Saint Dionisie of Kolitsou on the calendar

Nikolaos Mannis | September 11, 2025

 

 

The audio of the Saint’s conversation with Romanian pilgrims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz3SImo2M-M

Transcription of the original Romanian text: https://traditiaortodoxa.wordpress.com/2007/06/28/parintele-dionisie-ignat-de-la-chilia-colciu-despre-calendarul-bisericesc-si-rezistenta-ortodoxa/

 

And the translation into [English from] the Greek language:

Elder Dionisie: Christ is risen!

Interlocutor: Truly He is risen!

Elder Dionisie: Welcome with good health! We are very glad that you follow the Old Calendar, so that we may speak a little… We uphold the boundaries set by the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils; those who broke away remained with the papal calendar—we do not accept it. If it weren’t for the Greek administration, they would have introduced the New Calendar here long ago [on Mount Athos]. They say: “We came because you are simple people, uneducated, and you do not know—we came to guide you to adopt the New Calendar, because that is the truth” … That is to say, we set aside the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils, trample them underfoot, and reject them!

Interlocutor: He wrote to the Patriarch in Romania to have us abolished. [a father from the Lacu Skete].

Elder Dionisie: There, these are the ones… Do you see now how unwise they are? … Then why are you staying here, since you’re here and not with the New [Calendar]?

Interlocutor: Well, I said to him, “Don’t you have the same calendar?” He said, “Listen, this isn’t a calendar like yours; you are Old Calendarists!”

Elder Dionisie: Old Calendarists??!! What does “Old Calendarists” mean??!! Mount Athos has had this status from the very beginning—to have no bishop, to commemorate whomever it wishes! No Patriarch has the right to interfere in the administration of Mount Athos. I have been on Mount Athos since 1926 and had absolutely no dissatisfaction with any of the fathers of the Holy Mountain, until about 8–9 years ago, when the mockeries began—that we are not Christians… and this from our very own Romanian brothers! There were Greeks here; and neither with Greeks, nor with Russians, nor with Bulgarians, nor with Serbs, nor with Georgians did I ever have any dissatisfaction—absolutely none!! Only recently they began to say… “why do you say the New Calendar is not good?” … Can you say it is good, when it brought division into the world, brought so much unrest into the world?!… It caused so many conflicts!!… In Romania, even back then in 1939, there were monks in prison because they kept the Old [Calendar]! … Since the Church has existed, there have always, always been upheavals; do you not see also with the holy icons: they tortured those who upheld the holy icons, those fell, others came, and how many, how many heresies have appeared in history…

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2025/09/blog-post_11.html