A Letter of St. Chrysostomos the New Confessor to Bishop Germanos (Varykopoulos) of the Cyclades in response to the latter’s Open Letter of October 20, 1937
To His Grace, Bishop Germanos of the Cyclades:
According to the dictates of logic and basic decorum, before
printing your response, dated October 20, and issuing a communique to the
Christian flock, you ought first to have directed it to me, prior to its
publication. But since you did not have the courage or the candor to face me,
who am working by the light of day and struggling honorably and sincerely, not
to mention with self-denial and self-sacrifice, on the adamantine battlements
of the truth and of Orthodoxy, you had recourse to publishing your response
openly, because you regard the public as easy prey to the nets of falsehood,
deception, and slander, which you spread with all flippancy and dishonesty on
the path of your Christian community.
We would otherwise pass over this response of yours in
silence and disdain, both because, for want of courage and candor on the part
of the author, it was not sent directly to us, and because it does not provide
any new arguments worthy of comment and reply, were we not afraid that such
silence might be misinterpreted by your naive and gullible followers as proof
that what you have said for the second time is true and incapable of any
contradiction or refutation.
Your Grace, at the beginning of your response, you allege
that our response to you was not marked by propriety, meekness, or fairness,
and that, supposedly looking to Christ, the Chief Shepherd, as you say, you
forgive us for our inappropriate and unfair characterizations of you, and that
you are only standing up for the truth and for Orthodoxy.
Believing that it is superfluous for us to say that one does
not insult his opponent, but characterizes him justly, when he demonstrates,
not through words, but through deeds and irrefutable reasoning, that the latter
is lying shamelessly, that he is concocting odious and despicable slanders, and
that he is misusing Divine and Sacred Canons in order to play the demagogue and
to exploit a sacred struggle, we will now prove that Your Grace is also lying
and dissembling, when you assert that you are standing up for the truth and
defending Orthodoxy!
Your Grace, as one who holds a doctorate in theology and a
university degree, you surely cannot be ignorant of the following elementary
and fundamental teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church: The Divine Apostles
founded the Church of Christ on earth, equipping and arming her with the power
of God and the Grace of the All-holy Spirit, which is imparted to the Faithful
through the Holy Mysteries. Consequently, they alone have the right to
establish or abolish a Church, that is, to declare her heretical or schismatic,
when she deviates from the Orthodox Faith, and to render the Grace of Christ
and the sanctifying power and energy of her Mysteries invalid or inefficacious.
This right, that is, to establish or dissolve a Church, was
imparted by the Divine Apostles to their disciples, and they imparted it to
their successors, and in this way, through succession, this right devolved to
the authority of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
According to this fundamental principle of the Eastern
Orthodox Church, a Church only has validity and her Mysteries only have
sanctifying Grace and energy, when she is established or recognized by the
universal Orthodox Church, and she only loses her validity, and her Mysteries
only lose their sanctifying power and energy, when, on account of some wrong
belief, she is proclaimed heretical or schismatic by the entire Church, whose
authentic opinion and final judgment are expressed by an Ecumenical and Pan-Orthodox
Synod.
On this question, there is a disagreement between the
Protestant Church, on the one hand, which grants this right that pertains to
true and correct faith also to individuals, whose personal opinion and
individual understanding regarding the mysteries of the Faith can serve as a
touchstone of Divine truth, and the Latin Church, on the other hand, which
restricts this right solely to the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, the
Pope, whose opinion on matters of faith, when declared ex cathedra, constitutes the infallible criterion of Divine truth
and Orthodoxy.
This is why the Latin Church endorsed as a dogma the
infallibility of the Pope, when he speaks ex
cathedra on matters of faith.
This being so, everyone and every local Church is
Protestantizing or Latinizing when he or it usurps or appropriates the
prerogative of a Pan-Orthodox Synod and proceeds, on account of an uncanonical
decision by a Church’s ruling Synod, to proclaim the latter schismatic and to
pronounce her Mysteries invalid!
In the circumstances before us, the Canons allow individuals
only the right to disavow the First Hierarch when he departs from the limits of
the traditions [of the Church] and to break off all ecclesiastical communion
with him even prior to a Synodal verdict, as well as to denounce him to a
Pan-Orthodox Synod, which alone is competent to try and condemn him and to
proclaim him a heretic or a schismatic. We have done so, in accordance with the
Fifteenth Canon of the First-Second Ecumenical Synod [a.k.a., the Protodeutera
Synod of 861].
If, in leaving for exile, we called the Archbishop of Athens
a schismatic and the Church of Greece schismatic, we used the word “schism,”
not in the sense in which the Church uses it to indicate a rupture with the
Orthodox Church and the consequent estrangement from the Grace of Christ and
the Mysteries, but in the sense that, on account of the calendar innovation,
the Archbishop of Athens has cut himself and the Hierarchy that follows him off
from the other Orthodox Churches with regard to the celebration of the Feasts
and the observance of the fasts.
This secession by His Beatitude and the Hierarchy that
follows him gives us the right to put forward our personal and wholly
individual opinion, that His Beatitude and the Hierarchs who follow him,
insofar as they have sundered the unity of the universal Orthodox Church in the
simultaneous celebration of the Feasts and the simultaneous observance of the
fasts, have forfeited Divine Grace only potentially, and not in actuality,
abiding under the curses and anathemas which the Divine Fathers of the seven Ecumenical
Synods hurled against those who violate traditions and move the eternal
landmarks which our Fathers fixed.
But His Beatitude and the Hierarchs who are of like mind with
him will only become actually deprived of Divine Grace and estranged from the
Orthodox spirit of the Mysteries when they are proclaimed as such, and as
schismatics in actuality, by a Pan-Orthodox Synod, which alone is entitled to
do this, according to the statutes of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
For this reason, the Divine Apostles and the God-bearing
Fathers, making provision for the salvation of the souls of the Faithful who
out of ignorance and in good faith follow the error of the leader of their
Church, did not make the spiritual welfare of the Faithful contingent upon the
decision of their First Hierarch, but upon the decision of a Pan-Orthodox
Synod; they are only condemned to being deprived of the Divine Grace of the
Mysteries and to spiritual death when, after the proclamation of their leader
as a heretic or a schismatic by a Pan-Orthodox Synod, they continue to maintain
communion with him, accepting his blessing as a true and Orthodox pastor.
That you are not ignorant of this fundamental canonical
principle, Your Grace, and that, as a result, you are lying when you present
yourself as supposedly defending the truth and championing Orthodoxy by your
proclamation that His Beatitude, the Archbishop, is a schismatic and that the
Church of Greece is deprived of the Divine Grace of the Mysteries, is
demonstrated by the fact that, in the discussion held at the recent meeting of
the Synod concerning re-Chrismation [of New Calendarists], you sided with our
opinion, and, indeed, sharply censured the contrary opinion of the Bishop of
Vresthene [Matthaios], who is now your colleague and with whom you ended up
exchanging personal recriminations, calling him a “Christmonger.”
Likewise, in the Church of the Transfiguration, Your Grace
harshly condemned the idea of re-Chrismation, explaining in your sermon the
meaning of Holy Chrism and quite correctly characterizing the repetition of it
by Old Calendar Priests as uncanonical.
In the light of all of this, what is the matter with you,
Your Grace, and by what were you inspired to present yourself as a colleague of
like mind with the Bishop of Vresthene, and without first coming to meet with
us, such that you denounced us as having allegedly fallen away from Orthodoxy
and aligned yourself with the Bishop of Vresthene who, according to you, is a
Christmonger, and with Manessis and Gounaris, whom you portray as pillars of
Orthodoxy, whereas, until very recently, you were calling them opportunists and
betrayers of the struggle?
Likewise, Your Grace, you dissemble and utter outright
falsehoods when you assert that it is unnecessary and superfluous to convene a
Pan-Orthodox Synod or a major local Synod for the authoritative and definitive
condemnation of the calendar innovation by the Archbishop, since the
Pan-Orthodox Synods of 1583, 1587, and 1593 condemned the Gregorian Calendar.
And this is so, because you know fully well that the
aforementioned Synods condemned the Gregorian Calendar, but that this
condemnation concerns the Latins, who implemented this calendar in its
entirety, whereas the Archbishop adopted half of it, applying it to the fixed
Feasts and retaining the Old Calendar for Pascha and the moveable Feasts,
precisely in order to bypass the obstacle of this condemnation.
In view of this, the innovation of the Archbishop in applying
the Gregorian Calendar only to the fixed Feasts and not to Pascha, which was the main reason why the Gregorian
Calendar was condemned as conflicting with the Seventh Apostolic Canon, is
an issue that appears for the first time in the history of the Orthodox Church.
Consequently, the convocation of a Pan-Orthodox Synod is not
only not superfluous, as Your Grace declares ex cathedra, like another Pope, but is actually required for the
canonical and authoritative adjudication of this issue.
This is precisely why the other Orthodox Churches which stand
on the ground of the traditional calendar have not broken off ecclesiastical
communion with the innovating Archbishop, waiting to express their opinion and
judgment until a Pan-Orthodox Synod should convene in the future, which alone
has the right to try and condemn him, if he adheres obstinately to his
innovation.
And when Your Grace, like another Pope, characterizes us as
heretics, because we have not proclaimed the Church of Greece schismatic and
her Mysteries invalid on account of the Archbishop’s innovation, but have
restricted ourselves to breaking off ecclesiastical communion with him even
before a Synodal verdict, in accordance with the Fifteenth Canon of the
First-Second Ecumenical Synod, then you must also proclaim the other Orthodox
Churches, which have not broken communion with the innovating Archbishop, heretics
twice over, in which case you will be left as the sole Orthodox Hierarch, along
with your like-minded collaborator, the Bishop of Vresthene!
If you take this step, Your Grace, you put an end to the life
and die age-old history of the Orthodox Church, since you are proclaiming all
of the Orthodox Churches as a whole to be heretical, thereby falsifying the
declaration of the Lord to His Disciples when He said: “Lo, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world.” [Matt. 28:20]
You see, Your Grace, to what absurdities and to what an
abysmal precipice this reckless and populist policy leads you; for you not only
defile the sanctity of our struggle, to serve which we elevated you to the
vantage point and honor of a Bishop, but you also annul die meaning and
substance of the universal Orthodox Church.
Likewise, Your Grace, you knowingly dissemble and lie, when
you place us in the camp of the holy monasteries of the Holy Mountain, which
keep the traditional calendar, but commemorate the New Calendarist Ecumenical
Patriarch in their services. And this is so, because you are fully aware that
we not only do not commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch, as a New Calendarist,
or the innovating Archbishop, but have also broken off all ecclesiastical
communion with these Hierarchs, who personally bear sole responsibility for the
innovation.
But you draw this parallel witlessly, Your Grace, thinking,
in your superficiality, that you might thus provoke the Sacred League of
Zealots of the Holy Mountain, because this association in fact concurs with our
canonical and Orthodox opinion and has very sternly repudiated and condemned
the Zealot Priests Gideon, Hilarion, and Akakios, who apostatized from us, as
well as the separatist Bishops of Vresthene and of the Cyclades, for splitting
our Orthodox segment, and this on the eve of the return to the Old Calendar by
the official Church.
In the wake of all of this, Your Grace, you have the naivete—
to say no more than this—to persist in asserting that we split off our Orthodox
faction to the detriment of the struggle, as though you were its leader when we
rose up, and not we, who, through all that we maintained, wrote, and printed,
have upheld the struggle, for the sake of which we sacrificed
everything—thrones, pleasures, quietness, home, and relatives—, not shrinking
from facing these woes of exile, in spite of our advanced age, whereas you have
made no noteworthy spiritual contribution to the struggle, which you joined in
order to receive the rank of Bishop and to use it for the fulfillment of
vainglorious desires and opportunistic purposes.
Your Grace, you have reached such a degree of madness as to
state with mouth wide open and the tongue of Thersites that we have abandoned
the flag of our struggle and betrayed it to the Archbishop of Athens! Your
Grace, we joined the struggle under the banner of the restitution of the
Patristic Calendar to the Church, setting as our primary goal, not the creation
of a permanent ecclesiastical division, but the pacification of the Church and
the union of all [Orthodox] Christians in the celebration of the Feasts. When
we raised this flag of Orthodox unity, we proclaimed right from the beginning
not only that we would uphold the right-believing authority of the (Ecumenical
Patriarchate and the Church of Greece, which the innovators have unworthily
upset, but also that we would curb the excesses towards which the calendar
struggle was deviating, bereft, as it was, of pastoral supervision, by way of
the Hagiorite Priests who headed it, because of a lack of theological and
canonical education, uncanonically
re-Chrismating the children of New Calendarists, to the detriment of the struggle and to the diminution of its Orthodox
authority.
And not only have we not abandoned this flag, but we have
also added both luster and glory to it, and we will also soon unfurl it in
triumph, by the power of Christ, on the Orthodox citadel of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate and the Greek Church. Yes, Your Grace. If the rosy twilight of a
new day of the triumph of Orthodoxy has begun to dawn on the horizon of the
Greek Church, this, by the power of Christ, is due to the Orthodox, Christian,
and truly Hierarchical stand that we have maintained towards the official
Church and the State, not shrinking from standing up, as a Hierarch, to the
force that was used against us, so as not to forsake or betray the glorious and
honored flag of Orthodoxy and of our Orthodox Faith and confession.
For your part, Your Grace, you and your fellow-apostate, the
Bishop of Vresthene, deluded by the prestige of the Episcopal rank, rebelled
against us, out of lust for power and luciferian pride, precisely at a crucial
point of the struggle, in order to divide the unifying Orthodox segment and
thereby to thwart the victory and triumph of Orthodoxy.
But do not fret! The triumph of Orthodoxy will soon be
celebrated by the entire population in the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Greek
Church, by the power of Christ and by the truly Orthodox and patriotic desire
of our God-protected King and the efficacious leadership of the Greek
Government, and all of the true Orthodox Greeks will receive the crown of joy
and glory, as they deserve, unlike you and your small band of followers who,
like the foolish Virgins, will be excluded from the Orthodox bridal chamber and
will lament in vain your loss of this spiritual joy and delight. [Cf., Matt. 25:1-13]
Let this be my last word on the subject, Your Grace, for the
satisfaction of the truth, and I pray to God that, in His infinite mercy and
forbearance, He may forgive us for the great sin that we committed in elevating
you to the rank of Bishop, may bring you to your senses and guide you on the
saving paths of conscience and repentance, and may at the same time crown our
sacred struggle with success, through the restitution of the Patristic
Calendar, to the glory of Christ and of His Orthodox Church.
Athens,
November 9, 1937
Metropolitan Chrysostomos
(formerly) of Florina
Translation by Archimandrite Patapios
(Barker) of St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, Etna, CA. Published with additional
material in Resistance or Exclusion? The
Alternative Ecclesiological Approaches of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Florina
and Bishop Matthew of Vresthena, Center for Traditionalist Orthodox
Studies, 2000.
