On Old Calendarist Infighting (2004): A Letter of Hieromonk Theodoretos Mavros (+2007) to Archimandrite Efthymios Bardakas

 

My beloved Fr. Efthymios, bless.

I wish that you be in good health together with your company. You surely know better than I the tragic state of our national affairs, the universal presence of the New Age, and especially the dire condition of our youth, whom the various internal and external enemies of Greece are leading to spiritual and bodily death through narcotics and other corruptions. Everywhere in the fatherland is the abomination, unleavened of believers, everywhere affliction and pain and uncertainty for tomorrow. And as though these were not enough, we also have the holy Synods of the G.O.C. of Greece clashing daily, each striving to defeat the other in insults, depositions, and above all in contentious and uncanonical “proofs” that this one and no other constitutes the canonical and lawful Synod of the Old‑Calendarists of Greece!

Thus, in their periodicals, instead of the anti-heretical discourse and the confession of Orthodoxy rising up against those who blaspheme the faith of our fathers—the New Calendarists—what prevails is civil war, envy, injustice, and a lack of all spirituality and love toward their fellow strugglers among the Old Calendarists!

For God's sake, have we gained anything anymore by reading them!... Do they not realize that they have become the worst representatives of the sacred struggle? Do they not see how their dissenting brethren of the [Metropolitan] Kyprianos faction conduct themselves? They do not revile any Old Calendarist, but strive through their deeds to be shown worthy of their apostolic mission, continually creating centers of resistance against the heresy of Ecumenism.

We neither ignore nor absolve their past, but it is not just to fail to praise their correct ecclesiological positions, such as, for example, their refusal of the archiepiscopal title, as well as their liturgical canonicity and order, in comparison with the uncanonical positions and liturgical delusions—according to Saint Athanasios of Paros—of their fellow Synod members.

Lately, we also have the appearances of various bishops on television, who make matters even worse with their totalizing theologies and their monopolizations of Orthodoxy....

In this same climate are also to be found various Holy Monasteries and Associations, which unilaterally support one Synod as the only and infallible one, while passionately and improperly reviling the others as schismatics and subversives...

I write these lines, my beloved Fr. Efthymios, because until now you have maintained a discerning stance toward this entire circle of the uncanonical, striving to preach moderation and, above all, love with discernment—virtues entirely unknown to those who contend!

What, then, must be done after all this? I believe that the time has come for the People to speak. They ought to avoid every quarrelsome and brother-hating bishop or priest, so that these may come to realize that they have become, by now, unwanted. Also, the faithful should attend services in all three Synods indifferently, since, as is well known, all three now suffer from the patristic sin of uncanonicity...

Another measure as well that could help the situation is the creation of suitable Committees for each Synod, since, as has been proven by events, the bishops are incapable by themselves of rightly governing the affairs of their Church, continually creating new problems instead of resolving the old ones... As for the manner in which these Committees would function, I do not enter into details, because it is not the proper time.

These few words I write to express my pain to someone who likewise suffers with me. I wholeheartedly wish you a ‘Blessed Pascha.’

With love in the Lord,

Hieromonk Theodoretos

 

Greek source: Εκκλησιαστική Παράδοσις [Ecclesiastical Tradition], March-April 2004, edited by Archimandrite Efthymios Bardakas.

Online: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post_14.html