Papageorgiou and others v. Greece, Nos. 4762/18, 6140/18, ECtHR (First section), 31 January 2020

Obligation of the parents to submit a declaration as to non-Orthodox Christian status of children for exemption from religious education course. Violation of the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Art. 2 Prot. No. 1 ECHR

1. Article 2 of the first additional protocol to the ECHR protects the need for teaching in an objective, critical and pluralistic way, without any purpose of indoctrination. Pluralism, as a condition of democracy, does not exclude the legitimacy of religious teaching, in primary and secondary public schools, even if confessional oriented, provided that it is objective and pluralistic or that the possibility of total dispensation is granted. 

2. A school system that imposes on parents the obligation to submit a solemn declaration on the status of unorthodox Christian children for exemption from the religious education course is able to impose an excessive burden on parents with the risk of exposing sensitive aspects of their private life. This potential conflict could discourage them from making such a request, especially if they live in a small and religiously compact society, where the risk of stigmatisation is much higher than in large cities, thus causing a violation of art. 2 of the first additional protocol to the ECHR.