The Innovation of a Skete [On the Origins of the Kollyvades Movement]

by Alexander Kalomiros, M.D.

 

In the year 1754, the Skete of Saint Anna, on Mount Athos, decided to build a larger Kyriakon. A great deal of money was needed. Christians sent help from everywhere in memory of parents and relatives. However, the memorial services that had to be held in the skete, and which were incorporated into vigils, tired the monks and they could not work the following day. For this reason, following the advice of their common spiritual father, Father Philotheos the Peloponnesian, they began to hold the memorial services on Sundays, when, due to the day of rest, they would not be working anyway.

The innovation became known throughout the rest of the Mountain and provoked reactions. Wherever the Agiannites went, they were subjected to reproach, because holding memorials for the dead on Sunday was something unheard of and went against the resurrectional character of Sunday. Then some of the monks of the Skete confessed to the spiritual father that they had a problem of conscience. The spiritual father permitted them to leave the church as soon as the memorial began. However, this departure disturbed those who remained, since it was a practical form of censure. Thus began on Mount Athos the famous “dispute over memorials,” which remained in history.

The Persecution

At that time, the former Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril, was residing in Saint Anna. When he heard about the departure of certain individuals from the Sunday memorials, he said: “When I was on the throne, I continually granted permission and memorials for the dead were chanted on Sundays.” These words of the former Patriarch strengthened the innovators, who, with the argument that Constantinople holds memorials on Sundays, exerted moral pressure on those who hesitated. The obstinacy of the innovators soon turned into hatred, and the hatred into persecution of those who ultimately refused to yield.

The Skete of Saint Anna is subject to the Great Lavra. So the innovators denounced the dissenters to the Lavra as troublemakers. The Lavriots, without summoning the accused for a defense, immediately issued an excommunication against them and ordered the Agiannites not to receive them either in the church, or in the cells, or at the mill. The mill was the only one in the area, and the prohibition against using it was a decisive blow to their sustenance. The defenders of Tradition gave place to wrath and departed from Saint Anna, leaving their cells—some of them at an advanced age—“choosing rather to suffer affliction for the Church’s truth than to have a temporary enjoyment of sin.” But wherever each one found refuge, the Agiannites did not leave them in peace. They circulated the Lavra’s excommunication to all the Sketes and Monasteries, attaching a nominal list of all those who had publicly expressed their support for Tradition, even if they had never been residents of Saint Anna. And they demanded that they be expelled immediately! At the forefront of this persecution were two bishops who happened to be on the Mountain at that time: the aforementioned former Patriarch of Constantinople Cyril (who also had the idea for [exclusion from] the mill), and the former Metropolitan of Aleppo, Gennadios. The Orthodox were being driven out as if excommunicated and heretical. They were mockingly called “Kollyvades” and it was confidentially spread around that they were supposedly Freemasons. This last characterization made a great impression on the simpler monks, who were also the majority, and who, upon hearing it, without further investigation, turned away from the slandered with all their soul. Even the lay boatman who handled the transport would not allow a Kollyvas on his boat!

"If you want an apple, take one; if you want a quince, take it"

Faced with this situation, the traditionalist monks decided to appeal to the Patriarchate for justification and protection. For this purpose, they gathered at the cell of Father Parthenios of Zographou from Skourtou. There they composed a confession of faith, which was signed by all those present, and later by many others as well, and they sent it to the Patriarchate along with a report of the events.

The Ecumenical Patriarch at that time was Theodosios II the Cretan, and great influence in the Synod was held by Meletios of Nicomedia and Sophronios of Jerusalem. The Patriarchate replied in June of 1772. It wrote: “…Those who perform memorials for the departed on Saturdays do well, but those who do so on Sunday are not subject to judgment…”

One year later, in June of 1773, the Patriarchate wrote again: “…Neither those who perform the memorials for the departed on Saturday should reproach those who wish to perform them on Sunday, nor should the latter, opposing the former—that is, those who rightly perform the memorials on Saturday—call them heretics and innovators, or unjustly attribute to them other such defamatory names, and disturb the peace of the other monks, but rather let them be at peace and be in communion…”

In a third letter, shortly after the previous one, the Patriarchate again writes that “those who perform the memorials for the departed on Saturday, according to the ancient custom of the Church,” should not “reproach those who wish to perform them on Sunday,” and that “all those practicing the ascetic life in the sketes… should steadfastly adhere to and follow the order and custom regarding memorials that is preserved in the Monasteries…”

It was evident that the Patriarchate did not wish to state the truth plainly—that the Kollyvades were in the right and that the illegality should cease—because it had long since been acting unlawfully itself by performing memorials on Sundays in order to please the worldly-mindedness of the rulers. However, by applying Phanariote politics, it offered a solution which, if the innovators had implemented, would have put an end to the illegality and to all dispute, since no Monastery held memorials on Sunday.

The Martyrdom of Theophanes and Paisios

As soon as the persecutors of the Kollyvades got their hands on the Patriarchate’s declaration that “they are not subject to judgment,” they became unrestrained. They forgot not only the monastic habit they wore but even their Christian baptism, and followed the path of Cain. At first, they attempted twice to murder the ascetical and virtuous Cappadocian monk Sylvester. The first time, they threw a stone at him as he passed outside Saint Anna. The second time, when he boarded a ship to leave the Mountain, they persuaded the captain to kill him on the way. However, the captain repented, and thus old Sylvester escaped and reached Paros. To be more effective, the abbots of Saint Anna and of the New Skete summoned the chief bandit Captain Markos, gave him 700 silver coins and the names of eleven Kollyvade monks who were still within the bounds of the two Sketes. “These monks,” they told him, “are sorcerers and Freemasons and are doing great harm to the Mountain. There is no other way for the place to be delivered except by their being slain.”

The men of Captain Markos arrived at the Kyriakon of Saint Anna on Saturday night, on the eve of the feast of All Saints in the year 1773, while the vigil had already begun. They entered the church and asked for a guide to show them the huts of the condemned. The abbots indicated someone named Timotheos, but he did not want to go. They persuaded him by saying he had to show obedience. When the bandits left with Timotheos, the others continued the Prooimiakós. Timotheos showed the bandits the door of Paisios and left. Hieromonk Paisios lived in the hut of the Prophet Elias, above the Kyriakon of Saint Anna, and was a calligrapher. The anti-Kollyvades hated him greatly because he silenced them in every discussion. The bandits stormed into Father Paisios’s hut, seized everything they found, and beat him savagely, not believing that he had no hidden money. Finally, they demanded food and, after eating, loaded onto Father Paisios and his elder Theophanes the stolen goods and ordered them to lead them to Father Agapios, who was third on the list. But the Fathers would not reveal the huts of the others, despite the beatings and insults. The pitiful procession arrived at the Kyriakon at the hour when the seventh ode was being chanted. The fathers, exhausted from the beatings and the burden, leaned behind the holy altar, and the bandits entered the church and called out the fellow ascetics of the condemned, so they could show them “the fine hunt.” They came out in small groups and, as Athanasios of Paros writes, “reflected and conversed. And it was enough to astonish one at the inhumanity of those ascetics… For though they saw their brothers in such a miserable state, not one was found to say to them, ‘What is this?’… No one was heard to utter a word of sympathy from his mouth… no one shows mercy to those sitting bound behind the altar, awaiting death.” After the bandits also plundered the cell of Father Gabriel without finding him, they loaded the new loot onto some lay builders who were there and went to the New Skete at the hour when the fathers there were coming out of the Liturgy. Even they did not show the slightest Christian compassion toward the two condemned, only observed the martyrdom from a distance. The bandits took Father Paisios and Elder Theophanes down to the shore, where their boat was, tied stones around their necks, rowed out a little, and, saying to them: “Dogs, why don’t you want to make kollyva on Sundays, as the Patriarchs and the spiritual fathers of the Mountain say?” They threw them from the boat into the sea, before the eyes of the entire multitude of monks of the New Skete, adding to the All Saints, whose feast was that day, two more venerable martyrs.

The Excommunication

The strongest blow against the Kollyvades was dealt by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the year 1776, during the patriarchate of Sophronios II of Constantinople. A great clergy–laity Synod, consisting of all the hierarchs residing in the City and many lay dignitaries, condemned and excommunicated all the Kollyvades and all those who, together with them or after them, hold that the Orthodox Church of Christ does not permit memorials for the dead to be held on Sundays. This Synod declared that the sacred order and canonical formulation of the Church has always been that memorials be held on Saturday and Sunday and any other day of the week without distinction, and that this is supposedly an Apostolic Tradition; and that those who do not accept this and do not perform memorials on Sunday are rebels, innovators, and holders of unsound doctrine. As representatives of all the Kollyvades, ringleaders and chiefs, the Synod deposed and excommunicated four hieromonks, naming them specifically.

This “decree” of the Synod of 1776, which was later annulled, states verbatim, among other things, the following: “'Sophronios, by the mercy of God… since confusion and disorder have overtaken the Church… through certain self-opinionated and self-conceited persons… who are afflicted with impiety and rebellion… this innovation and false belief having become evident… therefore we define and pronounce, according to the long-standing sacred order and canonical formulation of the Church, that the partial memorials of the Orthodox are to be performed without exception on Saturdays and on Sundays and on all days of the week, according to the Tradition of the Apostolic Constitutions… Those, therefore, who are in agreement with the Church and with the present Synodical decree both in belief and in practice, performing without exception the partial memorials of the Orthodox on Saturdays and on Sundays and on all days of the week—such persons are to be accepted by God, the Lord Almighty.' This, of course, means that all those, even until today, who do not believe and act in agreement with the present decree, are to be as the ringleaders and leaders and companions in such a belief… deposed… and stripped of all Divine Grace and sacred ministry… and altogether unholy, under the weight of suspension and unrelenting excommunication… By decision… 9th of June, 1776”

(The full text may be found in Ph. Meyer: Die Haupturkunden für die Geschichte der Athos Kloster, Leipzig 1894, pp. 236–241, where the aforementioned texts are also included).

"They curse, but you bless"

Condemned by the Patriarchate and persecuted by their fellow ascetics, those who wished to remain faithful to the Sacred Tradition of Orthodoxy departed from the Mountain and found refuge on the islands of the Aegean. There, embraced by a people thirsting for truth and example, the Kollyvades sowed the word of Christ, and the seed bore fruit “a hundredfold.” This fruitfulness was named by history: “the spiritual revival of the 18th century.” To it we owe the Philokalia, the Evergetinos, the Works of Symeon the New Theologian, the two books On Frequent Divine Communion, Against the Pope, the Pedalion, the Synaxarion, A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, and a multitude of others. The Kollyvades founded renowned monasteries on the islands—fountains of sanctification—that nourished the people of God with divine streams for an entire century: in Patmos, Ikaria, Paros, Skiathos, Chios. The “excommunicated” Kollyvades were shown to be saints, and the bones of many of them emitted fragrance and worked miracles: Niphon the coenobiarch of Skiathos, Parthenios the iconographer of Skourtou, Makarios Notaras of Corinth, Nikodemos the Hagiorite, Arsenios the New the wonderworker of Paros. To the Kollyvades we owe spiritual figures such as the New Martyr Polydoros, Saint Parthenios of Chios, Elder Dionysios, founder of the Monastery of the Panagia of Kounistra in Skiathos and collaborator of the Peloponnesian revivalist Papoulakos, as well as Moraitidis and Papadiamantis. In a word, to them we owe the fact that Orthodoxy still exists in Greece despite the storm of Pharmakidis and the Bavarians. And not only in Greece. Romania quickly received the influence of the Kollyvades who were exiled there. Russia, shattered by the neo-pagan, Western-obsessed, and anti-monastic spirit of Peter the Great and Catherine II, lay—despite its political greatness and power—in spiritual ruins. From these it was raised up by the Moldavian starets, Saint Paisios Velichkovsky, bringing from Mount Athos the Kollyvadic hesychasm and the Philokalia. The hierarchs condemned and excommunicated those who loved the truth and struggled for it. But God blessed them and glorified them forever.

 

Source: Οι Ρίζες, Zephyr Publishing, Issue 23, Summer 1988.