ATHENS, May 5 -- When Chris Salimbus tells fellow Greeks he is a Catholic, many express bewilderment, he said on the sidelines at a Mass in the Olympic basketball stadium here. They are not hostile, but "they don't understand that I'm a Christian. They think we don't believe in God," he said.
Salimbus, 23, and thousands of others in Greece's small Catholic community congregated today to celebrate the visit of Pope John Paul II, but they also reveled in the week of publicity for their faith, which provided an unprecedented opportunity to combat misunderstandings, resentment and discrimination here.
Greece is an overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian nation, whose inhabitants have not been visited by a pope for more than 1,000 years. The Orthodox Church's political power is felt in a series of laws that Catholics and others complain have created obstacles to the growth of any faith other than the one recognized in the nation's constitution as the "prevailing" religion.
The laws, which date from a period of Greek dictatorship in the late 1930s, include a requirement that Orthodox officials be consulted before the government approves the construction of churches for other religions.
They also place cemeteries under Orthodox control and bar non-Orthodox churches from owning property or proselytizing.
The result, said a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference here, is a diminished legal standing that contributes to "disdain" and "intolerance" among some Greeks for the estimated 50,000 native Catholic adherents. "There is a problem of religious freedom in Greece," said Bishop Fragiskos at a press conference today.
The pope raised the issue in a meeting Friday with Greek President Constantinos Stephanopoulos, Catholic officials said. The president responded that Greece shared the pope's desire "to develop the best possible relations with other religions and cultures."
The Catholic Church's complaint was endorsed in the most recent version of the annual U.S. State Department report on human rights in Greece, which noted in February that "non-Orthodox groups sometimes face administrative obstacles or legal restrictions" not faced by the Orthodox church.
The 24-hour papal visit was just one sign that Greece is becoming a bit more tolerant, Catholic leaders say. For example, the Religion Ministry, which pays the salaries of Orthodox clergy and finances the construction of Orthodox churches, has recently taken a more liberal approach to applications for new Catholic churches.
Federal police no longer require that recruits be Orthodox Christian. But in other professions, including the army and the diplomatic service, Orthodox faith remains a prerequisite for advancement, according to Nikolas Gasparakis, a spokesman for the Bishops' Conference.
Bystanders at some of the pope's appearances here said his visit -- and his public apology on Friday for the sacking by Catholic crusaders of Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Byzantine empire, in 1204 -- would contribute to tolerance.
"The average person is past such differences," said Katerina Papadopoulos, 40, a housewife and Orthodox adherent.