Provincialism as Asset and Predicament: The Free Apostolic Church of Pentecost in Greece

The present article problematizes the dominant image of Pentecostalism as a par excellence global, context-sensitive and anti-nationalist form of Christianity by analysing the development over the last fifty years of the leading Pentecostal church in Greece, where nationalism has strong roots and is closely linked to Orthodox Christianity. It can be established that the church's adaptation to dominant religious expectations in Greece did ensure its hegemonic position among Greek Pentecostals but it also involved its disconnection from global Pentecostalism. Furthermore, the very success of the church over the first three decades after its establishment stimulated a structural rigidity, which in turn proved to be fatal for its capacity to adapt to an ever-changing social context in Greece. Being neither globalist nor adaptive, the largest Greek Pentecostal church has remained stagnating.