What "canonicity"?

Isocrates Scholasticus | July 20, 2013

 

We hear many, when referring to the Old Calendarists, using the term "canonicity." When the New Calendarists speak about a return to canonicity, they mean the acceptance and subordination to their innovating Church. Indeed, many who have broken away, both from the New and the Old Calendar, have fallen into this trap, thinking that the Synod of the state Church is canonical and the Synods of the G.O.C. are uncanonical. Many, from the New Calendar, go even further and question even the validity of the Mysteries performed by Orthodox clergy of the Old Calendar (we will discuss the heretical view on the loss of Divine Grace in another article).

The researcher of the history of the Church of Greece will observe that it abounds in uncanonical acts. And, passing over the 19th century, both with the "Autocephaly," granted by the Bavarians and Pharmakidis, which rendered the Church of Greece potentially schismatic against the Patriarchate of Constantinople, from which it was uncanonically severed (1833-1850), and with the dozens of simoniacal, scandalous ordinations of bishops, we arrive at the 20th century, where we observe the following:

1918: Meletios Metaxakis is UNCANONICALLY appointed Metropolitan of Athens by an "Aristindin Synod" – an Aristindin ["according to merit"] Synod is one in which its members are arbitrarily chosen by the State, a practice foreign to Orthodoxy – using secular power (the Venizelist government later imposed him as Patriarch of Constantinople), in violation of the 3rd Canon of the 7th Ecumenical Council.

1923: Chrysostomos Papadopoulos is UNCANONICALLY appointed Metropolitan of Athens by a five-member "Aristindin Synod" with three votes, despite serious accusations pending against him.

1938: Chrysanthos Filippidis is UNCANONICALLY appointed Archbishop of Athens instead of Damaskinos Papandreou, who had received the majority with 31 votes against 30. The Metaxas dictatorship, considering Damaskinos to be Venizelist, orchestrates his replacement by reinstating the institution of the Aristindin Synod, which elects Chrysanthos.

1941: Damaskinos Papandreou is UNCANONICALLY appointed Archbishop of Athens, as a "Greater Aristindin Synod," with the blessings of the occupation government and the Germans, grants him the archiepiscopal throne, a decision that Chrysanthos does not recognize. Thus, essentially from 1941 until 1946—when Chrysanthos submitted his resignation—there were two Archbishops of Athens in the state Church!

After the persecutor, the new Nero, Spyridon Vlachos (1949-1956), the calm Dorotheos Kottaras (1956-1957), the involved—he transferred his main supporters who had voted for him to wealthier episcopal thrones—Theoklitos Panayiotopoulos (1957-1962), the morally questionable Iakovos Vavanatsos (13/1/1962 - 25/1/1962), and the—bright exception!—conservative Chrysostomos Chatzistavrou (1962-1968), we arrive at...

1967: Ieronymos Kotsonis is UNCANONICALLY appointed Archbishop of Athens—while Chrysostomos Chatzistavrou was still alive—by an eight-member "Aristindin Synod" (all eight being enemies of Chrysostomos), reinstated by the Junta's Mandatory Law 3/1967.

1974: Seraphim Tikas is UNCANONICALLY appointed Archbishop of Athens by an "Aristindin Synod," and later proceeded to depose dissenting bishops.

Are the things I write above just Old Calendarist fantasies? Let the late Ambrosios of Eleftheroupolis speak, one of the most honest hierarchs of the New Calendarist Church. We present excerpts from his speech before the Aristindin Synod of 1974 (published in "Orthodoxos Typos" in issues 202 and 203):

I REFUSE to participate in the election for reasons of conscience.

This Synod is uncanonical, as not all bishops of the Church of Greece are participating...

The holy Canons desire and demand that the Primate of each Church be elected by all the Bishops and not by a portion of them...

I ask you, holy Brothers: Are we truly and absolutely canonical? Do we possess spotless canonicity? I answer with a loud voice: NO, NO, NO! We too are uncanonical, first, because we all carry within ourselves the ancestral sin of uncanonicity, as we have all, directly or indirectly, come from the hierarchy created by the uncanonical five-member Aristindin Synod of 1922, which elected Archbishop Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, and that with only three votes... second, because in the present Synod there are hierarchs elected by the Aristindin Synod of Archbishop Damaskinos... third, because nearly half of the members of the present Synod are accomplices in what happened after 1967... fourth, because all or at least the overwhelming majority of the members of this Synod received ordination as Deacon or Presbyter, or both, at an age younger than that specified by the holy Canons...

I repeat the words of my telegrams: "In the Church of Greece, no Hierarch will be found pure from the stain of uncanonicity" and "If You, Lord, observe uncanonicity in us, Lord, Lord, who shall stand...?" It was aptly written the other day in a daily newspaper of Athens, that if the State wishes to find Bishops of impeccable canonicity to elect the new Archbishop, there is only one solution: To ask God to send the 12 Apostles back to earth again!

Let those who speak of the uncanonical actions of the Synods of the Old Calendar keep this in mind, actions which all Orthodox of the Old Calendar know and condemn, except of course for a few who consider their Synod to be the only "Canonical" Church, thus copying the same doctrine taught by the state Church, either because they are completely ignorant of ecclesiological matters or because they harbor ambitions for power.

 

We therefore hope that after this article, the mouths of the clerical accusers will be shut once and for all, those who dare to speak of the uncanonicity of the G.O.C., implying that they lack Divine Grace and that they are supposedly outside the Church.

And once that happens, let us all ask ourselves whether at least in matters of doctrine we are in the right, or if we knowingly commune with the ecumenists of all sects and those who commune with them.

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2013/07/blog-post_2103.html