To a New Calendarist Theologian

My dear friend,

You write that most of the Old Calendarists are proud, lack love and humility, and are, in a way, fanatical and malicious. Overlooking the fact that the above traits can also be found among New Calendarists—since fanaticism, pride, and malice are passions that can afflict any kind of person (and not exclusively Old Calendarists!)—have you ever wondered how this mentality may have arisen among many Old Calendarists? If you carefully study modern ecclesiastical history, you will find the answer. Read about the early period after the Calendar Innovation (1924) and the prohibitions against celebrating services according to the Old Calendar under penalty of defrocking for priests (only from a certain point onward—and not from the beginning—was the "official Church" forced to accommodate both calendars).

Read the New Calendarist Encyclical of 1926, which states that the Mysteries of the Old Calendarists are invalid (at the same time, they recognized the mysteries of the Anglicans!) and that the Old Calendarists are condemned (that is, the New Calendarists were the first to do the very things they now accuse the Old Calendarists of doing).

Read about the sealing of churches, the beatings, the exiles of clergy, the imprisonments, the disrobings, even the murders (such as that of Katherine Routis in Mandra, Attica in 1927). About the basements of the Metropolis of Athens where they shaved the heads of our priests. For all these, there are relevant historical documents—well known to many, unknown to most—which are at your disposal, if you wish. Why then should anyone be surprised that many of the Old Calendarists developed such behavior, which now scandalizes you?

And one more thing. During the time of Iconoclasm, when some of the faithful saw a man of the emperor attempting to take down the icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate, they threw him off the ladder and killed him! And yet, we honor them as saints (see the Synaxarion on August 9th, the Commemoration of the 10 Martyrs at the Chalke Gate). How fanatical they would have been called even then! And yet the Lord, who sees into the depths of the heart, justifies the intention and not the observance of the rules of savoir vivre!

You wrote, “you are outside the official Church.” You also wrote that we are showing “disobedience to the official Church.” But how many times in our ecclesiastical history was the official Church in the hands of newly-appeared and pretending-to-be-Orthodox heretics, while the true Orthodox were under persecution?

Here are only three indicative examples:

First example. During the reign of the Arian-minded emperors Constantius (337–361) and Valens (364–378), those who did not accept the First Ecumenical Council belonged to the “official Church” of the Empire. Any suspicion that someone expressed faith in the Creed of Nicaea and in the "homoousios" was enough for exile and martyrdom. It is worth reading the manuals of Church history to be horrified by the rage of the Arians and the feats of the Orthodox who were exiled, imprisoned, and martyred many times.

Second example. During the time of Saint Maximus the Confessor, in all the Local Churches there were Monothelite bishops or those in communion with them. Read how this Saint describes his meeting with the Ecumenical Patriarch, who had fallen into heresy: “Yesterday, the eighteenth of the month, which was Holy Pentecost, the patriarch said to me: ‘To which Church do you belong? Byzantium? Rome? Antioch? Alexandria? Jerusalem? Behold, all of these together with their provinces are united. If therefore you belong to the Catholic Church, be united, lest by innovating a foreign path in life, you suffer what you do not expect.’” (P.G. 90, 132). But the Saint replied that God considers “the Catholic Church to be the right and saving confession of faith in Him” (ibid.). Who could have imagined then that, years later, when the Sixth Ecumenical Council was convened, it would vindicate the obscure monk Maximus and condemn the patriarch and those with him?

Third example. During the time of Iconoclasm, the “official Church” was the one that destroyed the icons, persecuted monasticism, and generally approved all the reforms of the iconoclast emperors. Indeed, not five, nor ten, but three hundred thirty-eight (338) bishops of the “official Church” formed a synod at Hieria in 754 (which they called the Seventh Ecumenical!) and anathematized the iconophiles—that is, Saint Germanos, Patriarch of Constantinople, who was unlawfully deposed, Saint John of Damascus, and others, who did not belong to the “official Church.”

You write that no saint has emerged from among the Old Calendarists.

Dear friend, if you do not know someone—perhaps because they did not happen to receive the appropriate “promotion” through newspapers, magazines, television, or the internet, like several newly-acclaimed Elders—that does not mean they are not a saint. Were not the Zealot Athonite monks Kallinikos the Hesychast and Daniel of Katounakia universally acknowledged saintly figures? Was not Katherine Routis, a mother of four children who rushed to shield the priest with her body and took to her head the butt of the gendarme’s rifle—sent by a New Calendarist bishop—a saint, a martyr, a model of self-sacrifice? Was not the grace-filled Elder Ieronymos of Aegina, about whom two important books have been written by New Calendarist authors Petros Botsis and Sotiria Nousi, a true saint, acknowledged even by Elders Porphyrios and Paisios? Was not Tarso the Fool-for-Christ, about whom the New Calendarist professor Ioannis Kornarakis wrote a book, a saintly figure straight out of the old Synaxaria? Was not Sophia of Kleisoura, tonsured a nun with the name Myrtidiotissa by the blessed Bishop Kyprianos, acknowledged as a saint even by the Ecumenical Patriarchate (and—oh, what a disgrace!—they did not recognize her monastic tonsure because it was performed by an Old Calendarist Bishop)? Was not Elder Ioannis of Amfiali, about whom the Orthodoxos Typos also published an extensive tribute, a wonderworking and grace-filled saint? Was not the barefoot Athonite monk Avvakoum one of the great saintly figures of the 20th century, acknowledged even by hardline New Calendarists like Chatzifotis, Louvaris, and Karmiris? And how many more, known and unknown?

Should they all have carried the seal of the New Calendarist, ecumenist Patriarchate in order for the Lord to include them in the choir of His saints?

You also write that the clergy of Jerusalem and of Mount Athos (those who commemorate) do not permit Old Calendarists to serve liturgically. But in fact, the exact opposite is the case! It is the Old Calendarists who do not wish to serve or commune or have fellowship with those who are in communion with the ecumenists—even if they themselves follow the Old Calendar (and this, in fact, is the greatest proof that the Old Calendarists are not calendar-worshipers!).

And one last thing, so that you may not be scandalized and write baseless things.

We have absolutely no sense whatsoever that we will be saved because of the Patristic Calendar (it is obedience to Christ and His Church that saves, not a calendar), nor do we feel any superiority over you as persons.

A sense of superiority we have only because we came to know Orthodoxy, the only true religion, which we love unto death and cannot bear to see dragged through the dens of the heresy of the W.C.C. and humiliated in this way for so many years.

With the due love in Christ toward all,

Nikolaos Mannis

 

Greek source:

https://nicefor.info/en/%CF%80%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%BD%CE%B5%CE%BF%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B7-%CE%B8%CE%B5%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%BF-2018-%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BB%CE%B1/