If the monks who taught me had a fault, it was an attachment to the European Union that was not so much excessive as beyond all reason. At some point an especially europhile headmaster had the "European" flag (the twelve stars from Revelation 12:1, but that is no excuse) flown from the Abbey Tower on great occasions. It was only following loud protests from boys in the school that the Union Flag was flown instead.
Countries that use the euro (the currency, not the species of small kangaroo) are allowed to use their own designs on one face of the coins they issue. Slovakia decided to commemorate the 1,150th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity by minting coins displaying Saints Cyril and Methodius, two monks (brothers in fact) who preached the Gospel to the Slavs. The European Commission, the enforcement arm of the EU, ordered Slovakia to remove the halos from the two saints' heads and the crosses from Methodius' pallium. This was prompted by complaints from France and Greece,
apparently because it considers the Greek-born monks Cyril and Methodius as part of its own heritage.
Official France's pompous secularism surprises nobody but yikes the Greeks are the most cranky dogs in the manger. (They also whine about another country's choice of name.) I wonder what they would say if Russia put Cyril and Methodius on their coins?
Anyway it seems Slovakia stood its ground and the coins have now been issued.