There has been much talk about ordoliberalism recently. Scholars and the press identify it as thedominant economic instruction sheet for Germany’s European crisis politics. However, byanalyzing ordoliberalism only as an economic theory, the debate downplays that ordoliberalismis also an ethical theory, with strong roots in Protestant social thought. It is this rooting in Protes-tant social thought that makes Ordoliberalism incompatible with the socioeconomic et hics of mostof the European crisis countries, whose ethics originate in Catholic and Orthodox social thought.This divergence is the source of a crisis of understanding between European nations and hinders acollective response to the Euro crisis.