The quest for existential meaning constitutes a universal phenomenon traditionally manifested in official religions (religiosity) or personal modes of transcendence (spirituality). Religiosity and spirituality have been found to be associated with a variety of mental health and illness parameters. Material and method: 202 healthy students of the faculty of Theology of the University of Athens were interviewed using the Brief Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality, which assesses, among others, the dimension of "forgiveness". The scale is "inverted", i.e. high scores in the dimensions of religiosity correspond to a low level of religiosity. Symptom Checklist-90-R was used for the assessment of specific factors of present psychopathology. Pearson correlations coefficients were used to explore the association of two continuous variables. The association between forgiveness dimension and SCL-90 factors scores was modeled using multiple linear regression analyses. Results: There was significant positive correlation between the score of the dimension of "forgiveness" and interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, paranoid ideation, psychoticism, as well as the SCL-90 global score. Moreover, in the multiple linear regression analysis, "forgiveness" was independently associated with depression, hostility, paranoid ideation, psychoticism and the SCL-90 global score indicating that lower levels of forgiveness are associated with worse psychopathology related to the aforementioned factors. Conclusion: Lower level of forgiveness relates to higher scores in depression, interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety, hostility, paranoid ideation, psychoticism and the SCL-90 global score, suggesting more symptoms/complaints. In accordance to the existing literature, forgiveness appears to be an essential psychological distress buffer.
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