Chapter 7.1 - The Declaration of 1935 and Its Meaning

Source: Ἐπίσκοπος Mαγνησίας Xρυσόστομος Nασλίμης (1910–1973): Ἀκατάβλητος Ἀγωνιστὴς Πίστεως καὶ Ὑπομονῆς [Bishop Chrysostomos Naslimes of Magnesia (1910-1973): An Invincible Struggler in Faith and Fortitude], by Bishop Clement of Gardikion [now Metropolitan of Larissa], Vol. I (Athens: Holy Monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina, 2019), pp. 153-162.

We have seen that the purpose of the Struggle of the Confessor Hierarchs from 1935 onward was primarily for the unity of divided Orthodoxy and the pacification of the Church, based on its sacred Traditions and holy Canons.

In the Proclamation of May 1935, it was emphasized that those governing the Greek Church, through the unilateral, uncanonical, and ill-considered introduction of the Gregorian (New) Calendar, severed themselves from the entire body of Orthodoxy and, in essence, declared themselves Schismatics in relation to the Orthodox Churches that remained on the foundation of the Ecumenical Councils and the Orthodox institutions and Traditions, [1] namely, the Churches of Antioch, Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia, Poland, Sinai, Mount Athos, etc.

On June 8/21, 1935, before departing for their places of exile, and since the Innovating Hierarchy had condemned them and the State hastened to enforce the condemnatory decision—which included five years of exile and physical confinement in remote Monasteries—the persecuted Hierarchs issued a Pastoral Encyclical. In it, among other things, and even for the protection of their Flock, they emphasized the following in addressing them:

"[Their spiritual children] should have no spiritual communion with the schismatic church and its schismatic ministers, from whom the grace of the All-Holy Spirit has departed, because they have rejected the decisions of the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council and the Pan-Orthodox Councils that condemned the Gregorian calendar," [2] invoking also the First Canon of St. Basil the Great.

However, we also saw that just a few weeks later, the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, while in exile and confinement at the Holy Monastery of St. Dionysios on Olympus, where he wrote the significant work The Calendar as a Criterion of Orthodoxy (1/14 July 1935, p. 87), emphasized, among other things, the following particularly important and explanatory points:

"Therefore, having proceeded to the denunciation of the His Beatitude and the Synodal Hierarchs, we declared them Schismatics as individuals, and not as representatives of the concept of the Church. And this we did justly and as a sacred duty, in order to defend the Orthodoxy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece, out of a possible fear and danger that the responsibility for this ecclesiastical coup might be attributed to them, and that they might be declared Schismatic in a future Ecumenical Council by the other Orthodox Churches, which steadfastly uphold the Orthodox Calendar." [3]

This fear, according to the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, meant that if historical circumstances allowed and an Ecumenical or Great Council were convened, the Slavic Churches would declare as Schismatic those that accepted the Innovation, while the Churches that remained on the Patristic Calendar (Antioch, Jerusalem, Sinai, Mount Athos) would necessarily find themselves aligned with them, that is, with the Slavic Churches.

A fear that we might easily call unfounded today, but not for that time, given the conditions and circumstances of 1935. The mindset of the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina was, in fact, deeply patriotic, and in his works, the connection between ecclesiastical and national traditions, his love for the homeland, and his profound devotion to the interests of the Church and the Greek Nation are exceedingly evident and manifest.

If this religious and national fervor, which vibrated in the fiery heart and the Hellenic chest of the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina, as well as his mindset and devotion to the institutions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece—which he served sacrificially throughout his entire life with exemplary self-denial—are not understood, it will not be easy to correctly comprehend what follows.

In the above excerpt from his work in July 1935, the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina distinguishes the individuals who hold leadership positions in the Church, whom he considers temporary and unstable, from the institutions—namely, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece—which, at least for him, as well as for Metropolitan Germanos of Demetrias, were placed above the pettiness and mistakes of the individuals who serve them, sometimes well and sometimes poorly, because they viewed the corrupting influence of those individuals as temporary.

To convey the reasoning of the aforementioned Confessor Hierarchs at that time, we say that individuals fall and are easily led astray, also leading many others into their error, as happened with Meletios Metaxakis and Chrysostomos Papadopoulos. In this way, they separate themselves from the right-minded, thereby becoming deserving of separation and repudiation—that is, ecclesiastical and canonical walling off from them and denunciation of their actions, so that the appropriate bodies of the Church may address the matter.

However, the same does not apply to the institutions. For institutions served by erring individuals to also be considered fallen—meaning for the Ecumenical Patriarchate itself, the other Patriarchates, and the Local Churches themselves to be drawn into the fall and removed from the Church—an ecclesiastical judgment must be conducted according to the provisions of the Canonical Law of the Church. [4] This process entails a Synodal convening and ruling. It is evident that our Hierarchs did not believe that the Innovators had fully dominated the institutions.

The calendar issue of a canonical nature at that time was, for the restorers of Orthodoxy, Germanos of Demetrias and Chrysostomos, Former Metropolitan of Florina, a matter in dispute before a Pan-Orthodox Council. For this reason, they struggled for its convocation, as it was not easy for them to accept that through the Calendar Innovation, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Church of Greece had automatically fallen away from the reality of the Church.

This is not in contradiction or opposition to their diagnostic declaration, which they issued under the pressure of events, stating that the Primates of Constantinople and Athens, along with their Synods, through their unilateral, uncanonical, and even coup-like decision, caused a local Schism. As those responsible for the Schism and as persecutors of Orthodox Christians, they removed the sanctifying Grace of the Holy Spirit from their Mysteries. They made this declaration to emphasize and underline in the strongest possible way the seriousness and necessity of their salvific action in defense of Orthodoxy.

However, this position of theirs did not negate or invalidate the actual ecclesiastical reality that the Churches which did not accept the Innovation—despite their open or implicit disagreement—continued to commune with those that had accepted the Innovation, awaiting a Synodal resolution of the issue and a final decision on all related matters.

The Schism, as explained by the former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, in 1937 in his remarkable apologetic work Refutation of the "Rebuke" of Archbishop of Athens Chrysostomos Papadopoulos—which, it should be noted, is astounding for its profound knowledge of the Calendar issue from every perspective—was "local" and carried the potential for an official general schism in the future. "After all, this schism essentially exists, even though it has not been officially declared by a Pan-Orthodox Council, whose convocation is continually postponed from year to year due to the unsettled times and the opposition of the national aspirations and goals of the Orthodox states." [5]

We believe that within this secure framework, the declaratory-proclamatory Statement of June 1935 by the Confessor Hierarchs regarding the validity of the Mysteries of those who innovated is also understandable, as they awaited an official and final judgment.

Until then, however, according to the assurance of the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina: "The New Calendarists and the Old Calendarists, though they both have the same faith and the same divine worship, cannot fully belong to one and the same Church when some are still going through the period of the Forty Days and of repentance, while others are celebrating Christmas and Theophany and rejoicing. This, in our humble opinion, is the complete and precise understanding of the meaning and significance of the Dogma of the unity of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church." [6]

From this, it becomes clear that the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, did not ecclesiastically equate the Innovators and the Non-Innovators, the guilty and the innocent, those responsible/burdened with Schism and those opposed to it. Furthermore, his struggle for the restoration of those who had deviated and misrepresented the voice of the Ecumenical Patriarchate or the Church of Greece did not mean that he considered these institutions entirely free from blame, for institutions are ultimately not completely independent of the individuals who express and embody them but are burdened by the serious and, especially, irreparable errors of their representatives.

* * *

In light of this complexity and with good hopes for clarifying the issue, the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, not alone but with the agreement and consent of the other Hierarchs, traveled from December 1935 until the spring of 1936 to the Middle East for discussions and consultations with the Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch, as well as Alexandria.

If these Patriarchates, merely due to their communion with the Innovators of Constantinople and Athens, had automatically fallen from the essence of the Church, then what would be the purpose of informing them and seeking their assistance for an ecclesiastical resolution of the issue and schism that had arisen? Furthermore, what would be the reason for attempting to raise awareness, even within the Innovating Church of Greece, in November 1936, to persuade it to accept and contribute to resolving the division through a Pan-Orthodox Council?

But why was there this insistence on a Pan-Orthodox Council, which was then expected imminently? Once again, the Holy Former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, provides a clear explanation:

"When the Pan-Orthodox Council convenes to resolve this issue, it will face the following dilemma: either it will modify the Paschal Canon established by the First Ecumenical Council, which we consider impossible, or it will oblige the Churches that arbitrarily innovated to return to the Patristic Ecclesiastical Calendar, disregarding whatever calendar the State may use and thereby rendering 'to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.'" [7]

Things seemed so clear at that time, and such optimistic hopes were being cultivated.

At the same time, as we have already mentioned several times in the previous chapters, the intense political maneuvering and the promises of political figures that they would contribute in their own way to resolving the Calendar issue—which, in any case, had been created through direct state involvement—greatly influenced the strategies of the Confessor Hierarchs in their efforts to assist in achieving the most beneficial outcome in every respect for the struggle they were undertaking.

Following all the above, which we believe are particularly decisive but have not been properly emphasized or adequately assessed until now, we proceed with a brief presentation of the most significant events that marked the timeline of division within the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece.

 

FOOTNOTES

1. See this in the work of Stavros Karamitsos-Gamvroulias, The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Athens 1961, pp. 119–121.

2. See this in the journal Tà Pátria, issue no. 1 (January–March 1976), Piraeus, pp. 19–23, with reference to its original publication in the Athens evening newspaper of that time, Týpos, on 21 June 1935. Also, in the work The Holy Monastery of St. Nicholas of Paiania and the Sacred Struggle Against Ecumenism, Paiania 2008, pp. 91–93.

3. See The Ecclesiastical Calendar as a Criterion of Orthodoxy: Apology of His Eminence, Metropolitan Chrysostomos, Formerly of Florina, to the Orthodox Greek Conscience, published by Keryx ton Orthodoxon, Athens 1935, pp. 34–35.

4. It is well known what St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite summarizes in the Sacred Pedalion concerning those under deposition and excommunication, that "they are subject here to deposition and excommunication or anathematization, and there to divine judgment," because "the command of the Canons, without the practical enactment of the Synod, is incomplete, not operative by itself immediately and prior to judgment" (see pp. 4–5, footnote 2, on the 3rd Canon of the Holy Apostles). In the history and practice of the Church, during periods of heretical attacks, it was necessary to convene a Synod for diagnosis, confirmation, and complete-final condemnation. For example, for the restoration of Orthodoxy in 843 A.D., after the second phase of Iconoclasm, which had already been condemned by the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787, a Great Synod was needed to issue, among other things, the declarative proclamation of the final condemnation of the Iconoclasts, as stated in the Synodicon of Orthodoxy: "To those persisting in the heresy of Iconoclasm, or rather in the Christ-denying apostasy... (and) to those irrevocably held captive by this delusion, and to those who have closed their ears to every divine word and spiritual teaching, as being already decayed and cutting themselves off from the common body of the Church, anathema" (see Triodion of Compunction, publ. "Phos," Athens 1967, p. 158).

5. See Collected Works of Former Florina Chrysostomos Kavourides (1871–1955), Volume One, published by the Holy Monastery of St. Nicodemus, Elliniko, Gortynia, 1997, p. 294.

6. Ibid., p. 276.

7. Ibid., p. 250.