The Arrival of the Protosyngellos of the G.O.C. of America (1958)

Greek source: The Voice of Orthodoxy, No. 287, June 2, 1958 (O.S.), p. 5.

 

In these days the Very Reverend Archimandrite Petros Astyfides, Protosyngellos of the G.O.C. of America, has arrived. At the meeting of the Ecclesiastical Committee last Tuesday he attended, being received by the fathers, and exchanged thoughts with them. Our periodical greets the newly arrived cleric, who in the past was one of its collaborators.

Below we publish a photograph from his activity in America.

 

 

The Protosyngellos of the G.O.C. of America, Archimandrite Petros Astyfides, surrounded by select members of the Pan-Chian Association, before the wonderworking icon of Saint Markella.

(The caption is from the American periodical in which it is published)

Hieromartyr Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata

Commemorated on June 22 / July 5

 

Eusebius (77), bp. of Samosata (360-373), the friend alike of Basil the Great, Meletius, and Gregory Nazianzen. All that is definitely known of Eusebius is gathered from the epistles of Basil and of Gregory, and from some incidents in the Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret. The fervent and laudatory phrases applied to him might suggest hyperbole if they were not so constant (Epp. xxviii. xxix. Greg. Naz. Opp. ed. Prunaeus, Colon. vol. i. 792; Ep. xxxiv. Basilii opera, ed. Par. t. iii.). As bp. of Samosata in 361, he took part in the consecration of Meletius to the see of Antioch. Meletius was then in communion with the Arians, and a coalition of bishops of both parties placed the document affirming the consecration in the hands of Eusebius. Meletius soon proclaimed explicitly his Nicene Trinitarianism and was banished by Constantius on the charge of Sabellianism. Meanwhile Eusebius had returned to Samosata with the written record of the appointment of Meletius to Antioch. The Arians, anxious to destroy this proof of their complicity, persuaded Constantius to demand, by a public functionary, the reddition of the document. Eusebius replied, "I cannot consent to restore the public deposit, except at the command of the whole assembly of bishops by whom it was committed to my care." This reply incensed the emperor, who wrote to Eusebius ordering him to deliver the decree on pain of amputation of his right hand. Theodoret says the threat was only meant to intimidate the bishop; if so, it failed, for Eusebius stretched out both hands, exclaiming, "I am willing to suffer the loss of both hands rather than resign a document which contains so manifest a demonstration of the impiety of the Arians."

Tillemont hesitates to claim for Eusebius, as many writers have done, the honour of being the Christian confessor in the persecutions under Julian. According to Greg. Naz. (Orat. c. Julianum, i. p. 133 b.c.), when suffering on the rack and finding one part of his body not as yet tortured, Eusebius complained to the executioners for not conferring equal honour on his entire frame. The death of Julian and the accession of Jovian gave liberty to the church.

During and after this temporary lull in the imperial patronage of the Arian party, the great exertions of Eusebius probably took place. He is represented as travelling in the guise of a soldier (Theod. iv. 13) through Phoenicia and Palestine, ordaining presbyters and deacons, and must thus have become known to Basil, who on the death of Eusebius of Caesarea wrote to Gregory (Bas. Ep. xlvii. Paris ed.), the father of Gregory of Nazianzus, advising the selection of Eusebius of Samosata for the vacant bishopric. The Paris editors of Basil plausibly suggest that the letter thus numbered was written by Gregory to Eusebius concerning Basil, rather than by Basil concerning Eusebius. The part which Eusebius did take in the election of Basil is well known. Basil's appointment gave Gregory extreme satisfaction (Greg. Naz. Ep. xxix.). He dilates on the delight which the visit of Eusebius to Caesarea had given the community. The bedridden had sprung from their couches, and all kinds of moral miracles had been wrought by his presence. Thereafter the correspondence between Basil and Eusebius reveals the progress of their joint lives, and throws some light upon the history of the church. The two ecclesiastics were passionately eager for one another's society, and appear to have formed numerous designs, all falling through, for an interchange of visits.

In 372 Eusebius signed, with Meletius, Basil, and 29 others, a letter to the Western bishops, in view of their common troubles from Arian opponents. The letter (Basil, Ep. xcii. Paris ed.), a melancholy Jeremiad, recounts disaster and disorder, uncanonical proceedings and Arian heresy. The Eastern bishops look to their brethren in Italy and Gaul for sympathy and advice, paying a tribute to the pristine purity which the Western churches had preserved intact while the Eastern churches had been lacerated, undermined, and divided by heretics and unconstitutional acts. Later in 372 Basil entreats Eusebius to meet him at Phargamon in Armenia, at an assembly of bishops (Ep. xcv.). If Eusebius will not or cannot attend the conference, neither will Basil; and (xcviii.) he passionately urges him to visit him at Caesarea. Letters from Eusebius appear to have been received by Basil, who once more (c.) begs a visit at the time of the festival of the martyr Eupsychius, since many things demanded mutual consideration. At the end of 372 Basil (cv.) managed the laborious journey to Samosata, and secured from his friend the promise of a return visit. This promise, said he, had ravished the church with joy. In 373 Basil urged Eusebius to fulfil his promise, and (cxxvii.) assured him that Jovinus had answered his expectations as bp. of Nicopolis. Jovinus was a worthy pupil of Eusebius, and gratified Basil by his canonical proprieties. Everywhere the θρέμματα of Eusebius exhibit the image of his sanctity. Other authorities (Tillem. Art. iii.) record that Jovinus relapsed afterwards into Arianism. The good offices of Eusebius were solicited by Eustathius of Sebaste, who had quarrelled with Basil. Basil's principle of "purity before reconciliation" convinced Eusebius of his wisdom and moderation. At the council of Gangra, probably in 372 or 373, Eustathius of Sebaste was condemned for Arian tendencies and hyperascetic practices. There is a difficulty in deciding who was the Eusebius mentioned primo loco without a see in the synodal letter. It may have been the bp. of Samosata, and as Basil entreated his advice as to Eustathius, he may have joined him, Hypatius, Gregory, and other friends whose names occur in this pronunciamiento. His age and moral eminence would give him this prominent position. The 20 canons of Gangra are detailed with interesting comment by Hefele, who thinks the chronology entirely uncertain. We venture the above suggestion, which would throw considerable light on the practical character of the bp. of Samosata. In 373 a letter of Basil (Ep. cxxxvi.) shews that Eusebius had successfully secured the election of a Catholic bishop at Tarsus. In consequence, he was eagerly entreated to visit Basil at Caesarea. He may have done so, and presided at the council of Gangra. An encyclical which Eusebius proposed to send to Italy was not prepared, but Dorotheus and Gregory of Nyssa were induced to visit Rome in 374. The Paris editors assign to 368 or 369 Basil's letters (xxvii. xxxi.) descriptive of his illness, and the famine that arrested his movements, but whensoever written, they reveal the extraordinary confidence put by Basil in his brother bishop. He had been healed by the intercessions of Eusebius, and now, all medical aid having failed Hypatius his brother, he sends him to Samosata to be under the care and prayers of Eusebius and his brethren. It is remarkable that Eusebius was left undisturbed during the bitter persecutions of the orthodox by the emperor Valens. At length his hour came, and few pages in the history of the time are more vivid than those which portray the circumstances of his exile. Valens promised the Arian bp. Eudoxius, who had baptized him, that he would banish all who held contrary opinions. Thus Eusebius was expelled from Samosata (Theod. iv. 13). The imperial sentence ordered his instant departure to Thrace (ib. 14). Ceillier (v. 3) places this in 374. The officer who served the summons was bidden by Eusebius to conceal the cause of his journey. "For if the multitude (said Eusebius), who are all imbued with divine zeal, should learn your design, they would drown you, and I should have to answer for your death." After conducting worship, he took one domestic servant, a "pillow, and a book," and departed in the dead of night. The effect of his departure upon his flock is graphically described by Theodoret. The clamour, the weeping, the pursuit, the entreaties to return to Samosata and brave the wrath of the emperor, the humble submission of the bishop to the will of the prince on the ground of the authority of St. Paul, the refusal of costly gifts, the parting of the old man from his people, and the disappearance of the venerable confessor on his long and perilous journey to the Danube, are all told in a few striking sentences. Eusebius had excited a persistent and intense antagonism to the views of the Arians which assumed very practical forms. The Arian bp. Eunomius was avoided as if smitten with deadly and contagious pest. The very water he used in the public bath was wasted by the populace as contaminated. The repugnance being invincible, the poor man, inoffensive and gentle in spirit, retired from the unequal contest. His successor, Lucius, "a wolf and a deceiver of the flock," was received with scant courtesy. The children spontaneously burned a ball upon which the ass on which the Arian bishop rode had accidentally trodden. Lucius was not conquered by such manifestations, and took counsel with the Roman magistracy to banish all the Catholic clergy. Meanwhile Eusebius by slow stages reached the Danube when "the Goths were ravaging Thrace and besieging many cities." The most vigorous eulogium is passed upon his power to console others. At this dark time his faithfulness was a joy to the Eastern bishops. Basil congratulated Antiochus, a nephew of Eusebius, on the privilege of having seen and talked with such a man (Ep. clxviii.), and Gregory thought his prayers for their welfare must be as efficacious as those of a martyr. For Eusebius, concealed in exile, Basil contrived means of communication with his old flock. Numerous letters passed between the two, more in the tone of young lovers than of old bishops, and some interesting hints are given as to difficulty of communication. Eusebius was eagerly longing for letters, while Basil protested that he had written no fewer than four, which never reached their destination. To Eusebius (ccxxxix.) Basil complains bitterly of the lack of fair dealing on the part of the Western church, and mysterious hints are not unfrequently dropped as to the sentiment entertained at Rome with reference to himself, Eusebius, and Meletius. In 377 Dorotheus found that the two latter were, to the horror of Basil, reckoned at Rome as Arians. Eusebius suffered less from the barbarian ravages of the Goths than from this momentary assault on his honour. In 378 the persecuting policy of Valens was closed by his death. Gratian recalled the banished prelates, and gave peace to the Eastern church. Theodoret (H. E. v. 4, 5) expressly mentions the permission to Eusebius to return. Notwithstanding the apparently non-canonical character of the proceeding, Eusebius ordained numerous bishops on his way from Thrace to the Euphrates, including Acacius at Beroea, Theodotus at Hierapolis, Isidore at Cyrus, and Eulogius at Edessa. All these names were appended to the creed of Constantinople.

When taking part in the ordination of Maris at the little town of Dolica (Theod. H. E. v. 4), a woman charged with Arian passion hurled at Eusebius a brick, which fell upon his head, and wounded him fatally. Theodoret records that the aged bishop, in the spirit of the protomartyr and his Divine Lord, extorted promises from his attendants that they would make no search for his murderess. On June 22 the Eastern churches commemorate his so-called martyrdom. His nephew Antiochus probably succeeded to the bishopric of Samosata. Tillem. viii. 326; Ceillier, v. 5.

 

Source: A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. 2, edited by Wallace Smith and Henry Wace, published by John Murray, Albemarle Street, London, 1880, pp. 369-372.

On the “parallel bishops” of St. Eusebius of Samosata

 

St. Eusebius of Samosata, being returned from his banishment, did likewise establish bishops in many places, whether by the authority he had acquired by his age, his virtue, and his sufferings for the faith; or that these ordinations were imputed to him, which he had procured from such as had power to bestow them. He placed therefore at Barhaea, Acatius, a celebrated man at that time, who had been eminent in the monastic way of life under Asterius, who was disciple of St. Julian Sabas, and continued the same practice of virtue during his episcopacy, which he held fifty-eight years. His doors were always open to everybody, so that he could be spoken with at any hour, even during his meals, and in the night; for he permitted his sleep to be broken, so little did he fear to have witnesses of his most secret actions. St. Eusebius likewise appointed Theodotus, famous in the ascetic life, bishop of Hierapolis, Eusebius of Chalcis, and Isidore of Cyrus, both men of great zeal and singular merit: at Edessa he placed St. Eulogius, who had been banished into Egypt; for St. Barse was dead some time before. Eulogius made Protogenes, companion of his labours and his exiles, a bishop, and settled him at Carrhae to establish religion there. The last place where St. Eusebius of Samosata constituted a bishop was Dolicha, a little city of Syria, infected with Arianism. He was willing therefore to make Maris bishop thereof, a man of merit and great virtue. But as he himself entered into the city, an Arian woman threw a tile at him from the roof of her house, which broke his skull, of which he died soon after. But before his death, he caused them who were present to swear they would not prosecute this woman; such was the end of St. Eusebius of Samosata. The Church places him among the martyrs, and honours his memory on the twenty-first of June. His nephew Antiochus succeeded him, who had followed him into Thrace during his exile, and who had been banished himself into Armenia.

 

Source: Ecclesiastical History of M. L’Abbé Fleury, Claude Fleury, Vol. 2 (London: Printed by T. Wood for James Crokatt, at the Golden Key, near the Inner-Temple Gate in Fleet-street, 1728), pp. 500–501.

Message of the G.O.C. of Greece to the newly-elected Archbishop Dorotheos III (Kottaras) of Athens (1956)

[A plea to end the persecution against the Old Calendarists, restore the Patristic Calendar, or alternatively, legally recognize the GOC as part of the Church of Greece until the calendar reform can be judged by a Pan-Orthodox Council. Clearly, even after the death of St. Chrysostomos the New Confessor, the GOC did not truly consider the Official Church to be schismatic or heretical. – Blog Admin.]

Greek source: Η Φωνή της Ορθοδοξίας, Issue 231, April 2, 1956, pp. 1-2.

 

 

To the Most Blessed
Archbishop of Athens and all Greece

Your Beatitude,

We render unto you the respect that is due, expressing at the same time our sincere congratulations on your ascent to the glorious throne of Dionysius the Areopagite, of Hierotheos, and of the other glorious and holy Hierarchs who, at various times, adorned the sacred See of the Capital of Greece. Thereafter we beseech Your Beatitude that, as a Christian duty, you would graciously deign to go through these poor lines, inspired by an infinite pain for the Church and traced not with common ink, but with tears and bitterness.

Your Beatitude,

Many problems await their solution at your hands. Your solicitude is called to conduct many struggles, in order to raise the Church of Christ, which He purchased for Himself with His All-Immaculate and All-Pure Blood, to a lofty level, so that from that height it may shine forth and guide the storm-tossed pleroma to the saving pastures of the Christian faith. This need is also hinted at by the daily press, through leading articles, columns, and comments, which you have surely and carefully read.

Among the fundamental problems which you will certainly face is also the Old Calendar question.

No one can underestimate its seriousness, even if he is so progressive as to proclaim that the calendar preoccupies only ignorant old crones, empty of knowledge and devoid of education.

The seriousness of the problem is chiefly brought out by the following reasons:

A) The canonical impediment of the Pan-Orthodox Synods under Jeremias II, by which the Gregorian Calendar was condemned.

B) Its uncanonical introduction, effected not by a Pan-Orthodox Synod, but by a simple administrative act of the individual Autocephalous Churches.

C) The sorrowful division of the Orthodox Eastern Church into Churches following the old calendar and Churches following the new calendar.

D) The tragic division of the Greek people into Old Calendarists and New Calendarists.

E) The multitude of unlawful acts that have taken place and are taking place on the part of the Governing Hierarchy: re-ordination of clergy, sealing of churches, stripping clergy of their clerical garb and publicly humiliating them, etc.).

F) The opportunity afforded for every kind of exploitation of the sacred zeal and piety of the Old Calendarists, beginning with shameful pre-election vote-seeking and ending in the deviation from the right line of certain few persons seeking their own glory.

G) The tarnishing of the Church’s reputation through the transgressions of the competent authorities.

H) The violation of sacred customs and canons, due to the coexistence of two time-reckoning systems, Julian and Gregorian. A characteristic example is the disappearance of the Fast of the Holy Apostles in 1956.

For all these reasons, and for others of secondary importance, the significance of the Old Calendar question is fundamental.

Your Beatitude,

Permit us to think that, for an ecclesiastical man of your education, the significance of the problem remains intact and is not superficially and prejudicially underestimated.

For precisely this reason, its handling also will not be carried out hastily, as is handled, at least, the appointment of a doorkeeper of the Archiepiscopal Palace.

You will meet with the honorable Mr. Prime Minister; the most excellent Minister of Education will meet with you; priests and synodal officials will whisper into your ears. It is possible that you may hasten to use the sword of the powerful as the easiest and most effective weapon. But before you sharpen it, summon your predecessors into the holy sanctuary of your conscience. Ask them one by one, beginning with Chrysostomos Papadopoulos and ending with Spyridon Vlachos, what they achieved through persecutions. They indeed have died and been buried! But the living pang of their consciences survived and still survives.

Ideas are not overthrown by physical force. The use of violence against religious conscience is fuel upon the fire. Perhaps even Christianity itself would not have existed, had its benefactors been absent: Nero, Diocletian, Trajan, etc.!

Cast away, therefore, the sword of persecution, which, even from the time of Golgotha, cuts the hands and heads of the persecutors and secures crowns of Glory and Victory for the martyrs.

And proceed! Two roads remain to lead you to the solution. The first is the correction of the error with courage and boldness. The restoration of the patristic festal calendar in the worship of the Orthodox Church. The restoration of normality will not simply honor Your Beatitude, but will also place you near the great Hierarchs of Orthodoxy, who secured the peace of consciences and of the Church.

Are there reasons, known to Your Beatitude, which do not favor this solution? Behold also a second solution.

Since, in one way or another, the Old Calendar question will be discussed before the Pan-Orthodox Synod which will in any case be convened, rise to the height of the circumstances and show a spirit of understanding of the critical nature of the moments, recognizing de jure the de facto existing Church (in the broader sense of the word) of the Old Calendarists. When this is set as the basis, the form of the Church of the Old Calendarists and the shape of its relations with the official Church of the country remain, henceforth, a merely formal detail.

You are a jurist and a theologian; a multitude of diligent and very learned advisers moves about Your Beatitude; there are also Old Calendarist jurists and theologians. Therefore, in a brotherly discussion according to Christ, what is sought will be found.

Your Beatitude,

The solution of a contentious question rests with you, a question which was not solved precisely because the powerful viewed it through the prism of their power and not through the prism of love for the Church. Many dangers surround the Church; innumerable arrows are being hurled against her Body. Therefore, do not expend your activity in the thankless struggle of exterminating Orthodox Greeks, who differ from the other Greeks in this respect: in the degree and intensity of their conservatism.

In such a struggle the wear and tear will be crushing and the result nonexistent. And above all, when Your Beatitude too is called by the Lord to the heavenly commonwealth of the Saints, if indeed you have solved the question in the indicated ways, blessing and praise will accompany you; otherwise curses and anathemas, making problematic the passage through the narrow gate of eternity, will reach even to the throne of the Majesty of the God of Love and Freedom.

And then...

Your Beatitude,

In the hope that your zeal for the Church and your brilliant education will free you from the monastic stubbornness of certain of your predecessors, and that you will solve the contentious question according to Christ and according to conscience, we remain with due respect.

1956 Plea from the bishopless G.O.C. to the Official Greek Church to heal the Calendar division

 

March 29, 1956

To His Beatitude, the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Kyr Kyr Dorotheos

Your Beatitude,

Praying that the Lord may strengthen you in the supremely great and beautiful work of shepherding the Autocephalous Greek Church, we duly render to you the respect that is owed. Drawing courage from the rich and very broad education of Your Beatitude, and also from your acknowledged zeal on behalf of the Church, we address ourselves to You, possessed by the intense and unceasing longing that troubled consciences may be brought to peace, that mutual respect may be established, and that a spirit of Christian nobility and propriety may prevail among religiously observant Greeks.

You will know that since 1924 the Greek Orthodox have been divided into two parties, into the New Calendarists and the Old Calendarists. We do not enter either into the essence of the division or into its generative causes, since these are very well known to Your most learned and canonically constituted Beatitude; let it only be permitted to us to emphasize, among the gravest and most dangerous of the consequences, the wounding of ecclesiastical dignity, the banishment of the spirit of Christian love, the terrible and unprecedented persecution of people worshiping according to conscience, independently of its correctness or erroneousness, for freedom of conscience is a sacred principle.

We are more than certain that such consequences will assuredly oppress the soul of an ecclesiastical man who regards the Church not under the myopic lens of the immediate present, but under the broad and boundless prism of the eternity of the Church. Therefore, for Your most discerning Beatitude, the measures for pacification will not be drawn from the antiquated and dust-laden arsenal of violence, but from the clear heavens of Christian understanding and love.

Trusting absolutely in the above, we make an appeal to You, that you be so good as to reconsider the policy hitherto applied by the Autocephalous Greek Church toward the Old Calendarists, and inaugurate a new such policy, inspired by the undeniable reality of the moral superiority of love toward those who think differently.

By the present letter, we also request that you be willing to receive a delegation from among us, so that it may also verbally set forth to You our dispositions.

With the heartfelt hope that you will prove yourself worthy of the lofty missions of Orthodoxy and will grant calm and peace to thousands of consciences, in the name of Him Who said, “Love one another,” we remain with the appropriate respect.

The Ecclesiastical Committee

President – Archimandrite Akakios Pappas

Secretary – Archimandrite Panteleimon Tsaloupis

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2025/02/blog-post_17.html

Bulgaria: Persecution Begins at Home

The Bulgarian Patriarchate pleads for the persecuted church abroad. It petitioned the state to liquidate the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria at home.

July 2, 2026

 

 

Hold two documented facts side by side.

In August 2024, the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church received the ambassador of the United States and drew his attention to the plight of the church in Ukraine — the restrictions on its pastoral work, the "discriminatory policy" to which it is subjected — and urged, in the Patriarchate's own published account of the meeting, that democratic forces around the world help ensure religious freedom in Ukraine and elsewhere. [1]

In late 2025, the courts of Bulgaria ruled with finality that the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria — a community of Orthodox Christians with roots in that country running back to 1968, with its parishes, its monastery of nuns, its cathedral in Sofia — must be stripped of the legal registration it had held for less than a year, under a law enacted for that purpose at the request of the Bulgarian Patriarchate itself. [2]

The distance between those two facts is the subject of this editorial. The word doing the heaviest work in the first of them is elsewhere. This is an investigation into where, precisely, elsewhere ends — and, as always in this journal, every exhibit below is stamped by the institutions themselves: the Patriarchate's own communiqués, the National Assembly's own votes, the courts' own judgments, and the European Court of Human Rights' own findings. The prosecution's exhibits are all stamped by the defendant.

Exhibit A: The voice abroad

No Orthodox primate in the world jurisdictions has spoken more insistently about the persecution of the church in Ukraine than the current Bulgarian Patriarch. The record is extensive and entirely self-published or friendly-sourced.

He has stated publicly that the Ukrainian legislation against the church there imposes "serious factual and legal restrictions" on its pastoral activity and amounts to a "discriminatory policy." [3] In a national television interview marking the first anniversary of his enthronement, he declared that when violence occurs, when churches are seized, and when priests suffer, this cannot be ignored. [4] He raised the matter personally with the American ambassador, asking the world's democratic forces to safeguard religious freedom. [5] He has received, honored, and prayed with a delegation of the most heavily persecuted hierarchs of the Ukrainian church. [6] He has opposed European sanctions against the head of the Russian church. [7] And the Moscow Patriarch, in a published letter of congratulation, thanked him by name for "supporting the persecuted Ukrainian Orthodox Church" and for every word spoken in defense of his suffering brothers. [8]

Set down, then, the working definition of persecution that emerges from the Patriarchate's own advocacy, because we will need it shortly: legal restrictions on a church's activity; discriminatory policy; state interference in the life of a religious community; the use of courts and legislation against believers. These are the Patriarchate's criteria, published under its own letterhead. Remember them.

Exhibit B: The Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria

Who, exactly, is the body being erased? Not a foreign import, not a recent invention, and not — as will be seen — a claimant to anyone's property. The Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria is the continuation, in unbroken succession, of the Bulgarian faithful who refused the calendar reform of 1968.

In December 1968, the Bulgarian Patriarchate — then under the close management of a communist state — adopted the new calendar. A small circle of clergy and faithful refused: the spiritual children of Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev), the Russian hierarch who had lived in Sofia for thirty years and whose defense of Orthodoxy against ecumenism had made him, in the words of those who knew him, the conscience of the Church. For their refusal, the dissenting archimandrites were banned from serving and expelled from the Theological Academy; the convent at Knyazhevo had its church expropriated; the Patriarch of that era announced in synod that those who did not accept the reform would be unfrocked or confined to a ruined mountain monastery; and the community passed into a catacomb existence under a regime whose militia watched the convent gates. [9] They ceased commemorating the Bulgarian Patriarch in 1983, received a bishop in 1993 through the Old Calendar hierarchies of Greece and Romania, and applied — that same year — for legal registration in the new, democratic Bulgaria.

The application received no reply. Not a refusal: no reply at all. [10]

By 2013 the Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria numbered some two thousand faithful with twenty-four priests; today it counts parishes across the country, a convent of some sixty nuns, and a cathedral in Sofia. [11] It has never claimed a single church building, bank account, or asset of the Patriarchate; the European Court would later record expressly that it laid no claim to them. [12] It asked for one thing only: legal existence. Without registration, a religious community in Bulgaria cannot own its places of worship, receive donations, or lawfully employ its own clergy. [13] For thirty years, that is what was withheld from the Bulgarian Old Calendarists.

Let this journal's own position be stated without hedging, because it is the position of the whole Patristic-calendar witness of which the Bulgarian church is a part. The Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria is not a curiosity, not a sect, and not — whatever the statute now says — a counterfeit. It is the confessing remnant of Bulgarian Orthodoxy: the portion of that church which, when the reform of 1968 was imposed by a synod under a politburo's supervision, did what the confessors of every century have done, and paid what they have always paid. Three generations of the same community have now confessed under three regimes — the catacombs under communism, legal non-existence under democracy, and liquidation under the current synod — and the faith confessed has not varied by a syllable. That is not the profile of a fraud. It is the profile of the thing frauds imitate.

Exhibit C: What the record shows happened at home

Follow the file.

2012. The Sofia City Court refuses to register the Old Calendar Church, reasoning that its name is "identical" to that of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. In those very proceedings, the state's Religious Denominations Directorate declines to submit its own opinion until it has obtained the opinion of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. [14] Pause on that: the question of whether the Old Calendarists may legally exist was referred, by an organ of the state, to the very institution from which they had separated. The rival was invited to judge.

2021. The European Court of Human Rights, in Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church and Others v. Bulgaria, finds a violation of Article 9 of the Convention read in the light of Article 11. Its language is not equivocal: pluralism, "the basic fabric of democracy," is incompatible with state action compelling a religious community to unite under a single leadership; in a democratic society the state has no need to ensure that religious communities remain under one authority; the refusal to register was "not necessary in a democratic society." [15]

December 2024. Executing that judgment, Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation orders the church registered. For a few days, after fifty-six years, the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria legally exists.

The response. The Patriarch personally describes the registration as "uncanonical." The Holy Synod publishes a statement calling the judgment "as unexpected as it is unfortunate, with serious consequences for the future," declaring that "the Orthodox Church can only be one," and demanding that the Old Calendar Church either renounce the name Orthodox or accept that it is "an inseparable part" of the Patriarchate. [16] The Patriarch and members of the Synod then hold meetings with the country's political leadership — in the words of a publication wholly sympathetic to the Patriarchate, seeking state protection, and securing agreement that legislation would prohibit any body but the Patriarchate from bearing the word "Orthodox." [17] After meeting the Patriarch, the leader of the largest parliamentary party announces his support for the Patriarchate as "the sole expression of Orthodoxy in Bulgaria." [18]

January 31, 2025. The National Assembly amends the Religious Denominations Act by a vote of 186 to 1. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is declared the sole representative of Eastern Orthodoxy in Bulgaria; no other denomination may register under the word "Orthodox" or its derivatives; registered bodies that do not change their names within two months are to be terminated, with liquidation and deletion from the register to follow. [19] The single dissenting deputy states the constitutional objection on the floor: "It is important that we are here as a National Assembly, not as the Holy Synod... the church and the state are separated" — and warns that closed cases with final judgments will be reopened by force of law. [20] A media outlet devoted to the Patriarchate's cause reports the same fact as a triumph: this is "the first case in Bulgarian legislation where reference to Church canonical law would be explicitly included in a legal text with binding force." [21]

2025. The Sofia City Prosecution Office and the Religious Denominations Directorate move to terminate the Old Calendar Church's registration and open liquidation proceedings. When the Sofia City Court initially refuses — holding that the amendments conflict with the European Convention — the prosecution appeals. [22] In the autumn, the courts characterize the Old Calendarists as outside the law; by December, the ruling is final: the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria is to be deregistered. [23]

Fifty-six years without legal existence. Eleven months with it.

Now apply the Patriarchate's own definition

Return to the criteria the Patriarchate published in its advocacy for the church in Ukraine, and run the checklist against the file above.

Legal restrictions on a church's pastoral activity? For three decades the Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria could not own its churches, receive donations, or employ its clergy — a condition the European Court examined and condemned. [24]

Discriminatory policy? The Old Calendarists argued before the European Court that Bulgarian courts refused registration only to communities resembling the Patriarchate while freely registering multiple Evangelical and Baptist churches of a single confession; the Court found the underlying refusal unjustified in a democratic society. [25]

State interference in the life of a religious community? A statute now in force names one church the sole lawful bearer of the word "Orthodox," writes canonical claims into binding civil law for the first time in the country's legislative history, and prescribes liquidation for the Old Calendar Church if it will not surrender its name.

Courts and legislation used against believers? A final judgment of a national supreme court, issued in execution of a European human-rights ruling, was overturned within weeks by an act of parliament passed 186 to 1 — precisely the reopening of closed cases by force of law that the lone dissenting deputy warned against.

Every criterion the Patriarchate applies to Kyiv is met, item for item, in Sofia — and the body it is met against is the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria. There is exactly one difference, and it is not a difference of kind. In Ukraine, the state moved against a church over the objection of the local patriarchate's sympathizers. In Bulgaria, the state moved against the Old Calendar Church at the request of the local patriarchate — after its primate called that church's legal existence "uncanonical," after its synod sought what its own friendly press called state protection, and after its meetings with party leaders produced the very bill. The Patriarchate of Bulgaria is not a bystander to the checklist. It is the petitioner.

And so the sentence delivered to the American ambassador completes itself. Religious freedom must be ensured in Ukraine and elsewhere — and elsewhere, on the evidence of the file, extends to every jurisdiction on earth except the streets around the Synod's own palace.

The saint in the middle of it

There is one more exhibit, and it is the most uncomfortable of all, because the Patriarchate itself placed it in the record.

In 2016, Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) — the hierarch whose spiritual children founded the Bulgarian Old Calendar movement, the man who taught them that ecumenism was a betrayal of Orthodoxy and whose counsel they invoked when they refused the reform of 1968 — was glorified as a saint, with the participation and celebration of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, which venerates his relics in Sofia to this day and marked the tenth anniversary of his canonization with a solemn liturgy. [26]

Sit with the arithmetic of that. The father is on the calendar of saints. The children are on the liquidation docket. The same institution that censes the relics of St. Seraphim of Sofia petitioned the state to dissolve the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria — the church that did what he taught. If the saint was right — and the Patriarchate's own act of glorification declares that he was — then the church formed in his obedience is not a fraud upon Orthodoxy but its remnant. And if that church is, as the Synod's statement insists, no church at all, then what, precisely, was canonized in 2016?

This journal does not leave its own answer in doubt. What was glorified in 2016 was the father of the Bulgarian confessors; what stands before the liquidator in 2025 is his church — the one body in Bulgaria that received his teaching whole and kept it at cost. The Patriarchate cannot have the saint and the statute. It has chosen to keep both, and the incoherence is now enshrined in Bulgarian law. The Old Calendarists, for their part, have no incoherence to manage: they venerate the same saint the Patriarchate venerates, and unlike the Patriarchate, they obeyed him.

What this journal is not saying

Let the record be precise about what is not claimed here. This editorial does not adjudicate the situation in Ukraine, does not defend any state's measures against any believer anywhere, and does not require the reader to take a side in that conflict. It stipulates, for the sake of argument, everything the Bulgarian Patriarchate says about the suffering of the church there — every word of it. The argument does not depend on doubting the Patriarchate's advocacy. It depends on believing it.

Because if legal restriction, discrimination, state interference, and legislative targeting constitute persecution when they fall upon two hundred monasteries in Ukraine, then they constitute persecution when they fall upon one convent of sixty nuns in Bulgaria. The number of the persecuted does not alter the nature of the act. A synod that can identify the pattern flawlessly at a thousand kilometers' distance, and then reproduce the pattern at home down to the statutory mechanics — courts, registries, liquidation procedures — has not failed to understand what persecution is. It has demonstrated that it understands perfectly.

This journal has documented elsewhere how the Bulgarian Synod, alone with Georgia, drew the honest conclusion from its own confession and left the World Council of Churches — and how it refused Crete. [27] Credit was given where due, and it stands. But the same synod's conduct in this file discloses what that traditionalism is prepared to do when the Patristic-calendar witness appears not in a rival patriarchate's territory but in its own: it reaches for the state. The confessors of 1968 were handed to the militia by a patriarchate that answered to a politburo. Their successors have been handed to the liquidator by a patriarchate that answered to no one but itself — and that, in the same twelve months, asked the ambassadors of the world to weep with it over churches seized by governments.

When violence occurs, when churches are seized, and when priests suffer — this cannot be ignored. The sentence is true. The Patriarchate said it. The only question this editorial leaves with the reader is the one the file forces: whether the sentence was a confession of faith, or a description of policy — and whether elsewhere was ever meant to include the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, the people who kept the calendar the saints kept, in the country where their saint now lies enshrined.

What a court cannot deregister

One word remains, and it belongs to the Old Calendarists rather than to their prosecutors.

A court can strike a name from a register. It struck this one after eleven months, and the men who drafted the statute may count that a victory. But the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria was not created by registration and cannot be dissolved by its removal. She existed for fifty-six years without the state's permission — through the militia at the convent gates, through the decades when her application sat unanswered in a drawer, through every refusal the European Court would later condemn — and her liturgies did not pause for any of it. The nuns of that convent will rise for the midnight office on the day the liquidation order is stamped, as they rose the day before it, on the calendar of the saints, in the obedience of their saint. What the National Assembly voted 186 to 1 to protect was a name in a civil register. What it could not reach by any vote is the thing the name pointed to.

The confessors of 1968 were promised unfrocking and a ruined monastery in the mountains. They took the mountains. Their heirs are promised liquidation. The record of this file suggests they have already shown, across three regimes and fifty-eight years, exactly what they will do with a promise like that — and the record of the Church suggests that this, and not the statute, is what Bulgaria will one day keep.

✦

Notes

1. Communiqué of the Bulgarian Patriarchate on the meeting between the Bulgarian Patriarch and the U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria, August 2024; reported in "Bulgarian Patriarch informs U.S. ambassador about persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," OrthoChristian, August 2024.

2. "Съдът реши окончателно: 'Българска православна старостилна църква' трябва да бъде дерегистрирана" [The court rules with finality: the "Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church" must be deregistered], Glasove, December 2025; cf. "Βουλγαρία: Δικαστήριο χαρακτηρίζει έκνομους τους Βούλγαρους Παλαιοημερολογίτες" [Bulgaria: Court characterizes the Bulgarian Old Calendarists as outside the law], Balkan Periscope, 10 October 2025.

3. Statements of the Bulgarian Patriarch on Ukraine's Law 8371, August 2024; see Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, "Pro-War Policies Put Russia's Orthodox Church Under Increasing Pressure Outside Russia," 30 August 2024, quoting the characterizations "serious factual and legal restrictions" and "discriminatory policy."

4. Interview of the Bulgarian Patriarch with Bulgarian National Television on the first anniversary of his enthronement, mid-2025; reported by Orthodox Times and RISU, July 2025.

5. See n. 1.

6. "Persecuted Metropolitan Longin visits staunch Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil," OrthoChristian, February 2026, describing the visit of a delegation of hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

7. Remarks of the Bulgarian Patriarch following the session of the Holy Synod, June 2026; Orthodox Times, "Bulgarian Patriarch defends opposition to sanctions on Russian Patriarch Kirill."

8. Letter of congratulation of the Moscow Patriarch to the Bulgarian Patriarch on the anniversary of his ministry, 2025; quoted in RISU, "Bulgarian Patriarch voices Russian narratives while commenting on events in Ukraine," July 2025.

9. On the events of 1968–1990: "Bishop Photios of Triaditsa and the Old Calendarist Church of Bulgaria," Orthodox America (archival); the community's own historical account; and the factual recitation in the European Court's judgment cited at n. 15, §§ 4–5.

10. Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church and Others v. Bulgaria, no. 56751/13, ECtHR, 20 April 2021, § 6 (application of 1993 "remained without a formal reply").

11. Ibid., § 7 (twenty-four priests, about two thousand adherents by 2013); on the present count of parishes, the convent, and the Sofia cathedral, see the community's own published directories and contemporaneous Bulgarian reporting, 2024–2025.

12. Ibid., §§ 14–15 and the Court's summary of the applicants' submissions on paragraph 3 of the 2002 Act's transitional provisions.

13. Ibid., § 7 and the Court's account of the consequences of non-registration.

14. Ibid., §§ 10–11: the Religious Denominations Directorate advised the court that it would file its comments only after obtaining the opinion of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

15. Ibid., §§ 62–64: "Pluralism, which is the basic fabric of democracy, is incompatible with State action compelling a religious community to unite under a single leadership"; the refusal was "not 'necessary in a democratic society'"; breach of Article 9 read in the light of Article 11.

16. Statement of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church – Bulgarian Patriarchate, late December 2024; reported by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, "Bulgarian Orthodox Church Slams Supreme Court Judgment on Old Calendar Orthodox Church Registration," 30 December 2024, including the Patriarch's prior public characterization of the registration as "uncanonical."

17. "Bulgarian Parliament moves to protect Patriarchate's legal status against registration of schismatics," OrthoChristian, January 2025: the Patriarch "and members of the Holy Synod met with various institutions seeking state protection against a potential new schism, agreeing on the need to prohibit the use of the word 'Orthodox' as a designation for any church in Bulgaria other than the Patriarchate."

18. Contemporaneous Bulgarian reporting on the meeting between the Patriarch and the leader of GERB, December 2024 ("the sole expression of Orthodoxy in Bulgaria"); see also the Wikipedia digest of party positions with underlying Bulgarian sources.

19. Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Religious Denominations Act, adopted 31 January 2025, in force 4 February 2025; The Sofia Globe, "National Assembly legislates that Bulgarian Orthodox Church is country's sole representative of Eastern Orthodoxy," 31 January 2025 (vote of 186–1); OrthoChristian, "Only Bulgarian Patriarchate can use 'Orthodox' in its name," February 2025 (two-month renaming deadline; termination and liquidation procedure).

20. Remarks of the deputy from We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria on the floor of the National Assembly, 31 January 2025; The Sofia Globe, ibid.

21. OrthoChristian, "Bulgarian Parliament moves to protect Patriarchate's legal status against registration of schismatics," January 2025.

22. Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, "Prosecutors Appeal Court's Refusal to Cancel Registration of Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria," July 2025, including the motions of the Sofia City Prosecution Office and the Religious Denominations Directorate to terminate the registration and initiate liquidation.

23. See n. 2.

24. See nn. 10, 13, 15.

25. Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church and Others v. Bulgaria, §§ 65–66 (the Article 14 complaint) and §§ 62–64 (the Court's holding on Article 9).

26. On the glorification of St. Seraphim (Sobolev) of Boguchar, February 2016, and the Bulgarian Patriarchate's celebration of its tenth anniversary at the church housing his relics in Sofia, see OrthoChristian, "10th anniversary of canonization of St. Seraphim (Sobolev), link between Russian and Bulgarian Churches," February 2026.

27. "But We Don't," Patristic Witness (2026), n. 1 and the discussion of the withdrawals of Georgia (1997) and Bulgaria (1998) from the World Council of Churches.

 

Source: https://patristicwitness.com/ArticleDetail?id=6a4778978db63aa061b0f4d1

 

 

 

The Holy Mountain’s Condemnation of Elder Ephraim of Philotheou’s move to ROCOR, and a Response (1991)

 

The Holy Community of the Holy Mountain Athos

Karyes, May 8, 1991

To His Beatitude, the Ecumenical Patriarch,
His All-Holiness Demetrios, our most honorable Father and
Master of the Phanar.

Most Holy Father and Master,

Grieved and horrified, our Holy Community has now officially become aware of the entrance of the former abbot of the holy monastery of Philotheou, Archimandrite Ephraim, into the schismatic and para-ecclesial “group” called the Russians Outside of Russia, which no local Orthodox Church recognizes. And we rightly ask ourselves how the former abbot’s conscience permitted him—he who, over the years, with the approval and permission of the sacred Archbishop of America, worked as a spiritual father within the flock of the local Church of His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos, dependent upon and under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Throne, thus bringing a multitude of spiritual sons into the parishes and churches canonically dependent upon Archbishop Iakovos, with whom he was in spiritual communion for more than ten years—how does he now advise the same sons whom he then counseled to submit to the Church, and who received the Holy Mysteries from her, to separate themselves, like rebels, from the Archdiocese, in order to join this para-ecclesiastical parasynagogue?

Your Beatitude certainly knows that these people of the Russian Diaspora, safe on foreign soil, were, until yesterday, playing at being spiritual fathers, and today they continue to accuse the sister Russian Church of having compromised herself with the atheist regime, while she was striving to strengthen the faithful in Russia and to keep the holy churches open, even at the price of the lives of her members, tens of thousands of whom faced martyrdom, while they fled by emigrating abroad. Today, when the breeze of freedom is blowing in Russia, they are entering the territory of the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow, “ordaining priests” and threatening the Russian Church with a new schism. And, unfortunately, the former abbot Ephraim has joined them.

Our Holy Community, scrupulously following the decisions of the holy extraordinary Double Synaxis of last April, openly and unanimously condemns the adherence of the former abbot Archimandrite Ephraim to the aforesaid para-ecclesiastical parasynagogue.

Likewise, it invites all the spiritual sons of His Eminence the Archbishop of America to remain faithful to this Archdiocese and to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, given that the Church of Constantinople, together with all the local Orthodox Churches in communion with her or depending administratively and spiritually upon her, is identified with the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of the Creed. Outside her, there are only schisms and heresies. Outside her, there are no valid Mysteries, nor the grace of God, according to Orthodox teaching. “Outside the catholic Church, that is, Orthodoxy, there is neither Baptism, nor Eucharist, nor bishops, nor thrones, nor true teaching…” according to Saint Cyprian of Carthage.

It remains, therefore, Most Holy Master, for Your Holiness and the Holy Synod to take all the measures that are required in order to defend the unity of the flock of the Archdiocese in America and to shelter it from the mortal fall of the aforesaid abbot, who has simply placed himself outside the Church in order to carry out his erroneous aims in complete freedom, without the yoke of obedience to the Church that tonsured him a monk and ordained him a priest, and to which he promised obedience unto death at the taking of the monastic vows made on the Holy Mountain, which he abandoned.

Who entrusted him with the salvation of the Nations? Is the Church in America perhaps deprived of canonical shepherds, of bishops and priests? From whom did he receive a blessing? Let him give the names of the prominent Athonites from whom he sought counsel. We asked them all, and all condemned his behavior with harsh words and considered him as one “gone astray.”

Why his fall and the abandonment of his spiritual sons from the Holy Mountain, whom he had brought as far as the dread altar of the Great Church of Christ, where the Ecumenical Patriarch is bishop? Who will be able to affirm to us that his “inner conviction” was not a “delusion” of the devils, for Satan transforms himself into an angel of light?

Together with all the holy fathers who have not gone astray and who live in a manner pleasing to God on the Holy Mountain, we repeat the condemnation of his acts and ask for your paternal and patriarchal prayers; with profound respect and filial reverence, we kiss your honorable right hand, a fountain full of grace.

All the delegates and abbots of the common Synaxis of the twenty holy monasteries of the Holy Mountain Athos.

(Published in Ecclesia, no. 11, 391, July 1/14, 1991.)

* * *

Letter of Protest to the Holy Community of the Holy Mountain for everything that it wrote against Father Ephraim

 

Most Honored Fathers,

The reason that compels me to address the present letter to you is the publication in the journal Ekklesiastiki Aletheia of 1/7/1991 of the letter of the Holy Community concerning the transfer of the former abbot of the holy monastery of Philotheou, Father Ephraim, into the Russian Church Outside of Russia.

I became aware of its publication with a little delay, and I ask your Reverences to forgive me for everything that I am about to write to you.

Honestly, I was horrified by the content of the letter of the Holy Community. The expressions used by the author are harsh; the characterizations concerning Father Ephraim are inadmissible. You say that “he placed himself outside the Church, joining the Russian Church Outside of Russia simply so that he might, in complete freedom, fulfill his personal deluded aims, outside the yoke of obedience to the Church; that he is one gone astray; that this fall of his, manifested through this action, is mortal,” etc. …

Why, my fathers, why so much hatred for Father Ephraim? What evil has he done? This man sought ecclesiastical approval and nothing else, in order to create monasteries in America according to the Athonite model, something which neither the Ecumenical Patriarch nor Iakovos of America would have permitted him.

For this you call him a heretic! Can you tell me wherein the delusion consists and what its signs are?

How can you judge in this way a man who was the reformer of contemporary Athonite monasticism, when Mount Athos was in danger because of a lack of men, and who, by his spiritual radiance and by his holiness, repopulated the monasteries of monks on the Holy Mountain and a large number of monasteries of nuns on Greek soil?

Why, my fathers, why do you lie when you say that Father Ephraim’s action “was unanimously condemned by all the holy fathers who have not gone astray and who live in a manner pleasing to God”? We know that the abbot of the monastery of Konstamonitou left the Holy Double Synaxis in order to protest against all the accusations brought against Father Ephraim.

The representative of the monastery of Philotheou, Father Ephraim (not to be confused with the Father Ephraim mentioned above), protested forcefully against the horrifying and fearful accusations brought against his Elder. The holy monasteries of Xeropotamou and Karakallou did not agree for many reasons. The holy monastery of Esphigmenou did not participate. How, then, can you affirm that there was unanimity? Were the sketes asked? Were they represented by anyone? Were the simple monks of the cenobitic monasteries asked? Why so much venom, my Fathers?

How is it that on that very day, while the meeting of the Holy Double Synaxis was taking place, the political newspapers were already publishing in advance the decision condemning Father Ephraim, and that the Athens News Agency had already been informed by its correspondent in Constantinople?

Even supposing that Father Ephraim had gone astray, where, then, is love for your brother who has gone astray? Where are your tears? Where are your prayers to God for his return?

Alas, it seems that all these are nothing for you but burst soap bubbles. Through your behavior you have shown yourselves to have a face very different from the one you displayed to us in the showcase. In spite of your calumnies, the sun will continue to shine, to scatter rays, to warm pure and sincere hearts, and to burn up completely all the other hearts full of passions.

Why, my fathers, did you not show the same zeal against all the deeds and attitudes taken in the Church?

I shall cite a few examples to refresh your memory, in case you have forgotten.

On October 12, 1987, the late Patriarch Demetrios, going to Geneva, declared that his visit to the World Council of Churches was the summit of his pilgrimage, that the W.C.C. is our home! Do you agree with all this?

Are you in agreement with the visit that the late Patriarch made to Rome in December 1987? With the common prayers with Pope John Paul and with the memorial service that he performed at the tombs of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, and especially with all the declarations of the Pope, against which he did not protest, namely that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church had received the grace to meet one another again as sister churches and to move toward full communion?

Are you in agreement with the refusal of the Orthodox to confess, in the common communiqué of the plenary assembly of the Joint Theological Commission of the Dialogues between the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic ones, at Freising near Munich, in June 1990, to confess, I say, the exclusivity of the Orthodox Church—her confession, her soteriology, her ecclesiology? This communiqué declares that our churches meet on the ecclesiological basis of communion between sister churches.

Are you in agreement with the communiqué of the Coordinating Committee of the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, where there is talk of a new ecclesiological vision, since the stage in which each church said of itself that it was the sole possessor of salvation had supposedly been surpassed, toward the conviction that the two churches, Catholic and Orthodox, are sister churches?

Are you in agreement with all the blasphemies uttered and practiced at Canberra, in Australia, in February 1991?

Are you in agreement with Stylianos of Australia, this new Kazantzakis, and with all the blasphemies that he cried out against the Theandric Person of the Lord?

Are you in agreement with the Doxology served by Iakovos of America with three representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the visit of Patriarch Demetrios to America, at which the Imam, a papist delegate, a rabbi, Anglicans, and many other heterodox participated?

Are you in agreement with the common pan-religious prayer at Assisi in Italy, in October 1986?

Are you in agreement with the pilgrimage to the heretical Brotherhood of Taizé by three bishops of the Ecumenical Throne, for the purpose of addressing a special message of congratulations on behalf of the Patriarch?

The renowned theologian M. Nikolaos Sotiropoulos, in an article published by Orthodoxos Typos, writes that neither Stylianos of Australia nor his heretical opinions any longer shocked the monasteries of the Holy Mountain, which took a stand against Patriarch Diodoros of Jerusalem and supported Stylianos and the Patriarch of Constantinople, his accomplice.

N.Y. from Thessaloniki

(Source: Orthodoxos Typos, no. 152, November 15, 1991.)

 

Translated from the Romanian edition:

https://ortodoxiacatholica.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/staretul-efrem-din-arizona-condamnat-chiar-de-fratii-lui-din-sfantul-munte-athos-in-1991-pentru-ca-a-vrut-sa-intre-sub-jurisdictia-bisericii-ortodoxe-ruse-din-afara-granitelor-biserica-sfantului-ioa/

Should We Be Set Apart From Others?

By the Holy Monastery of the Paraclete, Oropos, Nea Palatia

 

 

By closely examining the social life around us, we inevitably come to the conclusion that in our time, duty and virtue have lost their former glory. What appears to matter today is power and numbers. This becomes especially evident in the political, social, and private lives of men.

The various pressures and injustices are easily forgiven to the powerful of our day. The much-celebrated progress and development often conceal and justify many other things. Frequently, even the slightest objection to a questionable event is characterized as lack of tact. Moreover, the opinion of the masses exerts a remarkable influence on human thought.

Whatever the crowd thinks, decides, and acts upon becomes law to which everyone must submit, including one’s very conscience. Of course, the majority can sometimes be right. Nonetheless, many are under the impression (perhaps not mistakenly) that most of the time, the crowds, the masses, are wrong.

“But why should we care?” many think. “It is wiser to behave like everyone else or, at the very least, it is not unforgivable not to adhere strictly to duty, since others do not adhere to it either. There is no reason to be set apart from others!”

This rule, however, is disastrous because, although it may appear to benefit us in certain circumstances, it ultimately demands of us a triple sacrifice: of our convictions, of our freedom, and of our honor.

THE SACRIFICE OF CONVICTIONS

Those who follow this rule often have to sacrifice their convictions first and foremost. It is, of course, widely accepted that it is usually necessary to adjust to daily demands and conditions of life, as long as they do not infringe upon faith or Christian morals. A Christian who is inspired by true love for his fellow man is always cheerful, polite, helpful, obliging, and willing to endure everything that does not go against his beliefs.

Nevertheless, here is the limit of his magnanimous disposition to conform to the world’s dictates. Let those around him heed neither divine revelation nor the teachings of the Church. Let them be carried away by public opinion to do their provocative deeds. Let them trample upon divine and human moral law without remorse. Let them scorn our Orthodox tradition. The faithful Christian will lament the spiritual disability of his fellow men, but of course he will never imitate them. His personal conscience, illuminated and guided by faith, remains his sole compass.

For how could it be otherwise? Does delusion cease to be delusion when accepted by the majority? Does evil, when done on a wide scale, not remain just as evil? Does moral duty, even if forgotten and unacceptable to the many, lose its transcendent and universal authority for him?

The Apostle Paul emphasizes to the unstable and faltering Christians of all ages: “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2).

So, if the whole world has forgotten the divine truths and has sunk into evil—“the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19)—in order for the teaching of the Gospel to be realized and for the will of God to prevail in all things, it is often both necessary and natural to distinguish ourselves precisely from those whose will does not agree with the divine law and whose life is not characterized by an Orthodox Christian spirit.

In this regard, the Old Testament presents us with an impressive example in the person of Tobit.

He lived in an era when the Hebrews, forgetting the countless blessings of God, fell into idolatrous delusion. The apostasy was so widespread that the words of the Prophet David could have applied to that time: “They are all gone astray, they are altogether useless, there is none that doeth good, no not one.” (Psalm 13:4).

However, amidst the deluded crowd, Tobit remains firm in his faith, adhering to the traditions of his ancestors and the divine law given at Mount Sinai. When everyone else was rushing to worship the golden calf, Tobit would go to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship the true God, offering the first-fruits of his fields and a tenth of all his income.

Then came the dark years of slavery, laden with trials, captivity in the land of the Assyrians. Yet, even now, he does not betray the path of truth. He remains steadfastly devoted to the ancestral law. Thus, while everyone else ate the meat of pagan sacrifices, the idol-offerings, which were forbidden by God’s law, he never once did “what everyone else does.”

Tobit’s ultimate testimony of faith, amidst his idol-worshipping nation, was his risky approach—diametrically opposed to that of his cowardly countrymen—on the issue of the burial of the dead, a matter vital to the Israelite conscience. He defied not only public opinion, their comments and mockery, but also the tyrants’ decree that forbade the burial of dead Israelites under penalty of death. Each evening, he would leave his humble home to perform—alone—the sacred duty of burying any unburied bodies of his unfortunate enslaved fellow-countrymen that he might find.

From the Holy Scriptures we know well the blessings with which the Lord rewarded him—not immediately, of course, but only after first testing his steadfast and courageous adherence to the divine law under the most desperately adverse circumstances.

Likewise, we too are called, amidst the formidable masses that are (voluntarily or, usually, involuntarily) mobilized against the faith and the Church of Christ, to distance ourselves as courageous individuals, to set ourselves apart from the others. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate,” writes the Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 6:17); and Saint John Chrysostom comments: “Let us accept the counsel of the teacher of the world and consider what sort of men Christians ought to be; how they ought to be strangers to the present life, not to dwell somewhere outside and far from this world but rather, while living in this world and interacting with it, to live not as the world lives, thus shining like stars and showing the unbelievers through their works that they have transferred themselves to another polity, and that they have nothing in common with the earth and worldly things.” Therefore, we Christians will not sacrifice any of our principles and beliefs, nor the “jot” or “tittle” of our ecclesiastical life, for the sake of humbly pleasing those who act unlawfully.

THE SACRIFICE OF FREEDOM

It is noteworthy that the harmful rule “we must not stand out from others” is most often followed by people who like to call themselves “liberals,” without realizing that by conforming to this mass mold, they are denying their personal freedom and surrendering themselves to a humiliating slavery.

Saint John Chrysostom writes very accurately once again: “The crowd is, unfortunately, our master and a terrible tyrant... The great crowd, disorderly and insignificant, does not need to give orders; it need only show us its preferences, and we immediately obey everything. ‘And how,’ they say, ‘can one avoid these tyrants?’ If he acquires a mindset superior to theirs, if he carefully examines the nature of things, if he despises the opinion of the many, if, above all, he trains himself so that, in matters that are truly shameful, he fears not men but the ever-watchful eye of God, and in good matters, he seeks again the crowns that He bestows.”

Let us all openly ask ourselves: A person who is afraid to stand out from others, who does not dare to openly express his beliefs—is he truly free? He would be happy if he could express himself without hesitation, according to the voice of his conscience, but he does not dare. He is not free. He is a captive to “public opinion.” The mere presence of people with opposing views paralyzes him.

He is very bold and acts according to his conscience when he is alone or in an environment that shares his beliefs; but observe him when he is among the unsteady crowd. You won’t recognize him! He becomes a different person, thinking and living like everyone else. He denies his personality, his freedom of thought and conscience. He is a slave, and indeed, the most miserable of slaves.

This expression does not conceal any form of exaggeration. Is there perhaps a more wretched form of slavery than not being able to express what you feel and to act as you desire?

He who is fettered by such psychological complexes is often compelled to humble himself greatly. The fear of “standing out from others” forcibly drives him to participate at times in soul-eroding conversations or to occasionally smile at blasphemous and vulgar jokes against the faith. Such a tactic, however, is not only unfree but leads to the complete debasement of one’s personality.

So, these are the inevitable consequences of the rule “there is no reason to stand out from others, but it’s better to behave like everyone.”

The early Christians and martyrs behaved entirely differently. In front of the bloodthirsty judges’ judgement seat and the angry hostile crowds, they did not hesitate to boldly confess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They would ask the Christian: “What is your name?”

“Christian!” he would answer.

“What is your profession?”

“Christian!”

“Where are you from?”

“Christian!”

Always the same majestic and courageous response, which often put the persecutors in a difficult position, sometimes it troubled them, and not infrequently it led them to Christ.

This is the genuine Christian spirit: a spirit of sincerity, steadfastness, true freedom, a spirit diametrically opposed to the humiliating theory of “there is no reason to stand out from others.” “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power.” (2 Timothy 1:7).

THE SACRIFICE OF HONOR

But does this tactic of “chameleonism,” by stripping the Christian of his principles and of his own self-liberty, at least ensure the respect and esteem of others, for which it primarily aims? It would be completely irrational to assume such a thing. Common opinion on spiritual matters—as we’ve already mentioned—often misses the mark. However, it never rewards characters who vacillate. How can we deny it? People love and in fact admire, even if only inwardly, those with steadfast and clear convictions, and their respect for those who stand unwaveringly by their principles runs deep.

This held true even in the idolatrous world. A pre-Christian wise man, desiring to portray the image of a virtuous person, emphasizes that nothing can deter him from fulfilling his duty: neither the exceeding power of tyrants, nor the pressure of public opinion, nor even the destruction of the entire... world!

The following action of the pagan emperor Constantius Chlorus is very convincing regarding the truth of what we are now supporting. Wanting to test the Christian officers of his retinue, he announced that he would keep close only those who would immediately renounce their Christian faith. Some then, taking a step forward, declared that they were ready to renounce. Then Constantius, casting them a contemptuous glance, dismissed them as unworthy of his trust.

The same contemptuous gaze, whether overt or hypocritically veiled, is the reward of the cowardly and the faint of heart, who are ready to betray their principles at an ironic smile. People disdain them, while, conversely, they respect those whom nothing can deter from the Christian way of life which they have chosen. Not only do they respect them, but sometimes they are ready to emulate them.

One incident illustrates this. At a luxurious hotel, an official dinner was held during a fasting period. Everyone was eating non-fasting foods. Someone, however, ordered fasting food, resulting in many ironic smiles and offensive comments. Nonetheless, the calm and confident demeanor of the faster and his witty and serious responses quickly forced his superficial table companions to fall silent. One person in fact even rose from his seat and, expressing his admiration for the steadfastness of the first, added, “I don’t want only you to have fasting food tonight. I too am an Orthodox Christian, and from today I will follow your example.” He immediately asked them to serve him fasting food.

* * *

We must realize that a great danger to Christian life is posed in our days by the widespread distribution of the mindset that says, “There is no reason to stand out from the others.”

It is worth remembering that the pagan philosopher Plato, in the fifth century before Christ, highlights this danger to ethical life through the persona of Socrates. In the dialogue “Crito,” he personifies this petty concern “lest we incur the disapproval of the majority” in the character of Socrates’ disciple, Crito. But Socrates responds: “We should not give any thought to what most people will say of us. No, we should heed what the person who knows justice and injustice says, that one person, and truth itself.”

Speaking almost prophetically, besides not caring whether he will stand out from the majority, Socrates emphasizes the opinion of the one, the chosen one, who in our case is none other than God, the “One and Truth itself.”

Those, however, who consider Socrates and Plato “obsolete,” as well as the other wise man who said “to me, one excellent man is worth ten thousand,” let them rest their pioneering thought on the “pioneering” Eugène Ionesco and specifically on his “Rhinoceros,” which convey the same message, namely Socrates’s distrust of the opinion of the many and, even closer to us, the apostolic exhortation, “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2).

We remind the reader that in this work, the famous playwright allegorically presents some originally isolated cases of men who, following a rather beastly way of life, took on the external form of the rhinoceros, arousing of course the abhorrent aversion and dread of “good society.” Later on, however, these cases of metamorphosis increased, until the last ones who did not transform and remained human became the target of… rhinocerotic irony and contempt, feeling insecure because they were “different from the others,” in other words, because they did not become rhinoceroses themselves!

Between the teachings of Plato’s Crito and the pioneering message of Ionesco, for us Christians a remarkable prophecy by the illiterate teacher of the desert, Anthony the Great, holds a central (in terms of time and value) position, which we read in the Gerontikon:

“Abba Anthony said, ‘A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, “You are mad,” because he will not be like them.’”

If we are not already traversing this prophesied era, we are certainly very close to it. Of course, madness should not be our ambition, even if it is collective. Let us be ready to hear many times with philosophic dispassion the words, “You are mad.”

In any case, our collective experience, which is not so small, convinces us that those few and isolated individuals who have not been swept away by the current of mass adoption of ideas (whether social, political, or religious) are not so few, though they are admittedly isolated.

Of course, a very large portion of the world (not “the whole world”) is indifferent to spiritual values, ignores the voice of conscience, and tramples on the eternal law of God. There are many, however, especially among the youth, more than we suspect, who have not submitted to the mentality of the crowd and the leveling of the globalization that is being promoted, who have not deigned to betray their principles for a fake sociality, who have not “bowed the knee to Baal,” who have remained faithful to the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ and uncompromising in the ecclesiastical struggle for virtue. It’s just that, as we said, while they are not so few, they are “isolated” and unknown to the many, who are in need of such support.

It is true that “good does not make noise.” We agree. It is also true that the “remnant of the Lord,” which has not conformed to “this world,” is not—must not be—ostentatious. Finally, let it at least not be... shy!

So, for those of us who have been more or less influenced by the destructive theory that “there is no reason to stand out from the others,” it is an urgent necessity of the times to reject it as soon as possible. Without big words, let our stance, flowing from our genuine ecclesiastical experience, be the denunciation of this theory.

By steadfastly observing the bright commandments of our faith and of our Church, without guilty shame, full of courage, it is certain that we will soon enjoy the appreciation, trust, and respect of our fellow men. Even if this does not happen, the Lord Himself will abundantly reward us for our steadfastness and courage. Therefore, let us confess Him everywhere and always, “Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).

 

Translated by Nicholas Nelson (typos corrected) and published by Uncut Mountain Press.