STATEMENT REGARDING "INVALID MYSTERIES" Part 1

Recently, through certain posts and comments on various New Calendarist blogs, the stance of the Old Calendarists regarding "invalid Mysteries" (as primarily expressed in the Encyclicals of 1950 and 1974) has been brought into discussion as the main obstacle to unity between the Orthodox Anti-Ecumenists of the Old and New Calendar.

After informing once again that the view asserting that the Mysteries of the New Calendarists are invalid is not the belief of every Old Calendarist, we declare that we do not accept this position. On the contrary, we accept the view that the only authority competent to decide on the validity of the Mysteries is the Church in a synodal manner when Ecumenism and the ecumenists are condemned.

On the other hand, there is also the corresponding position regarding the "invalid Mysteries" of the Old Calendarists, as expressed by the prevailing Church of Greece:

a. Through its Encyclical No. 2389/2203 of April 16, 1926, concerning the Calendar, according to which "the decisions of the Church are absolutely binding, and whoever does not obey no longer belongs to it, is deprived of the means of divine grace, is severed and cut off from it, and is subject to eternal damnation" (Archimandrite Theokletos Strangas, History of the Church of Greece, vol. II, pp. 1405-1409).

b. Through the Session of its Hierarchy on August 3, 1946, in which it was decided that "all the Mysteries performed (by Old Calendarist priests) are considered invalid and as never having taken place" (ibid., vol. IV, p. 2556).

c. Through the Encyclical of July 28, 1948, which states that "those ordained by the deposed and self-styled bishops of the Old Calendarists, in order to be received into the bosom of the Church, must be accepted through ordination" (Synodal Encyclicals, vol. II, pp. 470-471).

d. Through its Conclusion on November 8, 1958, according to which: "Those supposedly ordained by the self-styled bishops of the Old Calendarists, when coming to the Church, are received through ordination… as for marriages, it considers them as not having been performed" (Archimandrite Theokletos Strangas, History of the Church of Greece, vol. V, pp. 2952-2953).

[In the discussion of the hierarchy that followed, the following was said: (Metropolitan) Dionysios of Kozani: "Your Beatitude and Most Reverend Holy Brothers, we have left unresolved the issue of marriages performed by pseudo-priests of the Old Calendarists. In the approved conclusions, it is stated that the Church considers such marriages as not having been performed. Shall we then proceed with the repetition of the Mystery?" (Metropolitan) Iakovos of Attica: "Of course." (Archbishop) Theokletos of Athens: "It is correct to decide on the repetition of the Mystery, but we should not publicize this decision" (ibid.)].

e. Through the Opinion of the Synodal Committee on Dogmatic and Canonical Issues of 2006, according to which: "The Mysteries of the Old Calendarists are considered as never having taken place and must be repeated from the beginning"

(https://web.archive.org/web/20110101113310/http://www.ecclesia.gr/greek/holysynod/commitees/dogma/aftoxeires.htm [archived link].

f. Through the hundreds of reordinations, rebaptisms, and general repetitions of Mysteries performed by Old Calendarists, as well as through the dozens of statements by individual New Calendarist hierarchs regarding the "invalid Mysteries" of the former.

g. Through the countless acts of violence against the Old Calendarists—imprisonments, exiles, trials, beatings, defrockings, excommunications, the sealing of churches, the trampling of the Holy Communion, the overturning of epitaphios processions, the shaving of clergy, and murders—which were the result of the theory of "invalid Mysteries," and for which we possess a special archive with evidentiary material.

We, as blogs, declare that we do not accept the position regarding "invalid Mysteries," as mentioned above, and we call upon the aforementioned authors and the New Calendarist blogs to likewise declare their rejection of the corresponding position—that is, the notion of the "invalid Mysteries" of the Old Calendarists who follow Orthodox Bishops with Apostolic Succession—so that this first obstacle to unity between the Anti-Ecumenists of the Old and New Calendar may be removed from both sides.

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Sources:

http://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.gr/2017/06/blog-post_15.html
http://entoytwnika1.blogspot.gr/2017/06/blog-post_17.html

Shared: https://orthopraxiaa.blogspot.com/2017/06/blog-post_15.html