A Necessary Reply to Vladimir Moss (1993)

 A Necessary Reply to V. Moss

By Fr. Gregory Telepneff, Ph.D.

In the second issue for 1993 of Orthodox Tradition (Vol. X, pp. 40- 44), Bishop Auxentios of Photiki wrote an enlightening article, "The Truth About the Greek Old Calendarists," in response to a book recently published privately in England by Vladimir Moss, The Sacred Struggle of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece: 1919-1992 (Mayford, Woking, England, 1992). His Grace's rather blunt but polite response to many of the factual errors in Mr. Moss's book was virtually a defense of the ecclesiological position of our Synod of Bishops and reflected the conviction of a New Calendarist professor of theology at the University of Athens, who recently referred to "the sole hope for traditionalism in Greece, the witness of the Old Calendarist Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, who stands apart from the scandals and money-changing of the other Old Calendarist factions." Thus, while Bishop Auxentios' presentation of the facts in his review of Moss's book was certainly objective, one must admit that his interpretation of these facts was guided by his faithfulness to the witness of our Church. Nor was his review free of personal objections to many of the unseemly and libelous attacks by the extremist Old Calendarists, whom Mr. Moss defends and follows, against several of our own Bishops. Nonetheless, His Grace avoided any vituperative remarks and tried to express his opinions with charity.

For reasons best known to him, Mr. Moss has published another article on the Old Calendarists, "Does 'World Orthodoxy' Have Grace?," essentially a commentary on what he considers the faulty ecclesiology of our Synod of Bishops—rendered partly as an ad hominem attack against the integrity of Metropolitan Cyprian—and the apostasy of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad from an Orthodox confession, followed by a recapitulation of the ecumenical excesses of the Orthodox modernists in recent years, events unknown neither to our Bishops nor to those of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. One can only regret that Mr. Moss chooses to write in such a vitriolic style, blithely condemning individuals as liars, as having corrupt and hypocritical motivations, and as wholly outside the Faith for not holding precisely his own views. And though he claims to support all that he says—and, in particular, his condemnation of the ecclesiology of our Synod of Bishops—with writings from the Holy Fathers and the decisions of the Church, he quotes no Fathers and cites only a few Church canons, and these according to his own interpretation.

Given Mr. Moss's opinion, that Grace does not exist among the New Calendarist Orthodox, it would fruitless for us to put forth once again our views on this issue (viz., that the ailing New Calendarist Churches are not without Grace at this time); to explain the Patristic tradition of walling oneself off from those in error; and to defend our Synod's ecclesiology, on canonical and Patristic grounds, against the personal ecclesiology of one who wishes, not to include as many as possible under the saving umbrella of the Church, but to exclude them by a cold, formalistic rendering of the Church's mystical and nuanced teachings on ecclesiology and Grace. Given Mr. Moss's antipathy towards the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, it would be an equal waste of our time to defend the ecclesiology of that Church, which has taken a heroic stand against modernism and political ecumenism in the contemporary Orthodox world. We will also avoid citing once again the unethical and sadly divisive tactics of the extremist Old Calendarists. However, we would like to make a few points about further factual errors in Mr. Moss's essay, if only because, built as his argument is on conceptual, and not spiritual, notions, his "house of cards" falls at the slightest puff of factuality.

First, Mr. Moss decries the recent creation of a traditionalist Orthodox "bloc" comprised of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, the Romanian Old Calendarist Church, and the Greek Old Calendarists under "Metropolitan Cyprian of Orope (sic)," pointing out that Metropolitan Cyprian was "canonically defrocked by a large Synod of True Orthodox Bishops led by Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Athens in November, 1986"—this large Synod being none other than that to which Mr. Moss himself adheres. In fact, the truth is quite simple, as Bishop Auxentios pointed out in his review of Mr. Moss's book on the Old Calendarists (op. cit.). When, in 1979, Metropolitan Kallistos, a former Matthewite who disavowed that Synod's extremist ecclesiology and condemnation of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, consecrated, together with Metropolitan Antonios, Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili to the Episcopacy, it was into the very Synod which Kallistos served as President. In 1983, Metropolitan Kallistos was retired as President of the Synod and the Presidency was assumed by Metropolitan Antonios. Then, abruptly in 1984, Antonios and three other Bishops (Kalliopios, Kallinikos, and Matthaios) left the Holy Synod and, without consulting the two other Bishops in the Synod (Metropolitans Cyprian and Giovanni of Sardinia), joined the Old Calendarists under Metropolitan Gerontios. Later, these Bishops joined with the Old Calendarists under Auxentios, subsequently deposing Auxentios and joining under Archbishop Chrysostomos II, who styles himself the successor of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Fiorina, the first Hierarch of the True (Old Calendar) Orthodox Church of Greece, who, we should emphasize, never claimed the Archepiscopal See of Athens.

Metropolitans Cyprian and Giovanni remained in the Synod of Metropolitan Kallistos (Antonios), despite the fact that four of their fellow Bishops had left them in a totally uncanonical way. The Synod which was finally formed under Chrysostomos declared the New Calendarists to be without Grace. (Indeed, some of these Bishops claim to disagree with this decision privately, while others consider the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, from which the present-day Greek Old Calendarists received their "orders," to be without Grace, having specifically singled out the pious and respected ROCA Archbishop Mark, a German convert, as lacking even Baptism!) In addition to this, these same Bishops—some renegades from our own Synod, others under Gerontios, then Auxentios, and then Chrysostomos—defrocked Metropolitan Cyprian as an "ecumenist" for believing that the New Calendarists have Grace. They widely published this "defrocking," despite the fact that Metropolitan Cyprian never belonged to any of the Synods formed by these Bishops in their tragic ecclesiastical vagaries! Moreover, Metropolitan Cyprian was never informed of the charges against him (again, by a Synod to which he did not belong!), and even now, seven years later, has never been so informed, having come to know of the action taken by these Bishops through newspaper reports. As though to add insult to injury, this same Synod refers to our Bishops here in America, Chrysostomos and Auxentios, as "defrocked Bishops," accusing the former of being married! They, too, have never belonged to these Bishops.

Of course, were the motives of the Bishops in question not so tragic—petty revenge and bogus claims to "authority" over all Old Calendarists—, they would be utterly comical. However, Chrysostomos' Synod claims—though certainly not in Greece, where the truth is obvious to all—to have more than a million followers and to be the continuation of the witness of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Fiorina, as we have noted. In fact, the Bishops in this Synod are, again, largely Bishops who uncanonically separated from our own Synod, represent a very small number of Old Calendarists in Greece, and have created scandals and divisions, occasioning the loss of many of the Old Calendarist Faithful in Greece to the State Church. Moreover, their extremist views have impeded more serious New Calendarist clergymen from looking at their witness as a serious one, making Metropolitan Cyprian's ecclesiological stand all the more appealing for its charity and theological precision, for which reason our Synod continually grows and has become a major traditionalist jurisdiction. The greatest tragedy is that, given these circumstances, attacks against Metropolitan Cyprian flourish, when in fact many of these Bishops have compromised their own canonical status by such.

To a reasonable person, then, any objection to the witness of the Greek Old Calendarists under Metropolitan Cyprian based on the false claim that the other Old Calendarists have defrocked him is simply ludicrous. However, Mr. Moss chooses to obfuscate matters by claiming, in very vulgar language, that Metropolitan Cyprian has distorted the facts in defending himself against Archbishop Chrysostomos and his Bishops. He claims, for example, that Metropolitan Cyprian joined the Old Calendarists knowing fully well that they denied Grace in the Greek Mother Church. In fact, Metropolitan Cyprian and his monastery entered the Old Calendar movement at the advice of the Metropolitan's spiritual Father, Archimandrite Philotheos (Zervakos), who warned him against the blasphemy of the extremist Old Calendarists. It was for this reason that Metropolitan Cyprian, an Archimandrite ordained in the State Church of Greece, was received by Archbishop Auxentios "as a Priest." He was not reordained. At the time, too, our own Bishops in America (then Hieromonks), like all of the Old Calendarists, were under Archbishop Auxentios; they, as well as Metropolitan Cyprian, who became a hero of the moderates, wrote openly and widely of their ecclesiology, which was embraced by numerous Old Calendarist zealots and which, after all, led to the creation of the Synod under Metropolitan Kallistos in 1979. There was no secret about where the moderate Old Calendarists stood under Auxentios, and Metropolitan Cyprian's pronouncements even reached America, where they were published in English (see The Orthodox Word, Vol. XII, No. 5[70], 1976, pp. 150- 159).

Mr. Moss also says that Metropolitan Kallistos believed the New Calendarists to have been without Grace and that our claim that he wavered in this conviction, published in Orthodox Tradition (Vol. X, No. 2, 1993, p. 41), "is a blatant lie." This nastiness aside, Metropolitan Kallistos did waver in his views. Bishops Chrysostomos and Auxentios, then as Hieromonks, accompanied Metropolitan Kallistos and Metropolitan Cyprian to Jordanville, NY, in 1979, where the former admitted that the new Synod under his Presidency did not categorically deny that the New Calendarists had Grace. When he was caught up in recounting the persecution of the Old Calendarists by the State Church—and His Eminence suffered immensely for his Faith, we should acknowledge—, Metropolitan Kallistos nonetheless told Bishop Chrysostomos: "How can one believe that these people have Grace?" The latter replied: "Then, Your Eminence, should I not commune or bury my Greek relatives, most of whom, as you know, are New Calendarists?" Metropolitan Kallistos responded: "Oh, no, no, no! We must honor our mothers and fathers. Love is the first commandment." There were ample witnesses to these events.

Let us also note that Metropolitan Kalliopios, one of the Bishops who left our Synod in 1984, in the presence of Metropolitan Cyprian, Bishops Chrysostomos and Auxentios, Metropolitan Kallistos, and a room full of the Bulgarian Old Calendarists now in our Synod, stated in 1980, in response to a question from the renowned Bulgarian theologian, Archimandrite Seraphim, "We do not deny that the New Calendarists have Grace." And let us point out that Metropolitan Petros of Astoria separated from the Synod of Auxentios over its refusal to recognize Grace among the New Calendarists. That not only Metropolitan Kallistos but other Old Calendarists with him—indeed Bishops who have condemned Metropolitan Cyprian and his Bishops for "ecumenism" and heresy for confessing the same thing— have at times acknowledged the Grace-bearing efficacy of the Mysteries of the New Calendarists is a fact. One should not use words like "blatant lie" before first seeing that what seems black is sometimes infused with a bit of gray. More importantly, we should exercise caution in citing the illegal and uncanonical actions of Bishops who, supposedly acting with sobriety, use their newly-confessed beliefs falsely to condemn those whom they have slandered.

Mr. Moss also intimates, in his attack against our Church's ecclesiology, that we have badly influenced the Romanian Old Calendarists, leading them away from the ecclesiology of Metropolitan Glycherie, who supposedly considered the New Calendar Church to be without Grace. In support of this supposition, Mr. Moss points out that, in the past, the Romanians routinely accepted New Calendarists by Chrismation. Here, prudence has been mistaken for extremism. Under communist rule, the Romanian Old Calendarists were often unable to know whether Christians embracing the traditional calendar, but Baptized in the Patriarchate, were properly Baptized. First, some Priests were "agents in cassocks," and it is open to question whether they were even ordained. Second, many Romanian clergyman, influenced by the modernism of the Patriarchate, also Baptize without reading the appointed prayers of exorcism and without immersion. In these cases, Chrismation is prudent—indeed, a rather liberal act of oikonomia, since these circumstances do not rule out a conditional Baptism. Mr. Moss should also remember that Priests coming from the Patriarchal Romanian Church have never been re-ordained by the Romanian Old Calendarists, unless of course there was doubt about the correct order of their ordinations.

Finally, Mr. Moss suggests that the Romanian Old Calendarists entered into communion with Metropolitan Kallistos in 1979, not with Metropolitan Cyprian. This is a ridiculous statement. For one thing, the Romanians to this day maintain communion only with our Synod of Bishops, from among all of the Greek Old Calendarists, rightly considering it the continuation of the Synod established under Metropolitan Kallistos, by which Synod, moreover, Metropolitan Cyprian was himself consecrated. They reckon the other Old Calendarists incorrect in their ecclesiology and uncanonical for having received Bishops from our own Synod in an improper way. In addition, it was not Metropolitan Kallistos, but Metropolitan Cyprian who first contacted the Romanian Old Calendarists and who introduced them to Metropolitan Kallistos. Metropolitan Cyprian, indeed, is considered a spiritual hero among the Romanian Old Calendarists, who gather by the tens of thousands when he visits there. Let me simply recount what I and my parish members heard from the lips of Metropolitan Vlasie when he came to America last year with Bishop Demosthene and concelebrated with our Bishops in Etna: "We will never forget Metropolitan Cyprian. He was a friend when no one else was there. When we were hungry, he brought us truckloads of food. He was loved by our Metropolitan Glycherie especially, and Metropolitan Sylvester loved him as a brother. We will never forget him and we will always remain in communion with him."

Mr. Moss's attacks against the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad are also meant to draw attention away from the fact that the fulcrum of his arguments against Metropolitan Cyprian—that he is defrocked by the Old Calendarists—rests on air. Quoting what he characterizes as the "most canonical" branch of the Catacomb Church of Russia, Moss suggests that the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has set up men of "evil morals" in Russia and that it is Orthodox "on paper, but not in fact." By condemning the Russian Church Abroad for "sordid ambition," Mr. Moss seems to suggest that Metropolitan Cyprian's ecclesiology is clearly condemned along with that of the Church Abroad, though he flat-out rejects the former as a defrocked hypocrite, while the latter he condemns for mere cowardice and for capitulation to the powers of world ecumenism and apostasy. One can only lament that we must reduce the burning issue of a united Orthodox front against modernism and ecumenism to an argument which characterizes moderate resistance as betrayal and extremism as something holy. This is certainly not consistent with the Royal Path of the Fathers and the charity which we should all seek in chastising even our enemies. If we speak of our brothers with such vitriol, how harshly will we be judged for the foul things that we would, it follows, probably utter against our enemies?

The bloc which Orthodox resisters in America, Russia, Greece, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere have informally established for the preservation of our Faith under the banners of the Russian Church Abroad, the Greek Old Calendarists under Metropolitan Cyprian, and the Bulgarian and Romanian Old Calendarists—this is not an exclusive bloc. It desires not to impede unity, but to foster it. It desires not to condemn, but to correct. It hopes not to destroy, but to build. Extremist views may have a logical appeal. We do not argue this. And by a cold, calculating application of the Holy Canons, one may be able to argue that the New Calendarists are without Grace. But the way of love teaches something quite different. If we have walled ourselves off from the innovators and ecumenists, we have thus protected ourselves, without thereby condemning innocent believers. We have left bridges standing, without having ourselves crossed to the wrong side. We have burned nothing, but have stood off at a safe distance, hoping that the bacterium of betrayal might of itself disappear, so that the purifying fire of love, and not that of punishment, might befall our brothers. We have lost nothing, but have gained everything. It is with great regret, then, that we lament the zeal of those who have lost not only wisdom, but the love which makes the wise what they are. It is our hope to condemn no one, but to call everyone to truth. And in this, we not only chastise Mr. Moss for words which are not true to Christian charity, but call him to a deeper understanding of the resistance which we can all embrace without name-calling.

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Volume X (1993), Number 4, pp. 11-17.