On the fifty-fifth Anniversary of the Repose of the
Confessor-Hierarch Metropolitan Chrysostomos (Kabourides), of Phlorina (†1955)
By Bishop Klemes of Gardikion, Secretary of the Holy Synod in
Resistance
[Currently Metropolitan of Larissa of the Church of the
G.O.C. of Greece]
Even as ecumenism charges forth
in all of its forms, pronouncements, and manifestations—indeed, precisely at
the outset of a potentially decisive meeting of the concessionary theological
dialogue between Orthodox and Roman Catholics [1] in Vienna, Austria [2]—we
commemorate at the Liturgy three anniversaries of a leading figure in
contemporary Orthodoxy: the 55th anniversary of the repose in the Lord of
Metropolitan Chrysostomos (Kabourides) of Phlorina, the 75th anniversary of the
initiation of his struggle as a Confessor for the Traditions of the Holy
Fathers, and the 140th anniversary of his birth in Madytos, Eastern Thrace.
Our celebration is not untimely,
and his multifarious messages are not unrelated to the tragic realities of the
Church today.
From history, we are aware that,
even as far back as Apostolic times, the “mystery of iniquity” [3] has been
active and at work, be it openly or in hidden manner. Its ulterior purpose is
to impede and, if possible, to thwart the mystery of salvation within the
mystery of the one and unique Church of Christ, and in particular by
adulterating the Truth of the Faith through heresies. The aim of the “mystery
of iniquity” is to bring about the spread and domination of “apostasy,” [4]
which, at its apogee, will beget and disclose “the man of sin..., the son of
perdition,” [5] to wit, the Antichrist, for the final tribulation of the Church
prior to the Second and glorious Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
* * *
The great heresy of Papism, which
was cut away from the Church in the eleventh century, has unleashed, as is well
known, an uncontrollable torrent of innovations and false teachings. One of
these was the concoction, in the sixteenth century, of the so-called Gregorian
Calendar, which was condemned by three Pan-Orthodox Synods in Constantinople,
in 1583, 1587, and 1593. Since then, the persistence of the Latins in foisting
their calendar innovation on the Orthodox Church has been looked upon as Papal
intrigue and was categorically rejected by Orthodoxy up until the beginning of
the twentieth century. [6]
In 1920, the Encyclical of the
Œcumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople “To the Churches of Christ
Everywhere” proclaimed the ecclesiological heresy of ecumenism in the midst of
the Orthodox Church, proposing as a first practical measure for rapprochement
with the heterodox a common calendar for the joint celebration of the Christian
Feasts.
The ecumenist Congress of 1923 in
Constantinople, under Patriarch Meletios (Metaxakes), a Freemason, decided on
the calendar innovation, with the intention of also changing the Paschalion,
along with a series of ecclesiastical reforms, so as to abrogate and trample
upon the Sacred Canons and the Tradition of the Church.
In 1924, the Œcumenical
Patriarchate unilaterally resolved, after exerting suitable pressure on
Archbishop Chrysostomos of Athens, to impose the calendar innovation on just a
few of the local Orthodox Churches. The Church was divided and sundered into innovationists
and anti-innovationists, with regard to the issue of the Calendar. A “small
flock” in our country [Greece—Trans.], which increased daily, initially
without Hierarchs, resisted in a self-sacrificial manner this pro-heretical
imposition, which lacked any ecclesiastical, canonical, or pastoral foundation,
being based solely on worldly and pseudoscientific arguments.
The innovationist Church in
Greece, which dubbed the New Calendar the “revised Julian Calendar,” even
though it will not coincide with the Gregorian Calendar until 2800, had no
inkling of the “grave confusion” [7] that this reform had introduced into the
life of the Church or of the “reaction” [8] of the God-loving flock. Thus, the
“intervention of the civil authorities” [9] proved necessary for the
“implementation” of the calendar innovation, which is for this reason, too,
contemptible and rejectable.
The “unfortunate repercussions” [10]
of the innovation were palpable. A fair number of the faithful refused to
accept it and formed the “Greek Religious Community of True Orthodox
Christians.”
* * *
There was a difference of opinion
within the Hierarchy of the innovationist Church over the issue of the
Calendar. Many traditionalist Hierarchs reacted against the innovation and
strove for the restoration of the traditional Church Calendar. One Hierarch
among them offered a very judicious observation, which touched on the heart of
the matter. To be precise, Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina [11] said at
the Tenth Session of the Hierarchy, on June 27, 1929:
In submitting a
memorandum on this subject, I implore you to take into consideration the fact
that the Calendar ought to be examined primarily from the standpoint of the
difference with the Catholics (Papists), against whom the Old Calendar
constitutes a bulwark for Orthodox Christians. This has great significance for
our nation and will have momentous consequences, the responsibility for which I
am unable to bear. [12]
In truth, the Church Calendar is
a “bulwark” against the machinations of heretics, and has from of old been
regarded as such in the Orthodox world, until the Shepherds themselves decided
to demolish it, thereby putting the Divine Vineyard in jeopardy.
Later on, the same
Confessor-Hierarch, now as the former Metropolitan of Phlorina and leader of
the anti-innovationist Old Calendarists, wrote elegantly that the Holy Fathers,
in order to safeguard the Orthodox Church from the false teaching of the West,
raised in the
form of ramparts and bastions the bulwarks of the Canons and Synodal
decrees.... One of these ramparts of Orthodoxy is the Church Calendar, which
separates the Orthodox Churches from the heretical ones in the celebration of
the Feasts and the observance of the fasts, and thus provides the simpler among
the faithful with a perceptible conception of the ecclesiastical difference
between the Orthodox Christian and the heretic or heterodox Christian. [13]
However, since this “rampart” was
demolished, the ecumenist divagation of the innovationists was thenceforth to
be expected, as we see it unfolding today!
* * *
The calendar innovation did not
come about for the sake of astronomical and chronometrical accuracy, as its
defenders maintained and continue to maintain, even though they are well aware
that the Church never posited such a criterion. Rather, it came about, as
Meletios Metaxakes admitted, for the sake of rapprochement with the heterodox
and to make an “impression on the civilized world through this” rapprochement!
[14]
These anti-Orthodox
motivations—again, according to the great innovator, Patriarch Meletios—aim
also at the inevitable adjustment of the Paschalion to the New Calendar.
[15]
The issue of the common
celebration of Pascha according to the New Calendar as it already occurs
in the Church of Finland, or according to some other putative calendrical
reckoning of more recent provenance, frequently recurs in ecumenical circles.
It is, moreover, no secret that the Orthodox ecumenists have a deep desire and
longing for this, since it is here that their calendar innovation of necessity
ends up.
Just a few days ago, the
ecumenist Patriarch Irinej of Serbia, during his visit to Austria, stated
(September 14, 2010 [New Style]), inter alia, at an ecumenical
get-together with the Roman Catholics, that the common celebration of Pascha
with the Catholics “is a matter of great necessity.” [16]
As may easily be inferred from
the examples cited above, we cannot separate the calendar issue from the
panheresy of ecumenism or, by implication, from the apostasy which is paving
the way for the pan-religion of the Antichrist and is sorely putting the members
of the Church to the test.
* * *
Metropolitan Chrysostomos, who
retired from the See of Phlorina in 1932, knew well that we Orthodox “are not
of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul.” [17] For this reason, with “faith,” “confidence,” [18] and
“patience” [19] as his sole provisions, he unyieldingly did the Will of God in
order to reap the good fruits of his vocational vows, and also in order to
check the incursion of pro-heretical forces into the Church, hence providing
solid ground for an Orthodox witness of resistance and a refuge for the
children of the persecuted Church at a time when apostasy was in the ascendant.
Thus, in May of 1935, together
with Metropolitans Germanos of Demetrias and Chrysostomos of Zakynthos, he took
the step of walling himself off from the innovationists and assumed the
pastoral care of the anti-innovationist community of the Church.
We scarcely need to emphasize
that this act of Confession required heroism of soul.
In their “Statement of
Abjuration” to the Hierarchy of the New Calendar Church, the three
Confessor-Hierarchs invoked the following serious reasons for their action:
—the unilateral
and uncanonical introduction of the Gregorian Calendar into the Church,
contrary to the traditions of the seven Œcumenical Synods and the age-old
practice of the Orthodox Church;
—the rupture of
the unity of the Orthodox Church and the division of the Christians through the
introduction of the Gregorian Calendar, without the consent of all the Orthodox
Churches;
—the
contravention of the Divine and Sacred Canons, which govern Divine worship, and
in addition, the violation of the Fast of the Holy Apostles;
—the rupture of
the unity of the Orthodox Church in the celebration of the Feasts and division
among Christians, which pertains indirectly to the dogma of the One, Holy,
Catholic, and Apostolic Church of the Symbol of Faith;
—the instigation
of scandal, division, and recrimination among Christians and the rejection of
concord, love, and solidarity.
For these reasons, they were of
the opinion that the ruling Hierarchy of the Church of Greece had cut itself
off, according to the Sacred Canons, from the wholeness of the Orthodox Church
and had rendered itself in essence schismatic, with the proviso that they (the
resisting Metropolitans) were struggling for the return of the Traditional
Church Calendar and the restoration of Orthodoxy and the peace of the Church
and the nation. [20]
* * *
This persistence on the part of
Metropolitan Chrysostomos in confessing the Faith—both then, at that critical
juncture, and also later on, until his death—was characteristic of him and
unshakable. He never lost the opportunity to proclaim that
We have boldly
and courageously unfurled not the banner of rebellion against Orthodoxy and of
division among Christians as have they [the innovators Meletios Metaxakes and
Chrysostomos Papadopoulos], but the glorious and honorable standard of the
union of disunited Orthodoxy and of the pacification of the Church on the basis
of hallowed Traditions and the Divine and Sacred Canons. [21]
He believed that we resisters
have full canonical justification for temporarily severing ecclesiastical
communion with the Hierarchy of the New Calendar Church, prior to a Synodal
verdict, and for “forming our own religious community provisionally,” [22]
until there is an authoritative and final resolution of the calendar question
by a Pan-Orthodox Synod.
The purpose of his action, far
removed from any personal motivation, was to reunite all of the Orthodox
Churches, which had become separated through the unilateral alteration of the
Festal Calendar, in the celebration of the Christian Feasts and the
simultaneous observance of the fasts. [23]
* * *
Given these few but wholly pithy
points, how can there be any validity in the accusation of schism and
disobedience against Metropolitan Chrysostomos as regards the Church of Greece,
and how can the decision to depose him, based as it is on this erroneous line
of thought, be considered valid?
Schism occurs when one refuses to
obey a lawful and canonical ecclesiastical authority and displays
insubordination towards it, [24] and certainly not when one withholds obedience
and subordination from an ecclesiastical authority that has introduced
innovations and which one has disavowed for reasons of faith and righteousness.
[25]
Metropolitan Chrysostomos did not
disavow the Hierarchy of the innovationist Church of Greece out of a desire for
leadership or out of self-seeking, but for ecclesiastical and canonical
reasons, which pertained not only to the Sacred Canons concerning Divine
worship, but also to the very unity of the One Church. [26]
There had been no rebellion
against the canonical ecclesiastical authority, the Confessor-Hierarch
affirmed, nor against the Orthodox Church of Greece per se, but a
rupture of ecclesiastical communion with the ruling Synod, since it had
deviated, through the calendar reform—according to a strict Orthodox
understanding of the matter— from the Canons and Traditions of the Church, and
since he could not brook any complicity in this deviation and rupture in the
unity of the Orthodox Church in the celebration of the Christian Feasts. [27]
* * *
In spite of this, the
innovationist Hierarchy proceeded hastily on June 1/14, 1935 to sentence the
three Hierarchs to deposition and monastic house arrest. [28]
This false and unjust deposition
falls flat, since it was based on the alleged insubordination and rebellion of
the accused. But it is also invalid for the reason that the members of the
Synodal tribunal were themselves subject to trial and in contest against the
Hierarchs who had walled themselves off; since the innovationists had no right
to sit in judgment on the anti-innovationists who had disavowed them; the
decision included the unheard-of penalty of house arrest; and the proper order
for summonsing a Hierarch to stand trial was not observed. [29]
Though at least the vast majority
of the anti-innovationist flock had accepted the Confessor-Hierarch, who had
been persecuted in this way as their Shepherd, he was twice exiled by the
authorities, at the instigation of the innovationists, as a malefactor (1935,
1951), frequently hauled before law courts on charges of allegedly usurping
authority, humiliated, despised, treated unjustly, and slandered,—though
without losing his sense of purpose, his vision and hope, or his boldness as a
Confessor.
* * *
Certain ill-disposed persons,
both then and now, have raised, and do raise, the question as to why the
Confessor-Hierarch did not hasten to align himself with the Old Calendarist
flock from the outset, but waited for eleven whole years (1924-1935), maintaining
communion with those whom he later denounced as innovationists.
Metropolitan Chrysostomos himself
declared, from the place of his first exile—the Holy Monastery of St. Dionysios
of Olympos—in 1935, that although, along with other Hierarchs, he had not
endorsed the calendar innovation, he bore with it out of ecclesiastical oikonomia
[30] and out of concern lest he create a schism, in the hope that, after
suitable enlightenment, the Hierarchy would reintroduce the Orthodox Festal
Calendar. However, despite his efforts and the measures that he took, the
majority of the Hierarchy, under the influence of the innovationist Archbishop,
stubbornly and obstinately persisted in the innovation. Since peaceful means
had been exhausted, he thenceforth disavowed the ruling Synod. Furthermore, he
only gradually became aware of the gravity of the issue, having not originally
been fully enlightened about it. In fact, he had confidence in
assurances—primarily those of the innovationist Archbishop—that this issue had
no bearing on the Faith or Divine worship, and that all of the local Orthodox
Churches would adopt the New Calendar at the suggestion and urging of the
Œcumenical Patriarchate. [31]
In the meantime, division among
the Orthodox continued to exist and became wider. And the innovationist
Hierarchy, like an “inhuman and hardhearted stepmother,” persecuted her
Orthodox children for their adherence to Church Tradition, while the Old
Calendarist community veered towards extremes because it lacked leaders with
ecclesiastical authority. [32]
Thus, Metropolitan Chrysostomos
was led little by little, along with his original fellow-strugglers, to assume
the pastoral care of the anti-innovationists, “moved by the hope that the
Hierarchy, compelled by the invincible force of the truth and of Orthodoxy, and
avoiding the creation of what would henceforth become a formal schism, would
see fit to reintroduce the traditional Festal Calendar for the union of the
Orthodox Greek people.” [33]
* * *
The steadfast tenacity, the
virtuous way of life, and the indefatigable activity of the Confessor-Hierarch
Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina, in spite of the vicissitudes and
difficulties of those times and circumstances, and in spite of reversals, persecutions,
and machinations, imprinted his personality on the conscience of the Old
Calendarist Orthodox community, and more widely, too, as its unquestioned
leader.
Nevertheless, the tergiversations
of his fellow Bishops were a grave disappointment for him and caused him great
and unbearable distress. In the course of the struggle, he remained the sole
Hierarch, whereas at the beginning (1935), the three Metropolitans had
consecrated four other Bishops. [34] Some of them retreated to the New Calendar
Church out of fear and instability, while others split off and became
marginalized owing to their lack of a healthy ecclesiology.
Already in 1937, Bishops Germanos
of the Cyclades and Matthew of Bresthene had denounced Metropolitan
Chrysostomos for not teaching aright the word of Truth, since he had begun to
issue clarifications about what the characterization of the innovationists as
“schismatics” and indeed, “deprived of the Grace of the All-Holy Spirit” might
mean in ecclesiological terms.
Metropolitan Chrysostomos
insisted that such issues were a matter of personal opinion and denoted
something that applied “potentially” and not “in actuality.” The innovationists
were declared to be such, but in order for this to hold good in truth and in
actual fact, they would have to be judged and condemned by a lawful
ecclesiastical authority; that is, by a recognized Autocephalous Orthodox
Church, or more clearly and more fully by a Pan-Orthodox Synod of the entire
Church. [35]
The faction of clergy and laity
which had broken ecclesiastical communion with the ruling Hierarchy did not
constitute a distinct Church, but “belong[s] canonically to the same one and
undivided Church, as an unsullied and integral part of her.” [36]
The Confessor-Hierarch emphasized
that the original resisters had set out on their struggle for the sake of
restoring the traditional Calendar to the Church, and not in order to make
permanent or perpetuate a division in the Church. [37]
It is plain that he did not have
any sense that the “Religious Community” under him or the provisional Holy
Synod were the Church in Greece, to the exclusion of all others.
* * *
Even when, on May 26, 1950, he
signed an Encyclical [38] that stated that the innovationists were deprived of
Mysteriological (Sacramental) Grace, that retracted the terms “potentially” and
“in actuality,” and that said that those coming from the New Calendar Church
should be rechrismated, he did not indicate to anyone, at a broader level, that
he had truly changed his ecclesiology and, in general, his ecclesiological
thinking and beliefs. [39] That Encyclical, with the three discordant points
mentioned above, was patently unionist, aimed at unifying the fragmented
adherents of the Old Calendar, and displayed oikonomia and diplomacy in
view of coming woes. [40] The Metropolitan himself did not enforce it and
stated, in fact, that he signed it in self-defense. [41]
Moreover, in this Encyclical he
does not express the slightest remorse or regret as “culprit” for the schism of
the Matthewites, who broke away precisely because Metropolitan Chrysostomos did
not accept the ideas contained in this document!
It is also well known that
Metropolitan Chrysostomos never explicitly declared, concerning the
innovationists or the anti-innovationists who seceded from him at various
times, that they had “fallen away from the Church,” nor did he ever judge
anyone for his ecclesiastical outlook. Finally, if he had the sense that he
alone was the authentic personification of the entire Church, how is it that he
left her orphaned? He ought, as the saying goes, to have moved heaven and earth
to ensure his succession. However, the audacious act of the Consecration of
Bishops by a single Bishop was committed by his ideological adversary, Matthew
of Bresthene, who was consistent in his extremist ecclesiology as, supposedly,
the sole remaining Orthodox Bishop! Metropolitan Chrysostomos never had such a
belief or sensibility, as can be demonstrated with perfect clarity by a simple
comparison of the two men on this issue. [42]
The correct ecclesiological
outlook of the Confessor-Hierarch and the steadfastness of his principles are
worthy of admiration and emulation. He waged a truly theological struggle
against both the innovationists and the erroneous ecclesiology of the anti-innovationists.
[43] He constantly faced smear campaigns, polemics, and attacks from both
sides, such that the saying of the Apostle applies to him: “[W]ithout were
fightings, within were fears.” [44] Under pressure, he made concessions to the
impetuosity of the anti-innovationists for the sake of agreement on more
fundamental and less contentious issues, [45] something that arguably has a
Patristic basis. [46]
His contribution, in our view, is
incalculable, and the message that he sends to us from eternity, where he
enjoys rest from his labors, is abundantly clear:
That we should
remain Orthodox in deed and word in all matters and that we should at all costs
avoid communion with those who deviate: there are no small points in matters of
Faith; the preservation of Tradition as a treasure involves the crown of incorruption;
maintaining a judicious course between extremes is a laborious tightrope walk,
in that it draws fire upon itself from both sides; it is worth enduring and
dying, even if one is abandoned for the sake of the Truth!
The Apostolic exhortation,
“[S]tand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by
word, or our epistle,” [47] does not lead to a sclerosis and ossification in
our spiritual life and journey, but to a spiritual rebaptism in the waters of
piety. Only by living in the Holy Spirit can we resist the “mystery of
iniquity” [48] and avoid falling into the “apostasy” [49] of the heresy of
ecumenism. Let all who have censured, and do censure, the anti-innovationists
in word and in writing understand that the maintenance of living Tradition
entails obedience, humility, and love for God, the Church, and the truly
spiritual Fathers and Saints. Only within this blessed state do we elicit the
gift of God “through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” [50]
Only through this God-pleasing attitude do we receive “the love of the truth” [51]
and are we not abandoned to the acceptance of “strong delusion, that [we]
should believe a lie” [52] and the unrighteousness of heresy and iniquity.
* * *
Even though ecumenism, especially
since 1965, has advanced and developed rapidly, in our view the guiding
ecclesiological principles of the Confessor-Hierarch Metropolitan Chrysostomos
of Phlorina have not lost their force, validity, or value. His discrete stand,
in general, his entire spirit, and his unitive vision express our outlook and
move us.
The sacred legacy of this holy
Confessor and Hierarch, as we have come to know it in the faith, confession,
activity, and return [to the Old Calendar] of His Eminence, Metropolitan
Cyprian of Oropos and Phyle, First Hierarch of the Holy Synod in Resistance,
and as we encounter it in the Holy Hierarchs who are our brethren, inspires us
to maintain it with self-sacrifice to the end, so that we do not fall from “our
own steadfastness,” [53] but rather preserve it intact and spread it, to the
glory of God and salvation in the Church. Amen!
Phyle, Attica
September 7/20, 2010
Holy Martyr Sozon
Commemoration of the
repose in the Lord
of the
Confessor-Hierarch
Metropolitan
Chrysostomos of Phlorina
1. His Grace has in mind, here, the numerous compromises made
by the Orthodox participants in this ongoing dialogue. For example, having
originally insisted on the exclusion of Uniates from any of the deliberations
of the dialogue, the Orthodox have now acquiesced to the presence of Uniate
clergy. Thus, at the Seventh Meeting of the Dialogue in 1993, in Balamand,
Lebanon, almost one third of the Roman Catholic participants in the dialogue
were Uniates—Trans.
2. The Twelfth Meeting of the Joint International Commission
for the Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox
Church—Trans.
3. II Thessalonians 2:7.
4. II Thessalonians 2:3.
5. II Thessalonians 2:3.
6. It is striking that Metropolitan Chrysostomos, in his
essay “Πρὸς τοὺς Διανοουμένους Ὀρθοδόξους Ἕλληνας” [To the Greek Orthodox
Intellectuals], which he wrote in the wake of his return to the Old Calendar in
1935, summarizing the attitude of the Orthodox Church to the Papal calendar
innovation, addressed the innovationist Archbishop Chrysostomos (Papadopoulos)
with the following series of questions:
“(I) Why did the six remaining
Œcumenical Synods, after the First Œcumenical Synod, which determined that the
Feast of Pascha should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon of
Spring, on the basis of the equinox of the Julian Calendar, not undertake to
correct this supposed error in the Julian Calendar, given that the Fathers were
aware of its inaccuracy?
“(II) Why is it that thereafter, when
the Pope attempted to impose the Gregorian Calendar on the Orthodox Church, the
Fathers condemned it (at the Synods of 1585 [sic; 1583, 1587] and 1593),
during the reign of Œcumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II, characterizing it as an
innovation of the Elder Rome, as a universal scandal and as a high-handed
violation of the Divine and Sacred Canons...?
“(IV) Why, under Œcumenical Patriarch
Joachim III, did the Orthodox Churches, with the Œcumenical Patriarchate at the
forefront, reject the Gregorian Calendar as un-Orthodox and uncanonical?”
(Elias Angelopoulos and Dionysios Batistatos, Μητροπολίτης πρ. Φλωρίνης Χρυσόστομος
Καβουρίδης – Ἀγωνιστὴς τῆς Ὀρθοδοξίας καὶ τοῦ Ἔθνους [Metropolitan
Chrysostomos Kabourides of Phlorina: Struggler for Orthodoxy and the Nation]
[Athens: 1981], pp. 60-61).
7. Nikolaos Zacharopoulos [Professor Emeritus at the
University of Thessalonica], “Ἡ Ὀρθόδοξος Ἐκκλησία στὴν Ἑλλάδα κατὰ τὸν 20ὸ αἰῶνα”
[The Orthodox Church in Greece During the Twentieth Century], in Ἱστορία τῆς
Ὀρθοδοξίας [History of Orthodoxy], Vol. VII, Οἱ Ὀρθόδοξες Ἐκκλησίες τὸν
20ὸ αἰῶνα [The Orthodox Churches in the Twentieth Century] (Athens:
Ekdoseis Road, 2009), p. 210.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Earlier of Imbros and Tenedos and subsequently of
Pelagonia (now Bitola in the Republic of Macedonia)—Trans.
12. Archimandrite Theokletos Strangas, Ἐκκλησίας Ἑλλάδος Ἱστορία
ἐκ πηγῶν ἀψευδῶν (1817-1967) [History of the Church of Greece from Reliable
Sources (1817-1967)] (Athens: 1971), Vol. III, p. 1648.
13. “Ὑπόμνημα ἀπολογητικὸν ὑπὲρ ἀναστηλώσεως τοῦ Πατρίου Ἐκκλησιαστικοῦ
Ἡμερολογίου” [Memorandum in defense of the restoration of the Traditional
Church Calendar] [1945], in Angelopoulos and Batistatos, Μητροπολίτης πρ.
Φλωρίνης Χρυσόστομος Καβουρίδης, p. 157. Further on in this document, the
Confessor-Hierarch emphasizes the following essential aspects of the issue:
“The question of the Church Calendar is not one of times and dates for our
Church, but a matter of unity and a concerted line of defense of Orthodoxy
against heresy and false belief, as represented by the Western Church, which is
aiming by all means and at all costs to demolish one after another the ramparts
of the Eastern Church, in order ultimately to profane the precious pearl of
Orthodoxy” (ibid., p. 158).
14. Ibid., p. 126. On the issue of rapprochement
between East and West, the Confessor-Hierarch writes elsewhere: “To be sure,
rapprochement between the two Christian worlds of the East and the West in the
celebration of Christian Feasts is desired by all and is a matter of great
moral value and significance. However, it must be pursued and attained in the
service of Christian truth and for the glory of the God-Man Jesus Christ. Were
such to be the case, the moral interests of the entire Christian world would
truly be served in the right Faith. But when this rapprochement springs from
materialistic and worldly interests and motives and is undertaken at the
expense of Orthodoxy and to the diminution of the glory of Christ, then
personal interests, and especially ecclesiastical ambitions and desires, are
served, to the detriment of the idea of the Church and of the prestige of
Orthodoxy in general. Her soul consists of the traditions and the God-inspired
and unerring documents of the Apostolic Constitutions and the decisions
of the Seven Holy and Œcumenical Synods, the distortion of which diminishes the
Divinely wrought and inviolable authority of the Divine essence of the Church
of Christ. Thus, all harm done to Orthodoxy and every diminution thereof becomes
the harm and diminution of the Divinity of Christ, from Whom there shines the
sublime and Divine character and the deeper and Divine meaning of the Christian
religion” (“Ἀναίρεσις τοῦ «Ἐλέγχου» τοῦ Ἀρχιεπισκόπου Ἀθηνῶν Χρυσοστόμου
Παπαδοπούλου” [Refutation of the “Censure” of Archbishop Chrysostomos
Papadopoulos], in Ἅπαντα πρ. Φλωρίνης Χρυσοστόμου [The Complete Works of
(Metropolitan) Chrysostomos of Phlorina] [n.p.: Ekdosis Hieras Mones Hagiou
Nikodemou Hellenikou Gortynias, 1997], Vol. I, pp. 260-261).
15. Ibid.
16. “Ὁ Πατριάρχης Σερβίας Εἰρηναῖος ζήτησε τὴν συμφιλίωση τῶν
δύο Ἐκκλησιῶν” [Patriarch Irinej of Serbia Seeks the Reconciliation of the Two
Churches],
http://www.romfea.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5835:eirhnaios&cat
id=13.
17. Hebrews 10:39.
18. Hebrews 10:35.
19. Hebrews 10:36.
20. “Τὸ Ἐκκλησιαστικὸν Ἡμερολόγιον ὡς Κριτήριον τῆς Ὀρθοδοξίας”
[The Church Calendar as a Criterion of Orthodoxy], in Ἅπαντα πρ. Φλωρίνης
Χρυσοστόμου, Vol. I, pp. 130-131.
21. Ibid., p. 135.
22. See note 30 in the article “‘Ο ἐμπνευσταὶ καὶ πρωτεργάται
τῆς Καινοτομίας: ‘Οἱ δύο οὗτοι Λούθηροι τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Ἐκκλησίας’” [The
Inspirers and Ringleaders of the Calendar Innovation: “These Two Luthers of the
Orthodox Church”], in Ὀρθόδοξος Ἔνστασις καὶ Μαρτυρία, Vol. II, No. 17
(October-December 1989), p. 77; http://hsir. info/p/ib.
23. “Ὑπόμνημα ἀπολογητικόν,” p. 155.
24. See Protopresbyter Evangelos Mantzouneas, Ἐκκλησιαστικὸν
Ποινικὸν Δίκαιον [Ecclesiastical Penal Law] (Athens: 1979), p. 168.
25. See Canon XXXI of the Holy Apostles and Canon XV of the
First-Second Synod.
26. “Ὑπόμνημα ἀπολογητικόν,” p. 149.
27. Ibid., p. 151.
28. Strangas, Ἐκκλησίας Ἑλλάδος Ἱστορία, Vol. III, p.
2043.
29. “Ὑπόμνημα ἀπολογητικόν,” pp. 151-152.
30. “Πρὸς Διαφώτισιν τῶν ᾿Ορθοδόξων Ἑλλήνων Προκήρυξις τοῦ πρώην
Φλωρίνης Χρυσοστόμου” [Proclamation of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina
for the Enlightenment of Orthodox Greeks], in Angelopoulos and Batistatos, Μητροπολίτης
πρ. Φλωρίνης Χρυσόστομος Καβουρίδης, p. 69.
31. “Ὑπόμνημα ἀπολογητικόν,” p. 146.
32. Ibid., p. 131.
33. Ibid.
34. A fact indicative of the sensitive and exceedingly
meticulous ecclesiological and canonical conscience of the Confessor-Hierarch
is that ten years later, in 1945, he characterized the Episcopal Consecrations
as “hasty,” “fraught with peril,” and “precipitous,” while he called the
original ecclesiastical organization of the Hierarchs who had assumed pastoral
oversight of the anti-innovationists a “Hierarchical Council” and not a Holy
Synod! (See “Ὑπόμνημα ἀπολογητικόν,” p. 136.)
35. See his “Ποιμαντορικὴ Ἐγκύκλιος τῆς 1.6.1944” [“Pastoral
Encyclical of June 1, 1944”], translated into English in Resistance or
Exclusion? The Alternative Ecclesiological Approaches of Metropolitan
Chrysostomos of Florina and Bishop Matthew of Vresthene, tr. Hieromonk
Patapios (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2000), pp.
63-82; see also http://hsir.info/p/p. The original Greek is found in Ἅπαντα
πρ. Φλωρίνης Χρυσοστόμου, Vol. II, pp. 13-28; see also
http://hsir.info/p/w.
36. “Διασάφησις Ποιμαντορικῆς Ἐγκυκλίου (18.1.1945)” [A
Clarification by Metropolitan Chrysostomos of His Pastoral Encyclical (January
18, 1945)], translated into English in Resistance or Exclusion?, p. 124;
see also http://hsir.info/p/bx. The original Greek is found at
http://hsir.info/p/u6.
37. “Ἐπιστολὴ πρώην Φλωρίνης [πρὸς Ἐπίσκοπον Κυκλάδων Γερμανόν]”
[An Epistle of the Erstwhile (Metropolitan) of Phlorina (to Bishop Germanos of
the Cyclades)], in Angelopoulos and Batistatos, Μητροπολίτης πρ. Φλωρίνης
Χρυσόστομος Καβουρίδης, p. 83. [This text is translated into English in Resistance
or Exclusion?, pp. 54-62—Trans.] In this wonderful epistle, which is
ecclesiological in nature, Metropolitan Chrysostomos deals, inter alia,
with the question of the meaning of the condemnations pronounced against the
calendar innovation in the sixteenth century. There are some, even to this day,
who, motivated by an extremely simplistic, and also naïve and limited,
understanding of the matter, opine that on the basis of those resolutions the
contemporary calendar innovation has been condemned in advance and that
therefore a fresh condemnation of it is not required. The Confessor-Hierarch
provides the following incontrovertible elucidation:
“Likewise, Your Grace, you dissemble
and utter outright falsehoods when you assert that it is unnecessary and
superfluous to convene a Pan–Orthodox Synod or a major local Synod for the
authoritative and definitive condemnation of the calendar innovation by the
Archbishop, since the Pan–Orthodox Synods of 1583, 1587, and 1593 condemned the
Gregorian Calendar.
“And this is so, because you know
fully well that the aforementioned Synods condemned the Gregorian Calendar, but
that this condemnation concerns the Latins, who implemented this calendar in
its entirety, whereas the Archbishop adopted half of it, applying it to the
fixed Feasts and retaining the Old Calendar for Pascha and the moveable Feasts,
precisely in order to bypass the obstacle of this condemnation.
“In view of this, the innovation of
the Archbishop in applying the Gregorian Calendar only to the fixed Feasts and
not to Pascha, which was the main reason why the Gregorian Calendar was
condemned as conflicting with the Seventh Apostolic Canon, is an issue that
appears for the first time in the history of the Orthodox Church.
“Consequently, the convocation of a
Pan–Orthodox Synod is not only not superfluous, as Your Grace declares ex
cathedra, like another Pope, but is actually required for the canonical and
authoritative adjudication of this issue” (Resistance or Exclusion?, pp.
58-59).
38. See Φωνὴ τῆς Ὀρθοδοξίας, No. 86 (June 12, 1950).
39. The same applies also to circular memoranda on this
subject published from time to time by certain persons, and letters,
instructions, etc. of the Confessor-Hierarch, chiefly to the clergy serving
under him, in which one can find similar ideas and statements.
40. For a clear summary of these “woes,” that is, the
terrible persecution visited on the Old Calendarists under Archbishop Spyridon,
see Archbishop Chrysostomos, Bishop Ambrose, and Bishop Auxentios, The Old
Calendar Orthodox Church of Greece, 5th ed. (Etna, CA: Center for
Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2009), pp. 22-24—Trans.
41. A.D. Delembases, Πάσχα Κυρίου [The Lord’s Pascha]
(Athens: 1985), pp. 807-808.
42. Let us remember what the Confessor-Hierarch wrote to
Bishop Germanos of the Cyclades in the aforementioned Epistle of 1937 on the
issue of the Matthewite view concerning the sole remaining Orthodox Hierarchs:
“If you take this step, Your Grace,
you will put an end to the life and the age–old history of the Orthodox Church,
since you are proclaiming all of the Orthodox Churches as a whole to be
heretical, thereby falsifying the declaration of the Lord to His Disciples when
He said: ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’
“You see, Your Grace, to what
absurdities and to what an abysmal precipice this reckless and populist policy
leads you; for you not only defile the sanctity of our struggle, to serve which
we elevated you to the vantage point and honor of a Bishop, but you also annul
the meaning and substance of the universal Orthodox Church” (Resistance or
Exclusion?, p. 59).
43. Delembases, Πάσχα Κυρίου, p. 807.
44. II Corinthians 7:5.
45. It should, of course, be emphasized that in the end this
condescension remained ineffectual and failed in its purpose, save that it
facilitated the return of just a small group of Matthewite clergy and
monastics. Yet, in a certain way it darkened the radiant witness of the
Confessor-Hierarch and provided a strong argument for the harsh persecution
that ensued under the innovationist Archbishop Spyridon (Blachos).
46. See, for example, “Epistle CXIII, ‘To the Presbyters in
Tarsus’” by St. Basil the Great, Patrologia Græca, Vol. XXXII, cols.
525B-528A.
47. II Thessalonians 2:15.
48. II Thessalonians 2:7.
49. II Thessalonians 2:3.
50. II Thessalonians 2:13.
51. II Thessalonians 2:10.
52. II Thessalonians 2:11.
53. Cf. II St. Peter 3:17.
