If there were no "Old Calendarists"...

Nikolaos Mannis | April 24, 2013

 

 

"Old Calendarists." A term that provokes among those who follow the new calendar discomfort and a sarcastic smile. The many—the indifferent—consider them something akin to the Taliban: mold, conservatism, and strictness. The simple-minded Christians, frightened by the words of elders and bishops, regard them as schismatics, outside the Church. The more informed focus on the extremes—which ultimately exist everywhere—and treat them as extremists, as a threat. The ecumenists view them with disgust, yet also fear contact with them, lest some new [Konstantinos] Karayiannides appear with his scissors, or some zealous monk with an overweight Pedalion and strike them over the head with it. The anti-ecumenists—how much more they do not want to hear of “Old Calendarists”! The fear that they too might be labeled “Old Calendarists” by others terrifies them so much that they prefer to remain in communion with the ecumenists.

That terror is reflected in the expression of the well-known Fr. Epiphanios Theodoropoulos: "Ah, if only those Old Calendarists didn’t exist—what I would do!" What he would do, of course, we know well. What the Orthodox have always done in times of heresy: a cessation of communion with the newly-manifested heretics. But how could Fr. Epiphanios have walled himself off from the wolf in sheep’s clothing, Athenagoras, without running the risk of being considered like those tax-collectors, the "Old Calendarists"?

Of course, not all New Calendarists viewed their brethren in this way. The discerning and charismatic Elder Philotheos Zervakos, even when he rebuked the “Old Calendarist” excesses (usually following fervent arguments against the new calendar), knew how to discern that these did not express the entirety of the Orthodox who follow the Patristic calendar, but only certain among them—whose actions and ideas are condemned even by the prudent and zealously mindful struggling "Old Calendarists."

Specifically, the ever-memorable Elder writes in the pamphlet Arousing Salvific Trumpet (1959):

"I praise the stance and persistence of the Old Calendarists in the Patristic traditions, for the introduction of the new calendar into the Orthodox Church was done recklessly, uncanonically, and unlawfully... [however] I cannot leave unnoticed, unchecked, and uncondemned the zeal—not according to knowledge—of certain Old Calendarists, their fanaticism, their excesses, their deviations and the delusions into which they have fallen... and many other things which I omit, so as not to grieve those who struggle lawfully and with prudence and discernment."

And the enlightened Elder knew well how much good that persistence in the Patristic traditions did for Orthodoxy, on the part of the lawfully and with prudence and discernment struggling "Old Calendarists." The calendar change was but one part of the modernist plan. The remaining parts would follow: the alteration of the Paschalion, the abolition of the cassock and of the fasts, the second marriages of priests and the marriage of bishops, the liturgical “renewal,” and all the matters slated for discussion at the then-planned Ecumenical Council, which would have already implemented the heretical innovations—if it were not for the "Old Calendarists."

A characteristic example is the failure of the attempted change of the Paschalion, pursued by Patriarch Basil III—proven to be a Freemason—a failure which is owed to the struggle of the "Old Calendarists." The Katholiki (organ of the Papists in Greece) writes concerning this very rejection of the change of the Paschalion by the New Calendarist Hierarchy of Greece:

"The Holy Synod of Greece, as is evident from the above response letter, indeed acknowledges the error of the Paschalion and warmly accepts its correction, but under conditions. These conditions testify undoubtedly—contrary to the firm and commendable stance of the Ecumenical Patriarch—to a certain cowardice, stemming obviously from the fear of a possible recurrence of the well-known Calendar-related scenes" (November 1928).

Yes, beloved! Without the "Old Calendarists," we would already be Franks. This movement of piety constituted a great barrier against the heterodox currents of innovations; it became a terror to the pseudo-Orthodox who work lawlessness. This guard of the "Old Calendarists" held the noetic Thermopylae of the Faith. And the excesses and ignorance of many among them in no way diminish the value of their Orthodox Resistance.

The war against the "Old Calendarists" by the New Calendarist anti-ecumenists—those also called conservatives—not only places them in the same category as the ecumenists from among the Orthodox (with whom they unashamedly commune, thereby becoming hypocrites, since while they speak of "the two extremes," they commune with one of them!), but also deprives them of the sole opportunity to react in the future to the impending innovations. Thus, when Orthodoxy is betrayed through an Ecumeni(sti)cal Council, they will find themselves before a dead end and will fall into the very trap they have constructed.

Let us therefore be cautious of generalizations and condemnation, and let us walk with discernment and with zeal according to knowledge, and let us not remain in communion with those of heretical mind even for one hour.

 

Greek source: http://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2013/04/blog-post_24.html