1924 - 1984: Sixty Years of Ecclesiastical Division in Greece

Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili

Original Greek source: Στόχος, Thursday, February 1/14, 1985.

 

The year that just passed completes sixty years of ecclesiastical division in our Blessed Motherland. More to the point, in 1924 the Orthodox Church of Greece was divided into “New Calendarists” and “Old Calendarists” — into those who accepted the calendar innovation and those who did not support it, but rather denounced the alteration of the ecclesiastical (Patristic) calendar (i.e., the festal calendar). Those who have since 1924 followed the Tradition of the Patristic festal calendar have opposed the innovation in an Orthodox fashion and have struggled for the convocation of a unifying General Orthodox Synod of the divided Church of Greece.

***

Why, however, have these Orthodox-in-opposition (who are derisively called “Old Calendarists”), with all of the frightful persecution from 1924 on, remained immovable and steadfast in their position? How did they view the innovation of 1924, which assailed the Orthodox festal calendar?

From the beginning, it has been on the basis of Holy Canons that these Orthodox Christians have denounced the imposition of the new (civil or papal) calendar and walled themselves off from the innovators, in that the imposition of this innovation, 1) took place completely uncanonically, and 2) aspired to the unlawful union of Orthodox with Western heterodox, in accord with the dictates of the Ecumenist heresy.

***

1) The irregularity of the innovation in the festal calendar which took place in 1924 is obvious and has even been acknowledged by circumspect “New Calendarists.” The innovators of 1924 (in Constantinople and Athens) disagreed with the Holy Fathers. They also disagreed with the overwhelming majority of the other Orthodox Churches, which did not accept the new calendar. And they disagreed with the Fifth Prelature of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece (December 1923), which said that the change could take place only as long as the other Orthodox Churches were in agreement. Consequently, seeing that even a large segment of the Orthodox of Greece (even entire villages) did not accept, but denounced, the innovation, the innovating Hierarchy should have “tacked about” and returned to Orthodox order —indeed, even by challenging the revolutionary government of that period, which exerted pressure on the Church to employ the new calendar.

***

2) The fact that the innovation in the festal calendar is the product of the so-called Ecumenical Movement, which is totally anti-Orthodox, is indisputable. The Ecumenical movement was begun around the middle of the last century by European and American Protestants. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it skillfully caught the Orthodox in its nets and reached its culmination with the establishment of the “World Council of Churches” (W.C.C.) in 1948. The pan-heresy of ecumenism aims at the imposition of a dogmatic and religious syncretism on all Churches and the creation of a sort of pan-religion, having no interest in the unity of faith.

The control of the contemporary Ecumenical Movement is about ninety percent Protestant, under the aegis of the W.C.C., and is founded on the un-Orthodox “branch theory” of the Church. Writing about this theory from an Orthodox standpoint, Professor Andreas Theodorou has noted: “With all of their strength, Orthodox must reject the renowned branch theory of the Church, which is the backbone of the contemporary Ecumenical Movement’s ecclesiology. The Orthodox Church is not one of many Churches, possessing only a portion of divinely-revealed Truth, equal both in measure and content with the other Churches; the Orthodox Church is the one true Church of Christ, at all times possessing and correctly teaching the entire content of divinely-revealed Truth, and to the present day She has preserved this Truth, unharmed and immaculate, in Her Tradition and conscience. Acceptance of the branch theory would, quite simply, mean SUICIDE for Orthodoxy.”

***

Unfortunately, the pan-heresy of Ecumenism was accepted by the Oecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople with his ill-famed Encyclical of 1924. The un-Orthodox branch theory was preached “bare-headed.” In January of 1920, the “Third Fall of Constantinople” was completed: “Constantinople, captured in 1204 by the Latin Franks and in 1453 by the Turks, is now conquered by Ecumenism.” The enemy has entered through the Great Gate of Ecumenism, and “the City has fallen.”

In the heretical Encyclical of 1920, it was most clearly revealed that the hidden aim of the adoption of the new calendar was festal harmony with heterodox in the West and, by extension, an unlawful union with them. The Encyclical proposed eleven practical measures for an ecumenical union. The first of these states that this evil union will be attained “through the adoption of a uniform calendar for the simultaneous celebration of the great Christian feasts by all Churches,” that is, by all heterodox and the Orthodox Church.

***

Rightly, then, did the Orthodox in opposition not believe the spurious arguments of the innovators -that supposed astronomical and scientific concerns had dictated the change in the ecclesiastical calendar held by the Church throughout the ages. The Papal calendar reform of the sixteenth century was justly condemned by the Orthodox Church, being characterized as “clock games” and a “universal scandal.” Support for the calendar reform on the basis that the issue is supposedly astronomical, and not ecclesiastical, is erroneous.

The Orthodox position on the festal calendar was very well expressed in 1904 by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Joachim III, who wrote: “But we believe both the alteration of the Julian calendar, as supposedly scientifically inaccurate, and the bringing of the civil year into better agreement with the solstice to be, at least for now, premature and entirely unnecessary; from an ecclesiastical point of view, we [Orthodox] are in nowise obliged to change the calendar, and science, as affirmed by its own proponents, has not yet definitely determined the precision by which the tropical [solar] year can be reckoned.... With regard to our own calendar, we have the following opinion: it is venerable and dependable, having already been fixed at the beginning of the Christian era and, moreover, sanctioned by the continuous calculations of the Church’s Paschalion, ...[and] beyond this we should make no alterations. Those who view our Julian calendar from an astronomical standpoint would like to skip ahead thirteen days, ...but the omission of so many days for any proposed reason, either ecclesiastical or scientific, is senseless and aimless....”

***

The three-fold Synodal condemnation, by Orthodox, of the papal (Gregorian) calendar innovation in times past (1584, 1587, and 1593), the heretical Encyclical of 1920, the ill-famed assembly in Constantinople under the Masonic Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis (1923), the innovation, in 1924, by the Archbishop of Athens, Chrysostomos (Papadopoulos), the progress of the heretical Ecumenical Movement and its blatant audacity in our days, the movement for the so-called Common Pascha (Easter), and the corrosion of all the local Churches by Ecumenism (inasmuch as they all participate in the W.C.C.) —all of this proves that the Orthodox-in-opposition (“Old Calendarists”), who have walled themselves off from the innovating “New Calendarist” Ecumenists, have rightly maintained the ecclesiastical (Patristic) calendar [the festal calendar].

Insofar as our Orthodox objection to the calendar innovation is God-pleasing, that is, based on a healthy ecclesiological position (and not on unexamined and thoughtlessly un-Patristic proclamations),and is motivated by humility and a sincere love for our innovating “New Calendarist” Ecumenist brethren, then our Holy Struggle will bear fruit; there are then well-founded hopes that Orthodox Truth will prevail, that a unifying General Orthodox Synod of the Church of Greece will condemn the heresy of our age [Ecumenism], and that the much-yearned-for peace and unity among the divided will, to the Glory of God, come to be. Amen. May it be so!

The Least Among Hierarchs,

+ Cyprian, Metropolitan of Oropos and Fili

 

English source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. II (1985), No. 2, pp. 16-19.