Counterpoint to "Frank Comment on the Supposed Gracelessness of the New Calendarists"

The Genuine Orthodox Church in Greece and its Ecclesiology

By Protopresbyter Nicholas Dimaras

Source: Ἅγιοι Κολλυβάδες [Holy Kollyvades], Autumn-Winter 2019-2020. Slightly edited.

 

We believe and confess that our Church with our Synod under His Beatitude, Archbishop Kallinikos, is the continuation of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church in Greece, being in communion with Metropolitan Agafangel and the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad, with Metropolitan Vlasie and his Synod in Romania, with Bishop Photii of the Church of Bulgaria and the Orthodox parishes under him, and with Metropolitan Demetrius of America and his Synod.

Confession of Faith of all the faithful of the Genuine Orthodox Church in Greece:

5. I offer ready obedience in ecclesiastical matters to the Holy Synod, as the highest authority of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece, which constitutes the continuation of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church in Greece, and to the canonical Bishops and Presbyters under Her, and which is in communion of Faith and of the Mysteries with the local Genuine Orthodox Churches everywhere. [19]

When someone from schismatics joins our Church, they must declare that:

I confess and I accept all the divine dogmas and sacred traditions of the Holy Orthodox Church of Christ, and in general whatever it confesseth and accepteth, that the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians, to which I am now uniting myself, is the continuation of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church... [20]

There is no Synodal decision that determines a specific year in which the New Calendarists / Ecumenist clergy fell away.

On this matter, there are many and various opinions, but it is not that important. Just as when we have a dead body before us, the medical examiners may not agree with each other on the exact time of death and may try to estimate it using different scientific methods, but the undeniable fact is that death has occurred.

At this point, we must mention that when the bishops, in Synod, declare the spiritual death of a heretical community, they are not the spiritual executioners who spiritually kill the heretics through an anathema, but rather the "spiritual medical examiners," who ascertain the spiritual death of the heretics, which came about precisely due to the deadly disease of heresy.

These are accepted by our Church (GOC of Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and ROCA) through article 7.5 of the Common Ecclesiological document.

5. This necessity becomes comprehensible from the fact that the True Church, as the actual Body of Christ, is by Her very nature Catholic in the fullness of Truth, Grace, and salvation, and that through Her Bishops She puts forth Synodal declarations in the face of heterodox teachings and the global scandal that derives therefrom; thus, She ought to pursue, on the one hand, the articulation of the Truths of the Faith, for the delineation of the Truth in contrast to falsehood, and on the other hand, the denunciation and condemnation of the error and corruption that stem from heresy and heretics, for the protection of the Flock, confirming and proclaiming the already existing degradation of heretics. [21]

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[Links revised]

19. https://www.imoph.org/pdfs/2016/06/01/E20160601aOmologiaPisteos.pdf

20. https://sites.google.com/view/ecclesia-goc-en/information/library#h.p_6AG065JfOahY

21. https://hotca.org/pdf/TrueOrthodoxOppositionEcumenism.pdf