he sticks out. During or after a storm, he cannot protect all of the billowing material from the elements.
"We suffer the worst when we have these duties at cemeteries," Father Melissaris, 43, said recently, referring collectively to the Greek Orthodox clergy. "The robes get caught on tombstones. They get splattered with mud."
The Rev. Nektarios Moulatsiotis had the same complaint: the ecclesiastical ensemble is not all-weather gear. "When it rains, the external layer absorbs all the water," Father Moulatsiotis said. "We're like roving mops."
For that reason and others, many Greek Orthodox priests here, like Fathers Melissaris and Moulatsiotis, are clamoring for a makeover, or at least a few alterations.
Some want permission to shed the outer layer — "the Superman cape," as Father Moulatsiotis described it — when they are not performing a formal church service. Others want a green light to go almost completely casual once they step into the streets.
There have even been some rumblings along follicular fault lines, with a few priests suggesting that their signature beards become a style option rather than a strict obligation.
"They have sensitive faces," explained Father Melissaris.
The movement has acquired enough momentum that in early October, at a meeting of church leaders, Archbishop Christodoulos proposed a discussion of the clerical dress code and grooming expectations. His brethren in the Holy Synod balked, deciding that it could wait.
But the issue is unlikely to go away, because it ultimately concerns more than mere convenience, raising questions about the overall image that Greek Orthodox priests should have and the right distance between them and their parishioners.
Outside of Greece, in Western Europe and North America, many Greek Orthodox priests dress much as their Roman Catholic counterparts do, with no complaints from superiors.
But in Greece, where a vast majority of people belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, the dress code has changed little in five centuries, and priests are expected to obey it.
They can now shorten their beards, but cannot eliminate them. In public, they must wear all the requisite layers and tiers or risk punishment: perhaps a suspension, or a temporary loss of salary.
The outfit makes them instantly identifiable, which was part of the original point. But it does not always make them happy.
Although they can marry before they officially enter the priesthood, some of them say that women are not wowed by a man with such a monotonous sartorial destiny.
Father Moulatsiotis, 45, said the wardrobe was too similar to that of Muslim clerics, an association that he said he did not relish these days.
The Rev. Panayiotis Missyris, 42, said it subjected priests to constant judgment: about what they are eating, what they are saying, what they are driving. (He has a BMW.)
"I can't go with my wife into a lingerie shop," Father Missyris said, referring to the suspicious, disapproving looks from the clerks.
He sighed, "If I were any other man, helping his wife, it would be seen as a nice gesture."
Some priests want to be more modern, which they said would help them attract and minister to younger parishioners.
A few years ago, for example, Father Moulatsiotis, who is a monk, and more than a dozen of his clerical peers formed a rock band, Eleftheroi, or Free, which had a CD that climbed to No. 2 on the Greek charts this year.
He sometimes replaces his outer robe with a black trench coat and also has a hat with a cross of glittering rhinestones above the brim. He said Greek Orthodox leaders were reluctant to admonish him because of his local fame.
He said he also tried to save other priests from censure. A while ago, he said, he was driving around with an Orthodox bishop when they spotted another priest standing at a newsstand without his hat and outer robe.
"Stop the car!" yelled the bishop, according to Father Moulatsiotis, who added that he did not.
"I pressed on the gas pedal and zoomed away," he said. "The bishop was wailing."
Some older parishioners feel similarly impassioned about any suggestion of a departure from traditional dress.
"It's absolutely unacceptable," said Dimitris Stavropoulos, 78, a retired police officer, as he left a Sunday service at the Athens church where Father Melissaris works. "I just can't conceive of it."
Traditions and superstitions die hard here, a fact made clear when another parishioner, Georgia Dede, 28, lingered in the parking lot so that Father Melissaris could bless her new Toyota Corolla.
He placed a bowl of holy water and a sprig of basil under the open hood, atop the carburetor, and read Scripture. Ms. Dede then sprinted around the car, opening the doors, so that Father Melissaris could use the basil to sprinkle the water throughout the interior.
He was dressed in full regalia, but itched to take it off.
"I've finished my service," he said. "I'd like to go out for coffee, or on a little lunch trip with my kids."
None of that held the appeal that it should, he added, for one reason, which he flagged by clutching the ample folds of material around him.
"I have to be wearing this," he said.