On St. Chrysostomos the New and his understanding of the Official Greek Church in his time

 E.6. A significant text of Saint Chrysostomos, formerly of Florina

 

Continuing this necessary reference regarding the climate of that time, particularly in our context, in order to understand what followed, we consider it beneficial to mention the views of Saint Chrysostomos, formerly of Florina, as they are expressed in his article "Why the Orthodox Churches Did Not Declare the Most Blessed [Archbishop Chrysostomos (Papadopulos) of Athens] Schismatic." [25] This is because those positions prevailed in the perception of events at that time, are openly and clearly expressed, and date back to a period when the Holy Synod of the Genuine Orthodox Christians was still united and unified; its members included both Germanos of Cyclades and Matthew of Bresthena. Saint Chrysostomos had returned a month earlier from his visit to the Patriarchates in the Middle East, which was accompanied by a miracle of Saint George. [26]

In this context, it would be good to also recall something significant, which perhaps has not been sufficiently noted. The three Confessor Hierarchs, Germanos of Demetrias, Chrysostomos of Florina, and Chrysostomos of Zakynthos, among their first declarative texts of 1935, when they returned to the Old Calendar and assumed the leadership of the Genuine Orthodox Christians, issued an important document titled: "Protest to the Orthodox Churches on the Unilateral and Uncanonical Introduction of the New Calendar," which was published in a special issue. With this Protest addressed to the Hierarchs of the other Churches, they announced the reasons for their break in communion with the Hierarchies of the Local Churches that accepted the Liturgical Innovation, but not with those that did not accept it. [27] This, aside from their hope for support in their Struggle, which was foreseen as difficult and humanly dangerous, also declared their conviction that they were not breaking communion with the entire Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, those Local Churches that did not accept the Calendar Innovation did not appear to react dynamically against those that accepted it, except perhaps for a certain period by the Patriarchate of Alexandria.

This is of particular significance for understanding the stance of the responsible leaders of our Church, especially that of Saint Chrysostomos of Florina, during the decades that followed, if we are to be objective and avoid falling into deliberate or unintended misunderstandings.

Following this, we proceed with a brief presentation of the views of Saint Chrysostomos of Florina in the aforementioned significant article of his from June 1936, to which he returned in the subsequent years:

The Hierarchs who, since 1935, aligned themselves with the Old Calendar, based on the Holy Canons and Traditions, strive to unite Christians and the Local Churches, which the New Calendarists, who innovated, divided in the celebration of the feasts through their accursed Innovation. For the Calendar Innovation separated the Churches and the Christians in the timing of the celebration of the feasts and the observance of the fasts, in violation of the Holy Canons (see, for example, Canon 90 and 91 of the Quinisext Council, and Canons 37 and 39 of the Council of Laodicea), which anathematize those who celebrate feasts and fasts together with the heretical heterodox.

Therefore, we, who severed all spiritual communion with Chrysostomos of Athens, did so in good conscience, because we do not wish to remain under the weight and the anathema of the aforementioned Holy Canons. We even declared him schismatic, because he himself had previously opined in such a manner, as a member of a relevant Committee, that the unilateral adoption of the New Calendar by one Orthodox Church constitutes a reason for schism with the others that uphold the Old.

However, the Archbishop of Athens takes as a lifeline the fact that the other Orthodox Churches, which remained with the Orthodox Calendar, did not sever spiritual communion with him and with the Churches that innovated. Instead, they continued to commemorate one another as usual during the Divine Liturgies of the respective Primates of the Local Churches. Yet, this does not absolve him of the responsibility for the schism, which essentially exists, even though its formal declaration is postponed for a future Ecumenical or Great Local Council. Notably, during the Inter-Orthodox Preconciliar Conference at Mount Athos in 1930, the representatives of the Hierarchs of the Churches of Serbia and Poland refused to engage in joint prayer with the representatives of the Churches that innovated, citing the pretext of linguistic differences. They conducted their services in the Chapel of the Panagia Paramythia according to the Ecclesiastical Calendar.

The Churches that did not accept the New Calendar did not sever communion and commemoration with those that did, not because they consider that the Innovation does not violate the Holy Canons and the Holy Tradition, but because they do not wish to unilaterally condemn the change, reserving the matter for a future Ecumenical Council to address it, adjudicate it based on the Holy Canons and Tradition, and decree that any Church persisting in the Innovation should be cut off. For this reason, Chrysostomos of Athens does not wish for the convening of a Pan-Orthodox Council, so as to avoid being condemned and held accountable for his grave guilt.

This is the reason why the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch also maintain a cautious stance on this matter, "who, in response to our fraternal plea for their assistance in resolving this troublesome issue, which has shaken the Church and scandalized the consciences of Christians, promised me to take the necessary actions at an appropriate time for the convening of a Pan-Orthodox Council, the only competent authority to validly and canonically address this matter and to place persons and affairs in their proper order." [25]

Thus (we continue the concise presentation of his positions), the conclusion is that one or more Churches did not have the right to modify an institution of general ecclesiastical significance, such as the Ecclesiastical Calendar, which serves as a unifying link for all Orthodox Churches and as a compass for Divine Worship; for such a modification is the prerogative solely of an Ecumenical Council or a Great Local Council, which must subsequently receive ratification from an Ecumenical Council.

Therefore, every impartial judge can determine to what extent the Innovating bishops, who have been rendered accountable before the entirety of the Orthodox Church, were in a position to condemn those bishops who sought not only to relieve them from their future accountability before an Ecumenical Council but also to unite the [Local] Churches and the Christians, whom the Innovators divided in the celebration of the Feasts through their Innovation.

For we (emphasizes Saint Chrysostomos of Florina), having become bishops, have sworn to preserve intact and unadulterated all that we have received from the Ecumenical Councils, avoiding every innovation. And because we wished to remain faithful to this, we did not accept the Innovation of Chrysostomos of Athens, but denounced it as being in opposition to Orthodoxy and the decisions of the Pan-Orthodox Councils of Constantinople in the years 1583, 1587, and 1593 under Jeremias II, who characterized the Papal Calendar as a universal scandal and an arbitrary violation of the divine and sacred Canons. [25]

 

E.7. Ecclesiastical actions and clarifications of particular significance

 

We also recall that in his letter dated April 10, 1936, from Jerusalem to the new Patriarch of Alexandria, Nicholas V, Saint Chrysostomos of Florina urged him to convene a Great Local or Ecumenical Council for the valid resolution of the Calendar issue, in accordance with the decision of the Church of Alexandria under Patriarch Photius. [28]

On November 10, 1936, Saint Chrysostomos of Florina did not hesitate to send a "Report to the Governing Synod of Greece regarding the opinions of the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem in relation to the Ecclesiastical Calendar," where he informed the Innovating Hierarchy of Greece about the assurances he had received regarding the convening of a Great Local or Ecumenical Council as the only competent authority for the valid and canonical resolution of the calendar issue, aiming to put an end to the scandals and bridge the division that had arisen. [29] For this reason, he also issued an appeal to the Innovating Hierarchy, "that they too may contribute to the convening of a Pan-Orthodox Council, the only competent body to remove the scandals and unite those who have been divided… to restore the unity of the entire Orthodoxy… within the one Holy and Indivisible Orthodox Eastern Church, in accordance with the divine and sacred Canons and the conciliar decrees of the Seven Holy and Ecumenical Councils." [29]

This stance of Saint Chrysostomos of Florina, to which he was also encouraged by the then Patriarch of Jerusalem (“also urging my humble self toward the spirit of unity” [29]), was foreseen from the very beginning, as is clearly evident in the following excerpt from his work, which he wrote on July 1/14, 1935 while he was still in exile at the Holy Monastery of Saint Dionysios on Mount Olympus:

"[We] boldly and magnanimously raised not the banner of rebellion against Orthodoxy and the division of Christians, as they did [Meletios Metaxakis and Chrysostomos Papadopoulos], but the glorious and honored standard of the union of the fragmented Orthodoxy and the peace of the Church within the framework of the venerable Traditions and the divine and sacred Canons." [30]

At that time, in July 1935, he even went so far as to write the following, which, evidently, during their time were either not noticed or not understood:

"Therefore, we, having proceeded to the denunciation of the Most Blessed [Chrysostomos] and the Synodal Bishops, declared them to be schismatics as individuals and not as representatives of the concept of the Church. And this we did justly and as a sacred duty, to safeguard the Orthodoxy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece from the potential fear and danger that the responsibility for this ecclesiastical coup might be attributed to them, and that they might be declared, in a future Ecumenical Council, as schismatic by the other Orthodox Churches, which firmly adhere to the Orthodox calendar." [31]

* * *

These positions, therefore, were publicly expressed and officially presented, and we are not aware of any evidence indicating that at the time (1935–1936) when they were articulated and published (and not later, retrospectively), they had provoked any public reaction from any of the Genuine Orthodox Christians.

Saint Chrysostomos of Florina generally adhered to these positions and expectations until the end of his Struggle, as did his key collaborators and companions, despite the fact that—as we will see below—there was no unanimity regarding whether these views on the accountability of the Innovators and the anticipation of a Great Council constituted a decisive factor for the most effective and decisive ecclesiastical synodal organization of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece at that time and especially in the subsequent decades.

We consider it appropriate to clarify that the hope for the possible convening of an Orthodox Council by the local Orthodox Churches to resolve the Calendar issue was officially maintained in our Church until the mid-1960s, as will be examined in detail, especially in the second volume of this work. However, later, with the more apparent ecumenistic turn and evolution of events, this expectation was no longer continued. We believe that our forebears in the Faith went as far as they could to demonstrate their good and noble intention, despite the existence of those who, from the outset, advocated for extreme solutions and even criticized those who, out of spiritual sensitivity and pastoral discernment, insisted on the path of benevolent Economy and certainly not on reprehensible transgression!…

 

NOTES

25. Ibid., p. 2. Regarding the stance of the Churches that remained with the Old Calendar toward those that accepted the Innovation of the New, the following is also written: "If the Churches that remained faithful to the Old and Orthodox Calendar have not thus far declared as Schismatic those that adopted the Western calendar for the immovable feasts, this is due to temporary circumstances that did not permit... the convening of an Ecumenical Council" (Former Metropolitan of Florina Chrysostomos, The Ecclesiastical Calendar as a Criterion of Orthodoxy, op. cit., p. 35).

26. See its description in Elias Angelopoulos-Dion. Batistatos, Metropolitan Former Florina Chrysostomos Kavourides – A Fighter for Orthodoxy and the Nation, Athens 1981, pp. 22–25.

27. The "Protest" concluded with the characteristic statement: "For these reasons, invoking divine Grace upon the entire Orthodox Church, we remain the least of brethren in Christ and co-celebrants" (Athens, printed by N.D. Frantseskakis, Kapodistriou 36B, 1935, p. 32).

28. See Former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, Memoranda – Letters – Apologies in Relation to the Julian Ecclesiastical Calendar, Athens 1941, pp. 35–36. In the same letter, it is revealed that Former Florina also traveled to Alexandria at that time, but the locum tenens, Metropolitan Theophanes of Tripoli, declared him unwelcome, and his disembarkation from the steamship was prohibited (Ibid., p. 33).

29. Ibid., pp. 7, 9–10, 16, 17.

30. See Former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, The Ecclesiastical Calendar as a Criterion of Orthodoxy, op. cit., p. 17.

31. Ibid., pp. 34–35. See also Clarification of the Pastoral Encyclical of His Eminence Former Metropolitan of Florina Chrysostomos, Athens, 18 January 1945, pp. 6–7.

 

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 Klemes of Gardikion [now Metropolitan of Larissa], Vol. I (Athens: Holy Monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina, 2019), pp. 114-123.