Since he was a child he had an idée fixe: He wanted not only to reconcile Greeks and Turks, but also to unite them into a Greek Turkish Confederation which would (to an extent) be a reincarnation of the Byzantine/Ottoman Empires; thus filling the political, cultural and economic vacuum that's left behind by their absence in the East Mediterranean region.[14] A devout Orthodox Christian, he came to sympathise with the Turkish religion of Bektashism-Alevism[15] and sought to ally it with Orthodoxy, in order to form a basis for a future political union between Athens and Ankara. Believing in the collaboration of religious communities, as in the millet system of the Ottoman Empire, he worked closely with Shia Muslims in Iran,[16] Jews in Israel[17] and Hindu vaishnavs in India.[18] His elder son Nicolas has been a Vaishnav since 1984 and lives with his Hindu wife in the Vaishnav community of Gainesville, Florida. Although a member of the official Church of Greece, he always sympathised with the Old-Calendarist movement, the adherents of which reject the Church's use of the Gregorian (New) calendar and maintain a traditionalist attitude towards Christian life and worship.