Hieromonk Nikephoros Nassos | October 26, 2015
1. The change of the calendar in
the year 1924 did not take place for reasons of supposed astronomical accuracy,
as was said and is still deliberately claimed today, since there were proposals
for the adoption of other, more accurate calendars in the Church, but it was
done for ecumenistic reasons!
Ecumenism is not merely a heresy,
but a pan-heresy, a mosaic of heresies, religions, and delusions. It aims at a
dogma-less union of all things! It equates truth with falsehood. It seeks to
unite Holy Orthodoxy with the so-called Western confessions (Papists,
Protestants, Anglicans) and subsequently with all religions, since each
religion and each confession will retain its own beliefs. [1]
The atheistic preaching of
Ecumenism began to be proclaimed very long ago, and today we are spectators of
the great battle being waged between ecumenists and
anti-ecumenists—anti-unionists—in our Greece, in the realm of the New Calendar.
[2]
Lately, a similar battle is being
waged in neighboring Serbia, where a most pious bishop, Artemije [+2020], is
being persecuted by the strongly ecumenist new Patriarch Irinej [+2020] and by
the three bishops who are traitors to the principles of their great
anti-ecumenist Elder, the ever-memorable Fr. [St.] Justin Popović. [3]
And the anti-ecumenists of our
homeland (the most sincere ones) very justly believe and proclaim that both
they themselves and the people who follow them are all being defiled like
interconnected vessels (as they wrote), through their sacramental communion
with the highest leaders of the Church to which they belong. And this occurs
due to the transmission of corruption from the communion of their shepherds
with the condemned heretics. Yet all of this began with the supposedly innocent
calendar change, as the first practical step of the so-called ecumenical (in
essence, universalist) movement.
2. With an ecumenistic
disposition and in the spirit of “syncretism,” as it is called, the change of
the calendar in 1924 in Greece also took place, for the purpose of bringing
Orthodoxy closer to the heretics of the West. This was commanded by the heretical
encyclical of the Patriarchate in 1920, which clearly spoke of the finding of a
common calendar, “for the simultaneous celebration of all feasts by all the
Churches,” that is, so that the Orthodox might celebrate together with the
Papists, as is done today by those who follow the New Calendar. [4]
When Christmas is celebrated
according to the New Calendar, the Papists celebrate at the same time, as is
also stated by the media. When Christmas is celebrated according to the Old
Calendar, then Bethlehem in Jerusalem also celebrates, as does Mount Athos.
With the Old Calendar, the current of the Jordan River also turns back during
the Feast of Theophany, as is known, just as the phenomenon of the “cloud” that
appears during the Feast of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor is also known,
and others.
3. The Old Calendar preserved the
unity of the Church for 1600 years (!)—from the First Ecumenical Council until
1924. The First Ecumenical Council (among other things) established the Julian
(Old) Calendar in order that there might be festal and ecclesiastical unity
throughout the world, among all Christians!
This is very fundamental! The
Church is not concerned with calendars, but with her unity! With how all
Christians will celebrate the same ecclesiastical event on the same day—for
example, Christmas, the Annunciation, the Dormition, etc. Those Holy Fathers
were not troubled by the matter of the shifting of the equinox, which they were
well aware of, but they strove for the greater matter: ecclesiastical unity!
Thus, the Old Calendar was the
appropriate instrument for preserving that unity which the Church struggled
throughout time to maintain—and indeed did maintain—for 1600 years, as we have
said. This unity of the Church in Divine Worship (uniform celebration of the
feasts) was destroyed by certain unscrupulous individuals in 1924 with the
change of the calendar, which, we repeat, had served as the instrument securing
it for so many centuries.
Guilty, therefore, for the
long-standing division and ecclesiastical disorder that has existed in Orthodox
Greece since 1924—where some are celebrating and others are not, some are
fasting and others are breaking the fast, some have Christmas and others do
not, etc.—are those of the New Calendar, not those of the Old!
4. Whatever the Church does,
whatever it regulates for the salvation of the faithful (changes, reforms,
etc.), it does so by synodical decision! The polity of the Church is
hierarchical and synodical. No one (patriarch, archbishop, bishop, etc.) acts
arbitrarily, dictatorially, or egocentrically on his own, as happens in Papism,
where the pontiff alone decides.
In Orthodoxy, whatever takes
place, takes place following a collective decision. A model of synodical
decision-making for Orthodoxy is the First Apostolic Council in the year 49
A.D., as recorded in the “Acts of the Apostles.” At that council, “Peter spoke,
James gave judgment, but the community deliberated and wrote—not
authoritatively, nor as rulers, but as ministers.” [5] And this is expressed in
the Book of Acts with the phrase: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to
us.” This is the polity of the Church—the synodical polity. [6]
As for the calendar change,
however, the synodical system was not observed; there was no ecclesiastical
decision—neither from a Patriarchate, nor from a great Pan-Orthodox Council, as
there ought to have been (since it had been regulated by a great—Ecumenical—Council),
nor even from the local synod of the Church of Greece! This fact is
acknowledged in their writings even by some bishops of the New Calendar, such
as Augoustinos Kantiotes in his book Against the Pope. So then, no
decision from anywhere! It entered “through the window” and not through the
door! It was imposed forcibly, dictatorially, revolutionarily (with a telegram
from the rebel Archbishop to the Synodical Metropolitans!), and for this reason
it brought about division and all the disastrous consequences.
5. The change of the calendar (or
“correction,” as they called it for a more pleasant sound!) was carried out by
two high-ranking ecclesiastical officials, yet unworthy of their positions, as
it turned out.
The first was Meletios Metaxakis,
Patriarch of Constantinople, a 33rd-degree Freemason, initiated into the lodge
of Crete “Harmonia.” The second was Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, Archbishop of
Athens, a philomason, who, as an archimandrite in 1918, participated in a
committee regarding the calendar issue and, in giving his opinion, took a
stance against the change of the calendar, so that the Church of Greece might
not become (as he rightly stated) schismatic in relation to all the other
Churches and Patriarchates which followed—and still follow—the Old Calendar.
Ultimately, in the year 1924,
this very same man changed it (as Archbishop) and divided the people of God.
Why then do some of the New Calendar speak ill of those who follow the
tradition of our Church, without taking the sources into account? And behold!
The historian Archimandrite Theoklitos Strangas writes that the innovating
Archbishop Chrysostomos Papadopoulos “used falsehood and deceit in order to
mislead the other hierarchs and to impose the change of the calendar.” [7] And
both reformers met a dreadful end… The infamous Metaxakis, as he was dying,
cried out: “I am tormented because I tore the Church apart…” [8]
6. The deceit, the turmoil, and
the consequences of the festal innovation were carried by the unscrupulous
reformers and their instruments even into the blessed “garden of the Theotokos,”
Mount Athos. In the beginning (from the year 1924), all the monasteries
reacted, did not follow the arbitrary change, and ceased the commemoration of
the then Patriarch of innovation. The sole exception was the Monastery of…
Vatopedi! (Coincidence?)
After three years, that is, in
1927, with rumors of the convocation of a great (supposed) council that would
resolve the calendar issue, the Athonite fathers were deceived by the
Patriarchal Metropolitan-Exarch, Anthimos of Maroneia (who came and remained 24
days on Mount Athos until… he completed the work of deception), and they
returned!
That is, they returned to
ecclesiastical communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople so that they
might (as Anthimos told them) be represented and have their requests accepted
by the council that was supposed to convene—yet… never convened! However, the
severed communion and the commemoration of the patriarch were restored and,
unfortunately, remain to this day, with the sole exception of the persecuted
Monastery of Esphigmenou and the other Athonite fathers, the so-called zealots.
Thus, the Ecumenists succeeded in capturing even Mount Athos, so that now the
traitor of the sacred things of the faith, Bartholomew, is commemorated… [9]
7. The calendar change was not
only never accepted by the Church for so many centuries, out of fear of a
potential schism, but it has also been condemned by Pan-Orthodox Councils in
the years 1583, 1587, and 1593.
It was not only the Papal Paschalion
that was condemned, as many misleadingly claim, but also the calendar itself!
And indeed, those of the New Calendar did not adopt the new Paschalion from
the West, and for this reason they celebrate Pascha and the immovable feasts of
the Paschal cycle (Triodion and Pentecostarion up to the Sunday
of All Saints) together with those who follow the Old Calendar—but they did,
however, adopt the new calendar (or... “corrected,” as they call it), in order
to celebrate together with the Westerners.
From the ecclesiastical history
of Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem (17th century), we quote the relevant
passage which refers to the condemnation of the New Calendar, which was made by
the great Council in Constantinople in 1593, during the time of [Patriarch] Jeremias
Tranos: “Tenth and last, (i.e., the council decided) that Pascha be celebrated
as it was ordained by the First Council, and that the new calendar invented by
the Latins be anathematized.” [10]
So then, why should we embrace
something that the Church has synodally rejected and condemned? For reasons of…
obedience, as some claim? But obedience refers to the Church—not to those who
ignored the Church and did what Freemasonry told them!!!
8. The change of the calendar
advanced the plans of Ecumenism, and this is clearly evident today, where the
high-ranking figures of the so-called “official” Church—patriarchs,
archbishops, etc. (such as Christodoulos then, and Bartholomew then and
now)—pray together with the unrepentant heretics: the pope, the Anglicans, and
others, and recognize in them grace and mysteries, while they deny them to the
strict Orthodox of the Old Calendar!
In other words, the Papists are
said to have mysteries, but the Old Calendarist Orthodox do not! This is the
mindset of some among the New Calendar. They forget, unfortunately, that by
recognizing the heretics, they become “enemies of God,” as Saint John
Chrysostom writes—and as that great Confessor and fearless defender of the
sacred institutions, Saint Theodore the Studite, invokes: “Chrysostom declared
with a great and loud voice that not only the heretics, but also those who
commune with such as these, are enemies of God.” [11]
And we must not forget, as well,
what our Panagia said, appearing to a monk shortly before the persecution under
Patriarch John Bekkos (13th century) against the anti-unionist Athonite monks:
“My enemies and those of my Son are coming!”!! And the Theotokos was
clearly referring to the Latin-minded patriarch, for it was he who went to her
garden and persecuted, burned, and drowned the anti-unionist monks in the sea!
Heresy, therefore, is indeed a great evil—truly a separation from God! And it
is a great evil to have spiritual communion with a heretic! This is why the
faithful of the Patristic Calendar insist on its faithful preservation—not
because of days or hours or minutes, but to avoid this condemnable
intermingling… [12]
9. The entire calendar issue,
with its development and its dimensions, was known to a great theologian and
university professor, a foremost dogmatic theologian of the 20th century, Fr.
John Romanides.
He, as an expert in theological
and ecclesiological matters, knew that the change of the calendar constituted
the first stone in the edifice of the pseudo-union of the churches within the
framework of religious syncretism. He was aware also of the division of unity
in Divine Worship and all the devious purposes and disastrous consequences of
the calendar change. And precisely because he knew these things, he had written
something extremely significant, namely the following: “The calendar issue is a
dogmatic-canonical matter!” Can those of the New Calendar dare to dispute
him—those who call the Old Calendarists schismatics, heretics, profane, and
outside the Church?
10. Also, the historical events
and the entire framework of the matter are known to the distinguished and
renowned Protopresbyter and emeritus professor of the University of
Athens, Fr. George Metallinos, who stated many times publicly that the
followers of the Old Calendar are entirely correct, since they serve as a brake
on the course of the Church of Greece toward Ecumenism. (He has said this
personally many times to my unworthiness.) Furthermore, he himself, in his book
Lights and Light, writes that the calendar change was made for the
advancement of Ecumenism. [13] (A complete vindication and recognition of the
honorable struggle of the Old Calendarists!) Who can dispute the words of the
leading theologian and historian of our times?
11. The innovators call those who
hold fast to the traditions “Old Calendarists,” that is, old, because they did
not accept to follow something new, something novel—in this case, the
innovation. What fine reasoning! But it is not possible that every time they
“renew” themselves, we must become “older”! For according to this logic, since
for example the New Calendarists have innovated in many things, including the
celebration of the Mystery of Baptism—wherein, in many churches today, a Papal
sprinkling “by pouring” is performed—then those of the Old Calendar, who
baptize in an Orthodox and canonical manner, should be called… Old-Baptizers!
A similar label should be applied
to those who today refuse to accept the innovations of the attempted
translations of our liturgical texts (cf. Volos, Academy of Theological
Studies—or rather… Academy of Theological Corruption…), or of the so-called post-patristic
theology (see again Volos), and so on!
12. Certain zealous “apologists”
of the festal innovation, in their attempt to justify the unjustifiable,
present various arguments through the art of sophistry—arguments which, due to
the limited scope here, we will not enumerate, but which have already been
thoroughly refuted in many studies, texts, etc., by numerous writers. It
matters not, however! “Truth, though persecuted, is seen all the more clearly,”
Saint and Confessor Tarasios tells us! [14]
The well-known great... defenders
of the truly condemned reform, upon whom the younger ones rely, are the
archimandrites (reposed some years ago) Epiphanios Theodoropoulos and Joel
Yiannakopoulos—wise in other respects, but tragically mistaken on the calendar
issue. Many regard them as… infallible—just as some elders are regarded who
took an erroneous stance on this particular issue, either out of ignorance or
other hidden reasons, known only to God. And they are considered authorities!
“Such-and-such a father said it, he was a saint,” etc.
Individual persons, however,
cannot help but err at times and be led astray, no matter how much wisdom they
may possess! Even saints have erred, as men, for the saints were not
infallible, but they were without delusion. Only the Church as a whole does not
err, when it is expressed through Ecumenical Councils. And the Church has
spoken on this specific matter throughout time. We do not, therefore, rely on
individual persons, but on the Church, and we trust persons when they express
the Church in a timeless manner.
Beyond the two aforementioned
archimandrites, in 1982 Christodoulos, as Metropolitan of Demetrias, also
authored his well-known dissertation on the calendar issue, filled with many
distortions of the truth and his own arbitrary conclusions on the matter. That
dissertation is characterized by a multitude of citations and a poverty of
arguments, as has been aptly written… The baseless arguments of the defenders
of the festal innovation, presented in various treatises, have been refuted
time and again, many times over. [15]
Conclusion
The change of the calendar was
carried out unlawfully and uncanonically, promoted by Freemasons and
Ecumenists, and imposed in a revolutionary manner, with the other autocephalous
Churches and Patriarchates being disregarded.
The calendar innovation fractured
and dissolved the nearly two-thousand-year unity of the Church in Divine
Worship, advanced the plans of Ecumenism and of pan-religion (which will have
as its leader the… Antichrist), opened the door to many other reforms and
novelties that we already see being implemented today, and in general turned
everything “upside down,” as the saying goes, in Orthodox Greece and throughout
global Orthodoxy.
Those who follow (with many
deprivations, formerly also with persecutions and various hardships) the Old
Calendar were and are indeed few (few in Greece, but very many throughout the
world), yet, fortunately, they saw and discerned with their Orthodox sensibility,
even then, the coming betrayal! And for this reason, by the grace and
enlightenment of the All-Holy God, they reacted forcefully and cried out in
1924 with all the strength of their soul, prophetically: “They have Latinized
us, they have Latinized us!”
Ultimately, time and history
vindicated them!
Epigram
From the new book by Metropolitan
Hierotheos of Nafpaktos titled “Fr. John Romanides: A Foremost Dogmatic
Theologian of the Orthodox Catholic Church,” we quote a passage from a letter
by Fr. John to Fr. Georges Florovsky, dated May 28, 1958, concerning the Old
Calendarists:
“There are over one million Old
Calendarists in Greece who are subjected to degrading persecutions. In reality,
they are the truly pious Orthodox in the traditional sense of the term,
faithfully keeping all the feasts and liturgical customs. In their homes, one
finds the Philokalia and all the wonderful translations of the Fathers
that were made in the past century. In the homes of the pious of the official
Church, one finds Guardini, [one word missing], Holzner, Pascal, etc., but not
even a single Father of the Church.”
NOTES
[1] Regarding Ecumenism, there is a very rich and
ever-increasing bibliography to which anyone interested may refer.
[2] Professor Andreas Theodorou rightly wrote that
“Ecumenism, this dreadful beast of the Apocalypse, the two-headed
ecclesiological monster, is choking the entire immaculate Body of Orthodoxy
with its tentacles”…
[3] The ever-memorable Elder, in his book Orthodox Church
and Ecumenism, published by Orthodox Kypseli, Thessaloniki 1974, writes:
“Ecumenism is the common name for the pseudo-Christians, for the
pseudo-churches of Western Europe”…
[4] The heretical encyclical of 1920, which constitutes the
“foundational charter” of the ecumenists, was unknown to the people during the
early years of the festal reform—just as the true intentions of the innovative
modernists were also unknown.
For this reason, in the writings and encyclicals of that
ever-memorable confessor hierarch, former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos
Kavourides (+1955), there were no references to this matter, but the entire
focus was solely on the serious issue of the breaking of ecclesiastical unity,
which was caused by the reformers.
The encyclical was first published in 1965 in the Dogmatic
and Symbolic Monuments of Professor Ioannis Karmiris, and thereafter begins
the chain of betrayals—with the lifting of the anathemas against the Papists by
Patriarch Athenagoras, the participation of the innovating church in the W.C.C.
(World Council of Churches—i.e., of heresies and atheistic teachings), and we
reach today’s dire state with the joint prayers of Bartholomew (and others)
with the Pope, and the transmission of the disease of heresy through the
Mysteries to those who commune with him, clergy and laity, etc.
All took place methodically, and today everything has now
been revealed. The aims and intentions of the traitors have become known… and
every sensible person perceives the tragic outcome, which consists in a dulling
of Orthodox sensibilities and in a spiritual “Mithridatism” of the faithful,
through the gradual drinking of the poison of heresy—little by little…
[5] See Dositheos of Jerusalem, Ecclesiastical History,
Book X, Chapter Γ, Part A.
[6] Saint Cyril of Alexandria, “the seal of the Spirit,”
characteristically writes in a letter that “in theological and ecclesiastical
matters, the counsel of the Holy Fathers and of the sacred Synod prevails.”
[7] See Archim. Theokletos Strangas, The Church of Greece
– Ecclesiastical History, vol. III, pp. 1533–1534 and 1646–1647.
[8] These accounts concerning the dreadful end of the
reformers were first published by the ever-memorable virtuous Elder of Paros,
Fr. Philotheos Zervakos. See The New Calendar and Its Fruits, p. 34. He
says that Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, in moments of remorse, would strike his
head with both hands and say: “Would that I had not saved it, would that I had
not saved it. That twisted Metaxakis dragged me down with him…”
[9] See Hieromonk Theodoretos (+2007), Orthodoxy
Persecuted, Athens 2007, p. 97: “Unfortunately, this belittling of the
confessional character of Orthodoxy reached its peak at the beginning of the
twentieth century through the religious brotherhoods. From the 1960s onward,
members of these organizations gradually assumed the hegumeneias of the
Holy Monasteries of Athos, with the result that their mentality and approach
were transplanted into the sacred space. Thus, we have arrived at today’s
tragedy: the bishop of the Holy Mountain, the Ecumenical Patriarch, embraces
and praises the heretics, while the Athonites follow him… with all reverence,
while simultaneously persecuting the anti-patriarchal zealots.”
[10] See Dositheos of Jerusalem, Ecclesiastical History,
Book XI, Chapter XI.
[11] See Saint Theodore the Studite, Epistle 39, Patrologia
Graeca, vol. 99, 1049D.
[12] For this reason, moreover, those who follow the
Patristic tradition refuse ecclesiastical communion with any churches that
participate—either directly or indirectly—in the ecumenical movement,
regardless of which calendar they follow.
[13] See Protopresbyter G. Metallinos, Lights and Light,
Athos Publications, p. 42.
[14] See the Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.
[15] See The Antidote by Hieromonk Theodoretos, Athens
1991; also Monk Augoustinos of Hagios Vasileios, Study: “The Calendar Schism
Examined from a Historical and Canonical Perspective,” p. 477 ff.
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