Final Encyclical of St. Chrysostomos the New, Hierarch and Confessor

Ecclesiastical Encyclical to the Faithful Orthodox Christian Flock

 

Most devout priests, most honorable Councillors, Church Trustees, and the rest of the Orthodox Christian faithful flock of our Churches.

Grace be to you all and peace from God, and from us good favor and blessings.

And always, but especially in these latter times, during which, by judgments known only to the Lord, all of humanity is tormented in the crucible of deprivations, afflictions, and bitterness, living under the nightmare of fear and terror of a third world war, it is incumbent upon the Shepherds of the Christian Churches to offer through encyclicals the necessary pastoral exhortations and admonitions to the Christian faithful for their enlightenment and strengthening, so that they may be able, with courage and Christian patience, to face the sufferings and adversities of these difficult and stormy times.

Feeling this obligation ourselves, beloved and most cherished children in the Lord, we formally issue and address this present Encyclical to the entire Orthodox and Christian faithful flock of our Churches, invoking your earnest diligence and undivided attention to everything that the pastoral duty towards you has dictated to our paternal heart, with the good hope that these will contribute to the enlightenment and strengthening of your spiritual forces, so that you may be able to face resolutely and with truly Christian patience and perseverance all the tribulations that the severity and critical nature of the times, through which both our Church and our Nation are passing, engender and bring forth. Yes, beloved children in Christ, many indeed are the afflictions and unexpected are the dreadful evils that surround us and fill the days of our lives with anguish and bitterness, but our sins are also many and abominable to God.

If we turn an examining and psychological gaze and investigate our ecclesiastical, national, social, and familial condition from a Christian and moral perspective, we shall see that, with few exceptions, we are not in proper order before God, before the Church, before the State, before Society, before the family, and before the moral obligations toward our neighbor. For this reason, we suffer and are discontented. Yet, for all our misfortunes and hardships, we sometimes blame the Divine Providence, which holds and wisely governs all things, sometimes the elements of nature, sometimes the State, sometimes the Church, and sometimes everyone else except ourselves, who are the primary ones responsible for our misfortunes and afflictions.

For example, the ground shakes beneath the earth, and in the terrible eruption and fury of "Enceladus," it opens its devouring and abyssal mouth and swallows everything—houses, furniture, precious vessels, and entire fortunes acquired through years of labor and costly sacrifices. It mutilates the inhabitants, and in an instant, mercilessly and without distinction of gender or age, sends some to the dark and sunless tomb of Hades, spreading bitter mourning and despair where, moments before, happiness, family joy, and laughter reigned. All these dreadful and calamitous evils we attribute to the volcanic nature of the earth and not to our many sins and wrongdoings, we who are solely responsible for all the misfortunes and sorrows of humanity.

Indeed, the All-Good God, "who desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," being untempted and free from all evil, never tempts or harms mankind. It is man's evil desire that tempts him, and its offspring, sin, when it is accomplished, gives birth to misery and eternal death. Thus, the divine Apostle Paul says: "Through the envy of the Devil sin entered the world, and through sin, death" (Rom. 5:12). And James says: "Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed" (James 1:14).

Consequently, for the afflictions and destructions, we must blame ourselves and our sins, and not God or the elements of nature, which, being irrational, lifeless, and impassive, were ordained by the All-Good God to serve and benefit man through their eternal and unbreakable laws when he is in proper order before God, but to punish and harm him when, through his sins and wrongdoings, he disregards and provokes God. Thus, the divine Apostle, to confirm that the cause of all human blessings and evils is man himself and his inclinations, says: "Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap; he who sows to the flesh will reap corruption and death, but he who sows to the Spirit will reap incorruption and immortality." Therefore, when people see the misery and misfortune into which the adverse times, economic deprivations, and hardships plunge the world, they attribute the causes of these misfortunes to chance coincidences and unforeseen external events, independent of their will, or even to divine will and punishment, but never to their own errors and evil inclinations.

Commenting on the moral state and the corruption now prevailing more than ever before in the Greek family and society in general, and lamenting over the pitiable decline of society, some blame the Church for this moral dissolution and spiritual unbridling. They do so because, as they claim, the governing Church supposedly tolerates seeing the moral carriage of society rushing headlong toward the descent of ruin and destruction, without taking the necessary measures through its spiritual instruments to halt it from the abyss of perdition. To substantiate their assertions, they often invoke the widely accepted adage that shifts responsibility from the majority: "The fish rots from the head." However, this proverbial saying, in this case, does not hold true regarding the primary causes of moral corruption and dissolution but only as concerns the circumstances that give rise to and manifest the calamitous results of such a condition.

This is because the leaders of the Church, its administrative officials, and its organs do not come from a different race or society but are themselves from the same race and the same fabric as Greek society, as flesh of its flesh and bone of its bones. Besides, the moral organs of the Church, the priests, are indeed appointed by the governing Church but are elected by the people, who confer upon them respect and provide the means for their dignified sustenance—something entirely justified when they possess a profound sense of their sacred and divine mission and prove themselves to be workers of goodness and virtue.

However, when a clergyman of any rank is shown, by his overall conduct and behavior, to be unworthy of his lofty mission and a source of scandal, and yet the people tolerate him passively, without considering the moral harm he causes to the entire parish, this fact vividly testifies to the moral laxity of the people themselves. For if the people were in a better state morally, not only would the spiritually disabled and morally discredited not ascend to ecclesiastical offices, but also those ordained due to poor judgment or ignorance on the part of the ordaining bishop—if they were proven unworthy of their sacred and lofty calling and morally harmful—would not be tolerated by the people if they were indeed in a better moral condition. The tolerance shown by the people toward such a clergyman, along with their bovine apathy and indifference to the great moral damage caused by this unworthy clergyman to the entire parish, is undeniable proof that the people themselves are not in a better state from a religious and moral perspective.

It often happens as well that when the ecclesiastical authority punishes such a clergyman with suspension or another penalty, the parish—that is, the people—protest and demand the lifting of the punishment for that clergyman. Thus, by a natural and inevitable consequence, the clergy and the leaders and officials of the Church cannot constitute, although they should, an exception to the general rule of the people from a religious and moral perspective.

Proof of this is the recent events that occurred following the unilateral introduction of the Gregorian calendar into the Church by the Hierarchy, as a result of which a notable portion of staunchly Orthodox and patriotic citizens canonically severed ecclesiastical communion with the Hierarchy.

For this group preferred to remain faithful to the old tradition of the Patristic Ecclesiastical Calendar and to the related decisions of Pan-Orthodox Councils (1587 and 1593) under the Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II Tranos, who characterized the Gregorian calendar as "a novelty of Old Rome, a global scandal, and an arbitrary violation of the Sacred Canons," rather than conforming to the uncanonical decision taken by the Hierarchy. Certainly, this division, which the Hierarchy caused within the Church through the calendar reform, would undoubtedly have been avoided if the Orthodox Greek people—those faithful custodians and tireless guardians of Patristic Orthodox institutions and traditions—had opposed this unilateral and uncanonical decision of the Hierarchy with a canonical refusal, justifying that they could not condone the disregard of the old ecclesiastical tradition. We have numerous examples from Church history in which the steadfast adherence of the Orthodox people to religious traditions and to the ecclesiastical ordinances and divinely inspired decisions enacted by Ecumenical Councils—presided over in harmony with the All-Holy and guiding Spirit—has preserved their observance and safeguarding intact and unaltered through the centuries, due to their piety and their religious intuition, which is a work of Divine Providence.

But did the people and the various religious organizations show any sympathy or religious solidarity for the well-known sufferings endured by this notable group of Old Calendarists during the harsh and medieval persecution waged against them, as they ought to have done? A persecution initiated by the Hierarchy and the then Government, which sought not only to undermine the prestige of the Greek Hierarchy but, more gravely, the sacred and age-old authority of the Orthodox Church!

Justice and sincerity, however, compel us to advocate, in this matter, on behalf of the Orthodox Greek people and to recognize for them certain mitigating circumstances for their indifference. This is especially so if we consider, on the one hand, their lack of full understanding of the religious and noble motives that inspired the Old Calendarists in their sacred struggle, and, on the other hand, the regrettable excesses, entirely contrary to the ideology of the struggle and the moral mission of the honorable fighter, committed by a faction of Old Calendarists of the Women’s Monastery of Keratea under the leadership of Bishop Matthew of Bresthena and the Abbess, the revered nun Mariam Soulakiotis. With this faction, our group has no ecclesiastical communion or solidarity. Unfortunately, those who initiated the relentless persecution against us exploited these excesses of the Monastery of Keratea to justify, in the common conscience, the entirely unjust and unchristian measures they took against our faction, without making any distinction between honorable and self-serving fighters.

And as if the aforementioned excesses committed by the leaders of the Monastery of Keratea were not enough—excesses for which they were accused by the Official Church in civil courts, resulting in the immediate perpetrators and moral instigators of the wrongdoing being sentenced to ten years of imprisonment—the aforementioned titular Bishop of Bresthena, Matthew, proceeded on his own to ordain nine other bishops from among the monks of the Monastery. These monks were devoid of any theological education and pastoral qualifications, in violation of the divine and sacred Canons, which strictly require, for elevation to the Episcopal rank and ordination, the concurrence of three or at least two canonical bishops, and this only as an ecclesiastical concession in times of persecution.

The aforementioned "bishops," who were elected and ordained uncanonically by a single titular bishop, after the death of their patron, convened an uncanonical synod under the presidency of the so-called "Holy Metropolitan of Thessalonica," Demetrios, and issued a Synodal Encyclical. In it, among other things, they announced to their naive and small group of faithful that they proposed conditions under which they would agree to unite and cooperate with us. Although we had no intention of reopening an issue that had already been exhausted and is thus considered "closed," nevertheless, wishing to quiet the consciences of our own faithful and explain why we cannot agree to this, we respond as follows. One of their conditions is that we accept the ordination of three additional bishops to complete a twelve-member synod for the canonical governance of the Church of all Old Calendarists in Greece. However, being fully aware of the divine and sacred Canons and having a profound understanding of our sacred and lofty mission, we reply to them through this encyclical that we cannot recognize their episcopal and pastoral status, which was acquired through uncanonical and personal means, until a Pan-Orthodox Council determines their status and subsequently grants them episcopal and pastoral authority and the right to shepherd the Church—if, of course, they possess the necessary qualifications for this.

It should be noted that, apart from the canonical and ecclesiastical reasons that currently prevent us from recognizing them as legitimate bishops and shepherds, we also have other equally serious reasons for rejecting their episcopal status and cooperation with them. These reasons pertain to their close association with the Monastery of Keratea, which has fallen so deeply in public esteem due to the judgments issued against it by the criminal courts of the State that it is now held up as an example of exploiting religion. For this very reason, even the followers of our Orthodox and conservative faction do not consent to union with the Monastery of Keratea. These faithful have, for thirty years, loyally and solemnly struggled not only for the honor and glory of ecclesiastical traditions but also for the honor and dignity of their own persons. They do not wish to share in the excesses and scandalous actions of the Monastery of Keratea and thereby become complicit in its tarnished reputation.

These points are provided for the awareness of both the followers of our faction, who represent the ideology of our sacred struggle, and the followers of the Matthewites and Mariamites, who have understood the struggle not as an ideal but as an enterprise and have exploited it in an unholy and shameful manner, promising not salvation but the destruction of their souls.

Finally, we recommend to our spiritual children under our pastoral care that they walk decently, as the divine Apostle instructs, as wise and not as unwise, redeeming the time, for the days are evil, not forgetting that they pass through snares set before their feet by the envious and arch-evil Demon, who seeks to capture their souls. Undoubtedly, our sufferings are many, and our afflictions unbearable, but as Orthodox Christians, we must not resent or grumble against Divine Providence, which permits these harsh trials for the benefit of our souls, knowing that afflictions work toward the perfection of our souls. For this reason, we must accept them with truly Christian patience and sweet hope in the All-Good God, who, as the Apostle says, will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength.

In such afflictions and hardships, the faith and spiritual courage of the faithful and good Christian are revealed, knowing that "through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God" and that the same God who permits the trials will also grant the good outcome of the temptation, so as to crown the valiant struggler and victor with the glorious crown of victory. For, as the holy Chrysostom says, the driver knows how much weight the donkey can bear, how much the mule, how much the horse, and he places an appropriate load so that the burdened animal does not bend and collapse under excessive weight. Similarly, the potter knows how long the vessels must remain in the kiln of fire, so that if left too long, they do not crack from excessive heat, nor if removed too soon, before sufficient firing, do they remain unusable. Much more so does the omniscient and loving God know what kinds and degrees of temptations to permit the evil one to impose upon the faithful, so as not to lead them to despair and hopelessness, but so that through patience and perseverance in temptations, the faithful may work out the salvation of their souls. "Let us endure a little longer," said the 40 Martyrs, "so that we may receive the crowns of victory."

Let us also endure in the sacred and holy struggle for the ecclesiastical traditions, which, thanks to the efforts of the Administrative Council and the Members of the Great Committee, continues to progress, though at a slow pace. The most hopeful and encouraging sign is that the current National Government, under the illustrious and laurel-crowned Marshal, has begun, with the proper enlightenment of the Minister of Religious Affairs and Justice, to show an understanding of the sacred and lofty purpose to which the struggle for the ecclesiastical calendar is directed, the continued unresolved state of which poses great dangers even from a national perspective.

Let us not forget, however, that the greatest contribution to the success of our sacred struggle will come not only from our vigilance on the honored ramparts of this cause but also from our corresponding organization, cohesion, love, harmony, and coordination of our thoughts and actions with the appropriate authorities, as well as from our noble competition in the noble arena of moral perfection and progress. In this way, we may prove ourselves worthy of the honor with which God has deemed us, appointing us as guardians of ecclesiastical traditions and defenders of the venerable institutions of our Patristic Orthodoxy.

May the Lord grant us understanding in all things, along with enlightenment and strength from above, and to the leaders of the State and the officials of the Church, a spirit of peace and dispositions that are favorable and worthy of the height of their ecclesiastical and national mission, for the glory of Christ and the ideal of Helleno-Christian civilization. Amen.

At the Holy Monastery "Axion Estin," Varympompi, Attica, July 15/28, 1954.

 

Source: Άπαντα πρ. Φλωρίνης Χρυσοστόμου Καβουρίδου (1871-1955), Monastery of St. Nikodemos, Elliniko, Gortynia, 1997, Vol. II, pp. 455-462.