March 10/23, 1924… 96 years

Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Attica and Boeotia | March 24, 2020

On this day, March 10/23, 96 years ago, our Orthodox Greece was divided into Old Calendarists and New Calendarists.

Nine and a half decades have passed with persecutions, tensions, disparagements, degradations, ironies, and doubts against the faithful who wished not to accept the change imposed by those in power.

Surely, wounds have been inherited…

The struggle of the Old Calendarists was not born out of stubbornness or animosity. On the contrary, it was intensified by piety for the Church's patristic traditions.

It was challenged and disparaged with harsh persecutions by the officials who had and still have the seal of the state.

The scars are still fresh.

Persecutions against the Orthodox, not by declared atheists, but by brothers, Orthodox Christians, who engage in dialogue with every heretic, while the Old Calendarists are considered "fanatical, backward."

Nine and a half decades of division!

I wish that there may be interest with Orthodox prudence and sympathy for the restoration of canonical order as defined by the Holy Fathers, nullifying all self-interest and expediency that have wounded unity.

The unity for which sweetest Jesus prayed with tears in the Garden of Gethsemane.

 

Greek source: https://www.imab.gr/index.php/latest-news/1877-10-23-1924-96