Source: Η Βραδυνή [The Evening], December 11, 1950.
In this announcement, the Old
Ecclesiastical Calendar is impiously called a cancer. The Old Calendar does not
constitute a cancer in the Body of the Church, but rather a vital artery
through which pure Orthodox blood is channeled into the heart of the Church.
And this, because the arrangement
of the festal calendar, constituting the basis of the Paschal canon established
by the First Ecumenical Council, has through the ages confirmed the golden
chain of all the local Orthodox Churches and the compass of Orthodox worship.
Therefore, the arbitrary and unilateral replacement of the Julian calendar with
the Gregorian one—without the consent of all the Orthodox Churches—has
fractured the unity of the Churches in the celebration of the feasts and has
brought about disorder in ecclesiastical services and various alterations in
the days of fasting and the other purifications of the soul.
For this reason, the Gregorian
calendar was condemned by Pan-Orthodox Synods in 1583, 1587, and 1593, and by
all the Orthodox Churches whenever the issue of the ecclesiastical calendar was
raised; it was condemned as unorthodox and as a means of proselytism. Hence, it
becomes clear that the Old Festal Calendar does not constitute a cancer, but a
sacred institution, which our Fathers established—regardless of chronological
precision—in order to safeguard through the ages the unity of the Churches in
the celebration of the feasts and the observance of the fasts, and to set
moreover a perceptible barrier between the Orthodox and the heretics.
The initiative for the
introduction of the new calendar did not belong to the State, as the
announcement of the Synodal Committee erroneously asserts, but to the Synod of
the [Official / Governing] Hierarchy. Proof of this is the Legislative Decree
of the late King George II, according to which the new calendar was established
for the State, while for the Church its own calendar for feasts and
ecclesiastical ceremonies was also ratified politically.
And in this, the State is worthy
of praise, for it respected the ancient ecclesiastical tradition.
The communiqué of the Synodal
Committee asserts that the new calendar does not conflict with the dogmas,
divine canons, and Orthodox institutions of the Church. To demonstrate that
this claim is neither truthful nor correct, we consider it superfluous to
present our own arguments, since we have the condemnation of the Gregorian
calendar by Pan-Orthodox Synods, as mentioned above, and in addition the
conclusion of the special Committee on the Ecclesiastical Calendar—composed of
jurists and professors of theology—which declared that the introduction of the
new calendar into the Greek Church would give rise to a cause of Schism, would
destroy the unity of the Church, which is included in the Symbol of Faith, and
would greatly harm the national interest.
Hence, it becomes clear that the
defenders of the calendar tradition are not driven by blind fanaticism or by
personal motives, as the announcement claims, but by a deep awareness
concerning the calendar, which is evidenced and continually taught by their
tangible works—those who have received the observance of this chain unaltered
from the Holy Ecumenical Councils.
And if we, the Hierarchs, did not
immediately enter into the calendar struggle, we did so, on the one hand, in
order not to become causes of schism, and on the other, because we expected that,
with time, the remaining Churches might also proceed to adopt the new calendar.
But when we saw that the schism had been created by the Old Calendarists even
without us, and that it, due to the absence of pastoral oversight and guidance,
was degenerating into extremes to the detriment of the Church's authority and
the dignity of the Hierarchy—and with the protest of the Eastern Church leaders
concerning the calendar innovation accompanying it—then, having exhausted all
peaceful means in vain, we turned to the struggle, so as to quiet the Orthodox
conscience of ourselves and of the supporters of the Old Calendar, and to
forestall further excesses. And if the [Matthewite] Monastery in Keratea, after
a few years, had not renounced us (in the year 1937) and had remained under our
jurisdiction and supervision, the revealed scandals would not have occurred,
nor would the leadership of the Monastery have become a spectacle to angels and
to men.
And while the [Official] Hierarchy,
lacking the authority of the Church and its dignity, ought to have advised a
certain Metropolitan to feign being an Old Calendarist and to be placed at the
head of the Old Calendarists in order to restrain the struggle within canonical
bounds, as soon as idealist Hierarchs entered the sacred struggle with the aim
of directing it and keeping it within the framework of the Holy Canons, the
innovating Hierarchs promptly fell upon them, betraying them immediately,
without any peaceful means prescribed by the Canons, proceeding to depose them
and to impose a five-year confinement in remote monasteries as if in prisons.
This reckless and unjustifiable
criminal act of the Hierarchy, imposed in defiance of every divine and human
institution upon Hierarchs who are pillars and defenders of patristic
traditions, is what provoked the inflaming of passions and the strengthening of
the Old Calendar struggle—and not, as the memorandum of the Synodal Committee
asserts, the disagreement on the part of the State, which deliberately distorts
persons and facts.
Unfortunately, the Governing
Hierarchy was unwilling to be persuaded—despite all that we have written—that
within the soul of the Old Calendarists there has arisen a condition of
Orthodox conscience, which not only cannot be forced out by coercion and
pressure in order to uproot it, but is rather strengthened and more deeply
rooted through anti-Christian and inhumane persecutions.
Very mistaken is the notion of
the [Official] Hierarchy that this issue would be resolved if the Government
were to carry out the violent and anachronistic measures indicated by the
Church against those who persist in the Old Calendar out of motives purely of
Orthodox conscience.
Moreover, these measures were
employed by the government for the sake of the prevailing Church, and indeed to
the detriment of its own reputation and contrary to the provisions of the
Constitution, which protects traditions and the religious freedom of
conscience; and yet these measures, instead of calming matters, further
inflamed the Old Calendarists. It is indeed most grievous, the comparison and
association made by the Synodal Committee between our own conscientious faction
and the unconscionable faction of the departed [Bishop] Matthaios [of Vresthena],
portraying both factions as competing, as the announcement says, in an excess
of detestable fanaticism and deceitful demagogy, so that, on the pretext of the
abominable and indecent scenes at the Monastery in Keratea, even our healthy
and sober-minded faction of idealists might be cast into common contempt. For
it has been shown, more clearly than the sun, through the deeds of each of the
two factions, that the faction of the departed Matthaios and his corrupt circle
regarded the sacred struggle as an enterprise and amassed great wealth, whereas
our faction regarded it as an ideal, and not only reaped no benefit from it,
but was in many ways materially harmed for the love of Christ.
Likewise, the Synodal Committee
deliberately asserts in its announcement that we, who were formerly
conservative and moderate, later surpassed even the faction of Matthaios in
fanaticism, proclaiming the prevailing Hierarchy to be schismatic and its mysteries
as lacking grace—all, it says, in order to substitute ourselves in place of
that opposing faction and to inherit the vast wealth which it acquired through
unlawful means, having made piety into a source of profit. Nothing could be
more false and inaccurate than this claim.
And it is indeed true that we,
despite the fierce persecution initiated against us by the innovating
Hierarchy, at first refrained—out of reverence for the concept of the
Church—from proclaiming it schismatic by an ecclesiastical encyclical, while it
proclaimed us schismatics through a court, judging our Bishops of Megara and of
Diavleia, in order to justify their deposition. But when we saw that the Governing
Synod had decided—against every sacred canon and the centuries-old practice of
the Church—to consider our mysteries, as pure Orthodox, null and void, and
repeated such claims without fear of God, thus undermining the authority of the
mysteries, then we too, finding ourselves in a position of self-defense, issued
the corresponding encyclical, in order to calm the agitated conscience of our
flock, and not in order to acquire the property of the Monastery in Keratea.
Perhaps it is from this pious motive that the Synodal Committee draws pretext,
suggesting the dissolution of this wealthy Monastery in order to seize its
property.
For this reason, the Governing
Synod deliberately shifts the blame for the scandals revealed concerning the
Monastery in Keratea not only onto us—who have no relation or ecclesiastical
communion with its superiors, who are themselves accountable before the Greek
justice system—but also onto the ideology of the Old Calendarists, flattering
itself with the hope that, from the occasion of the Keratea affair, it might
succeed in abolishing everyone and everything. Lastly, with regard to the claim
of the announcement that the Prevailing Church, acting magnanimously, offered
to the Old Calendarists—and especially to parishes and canonical priests—for
the fulfillment of their religious needs with the Old Calendar, this too is
untrue. For this measure, which was proposed by the then Government, was not
only vehemently rejected by the Old Calendarists, who do not accept grace and
sanctification from New Calendarists, but it was also disapproved by the Synod
of the Hierarchy, on the grounds that it reduced the ministers of the Most High
to mere phonographs echoing religious services, without the ministers
participating spiritually in them. Equally inaccurate is the assertion that
clergy punished for canonical violations by the Prevailing Hierarchy are
accepted by us without examination—except, of course, those punished solely for
reasons relating to the Old Calendar. As for the claim that the Most Reverend
Bishops of Christianoupolis, Christophoros, and of Diavleia, Polykarpos,
accepted the decision of the appellate ecclesiastical court, by which they were
demoted from the rank of bishop to that of presbyter—something which, according
to the 29th Canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, is characterized as
sacrilegious—we deem otherwise, since a written protest on their part is
preserved in the offices of the Synod, wherein they express their view of this
sacrilegious demotion.
As for the matter of the supply
of Holy Chrism from the Holy Mountain, such Chrism not being found in
monasteries where baptisms are not performed, the Prevailing Church knows
better than anyone else that Holy Chrism is used by the Church not only for baptisms
but also for the consecration of churches—which, of course, do exist on the
Holy Mountain.
As a conclusion to this reply,
may it be permitted me to address reverently to the Governing Synod and the
honorable Government—who constitute these two authorities and powers—our humble
entreaty: that they, being illumined by God, may rise to the height of the
Apostolic standard and to the critical nature of the times, which the Lord of
each household alone judges, so that the Church and the Nation may be
preserved. And in their assured prudence and discernment, may they see fit not
to disturb the religious conscience of thousands of devout citizens and
steadfast Orthodox, especially now that the rights of man concerning religious
conscience have been enshrined by the United Nations organization. Therefore,
may they be entreated to show the due respect toward the laborers and pillars
of the ecclesiastical and national traditions—and this until a Pan-Orthodox
Great Local Council may convene, the only body competent to resolve validly and
definitively this serious issue, now simmering for twenty-five years. May the
Lord God grant both the Church and the Nation the peace and reconciliation so
ardently desired by all, so that both these sacred institutions may ever
flourish in greatness and self-sacrifice for the good of the Nation and to the
Glory of the Church.
† Formerly of Florina
CHRYSOSTOMOS
Scans of the original Greek: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2012/05/blog-post_16.html
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