Opinions and comments on an article
by Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus titled: “Who is Responsible for the
Degradation of the Priestly Schema”
Protopresbyter
Dimitrios Athanasiou | November 15, 2025
An article by Metropolitan
Seraphim of Piraeus recently circulated online, titled “Who is Responsible
for the Degradation of the Priestly Schema”, prompted by the matters
concerning [pseudo-Old Calendarist and pseudo-bishop “Parthenios”] Vezyreas.
In a manner that is unfortunately
misleading, concealing historical facts, the Metropolitan attempts to draw his
own final conclusion, namely that “...in the case of Mr. Vezyreas and those ‘of
similar character,’ there is one guilty party: the Greek State.”
In commenting on the
Metropolitan’s views, we note the following:
1. His Eminence Metropolitan
Seraphim forgets something very fundamental: namely, that the “Old Calendarist
issue” was created by the indiscriminate ecclesiastical practices of Patriarch
Meletios Metaxakis (1923), of [Archbishop] Chrysostomos Papadopoulos and their
Synods, and of the Greek State in 1924 through the so-called “calendar reform.”
Thus, the first to be blamed for such phenomena of ecclesiastical charlatanism
are the above. So then, Your Eminence, was the Greek State—when it persecuted
the Old Calendarists together with the state church—good back then and now it
is bad? That is to say, should it apply the same policy in the 21st century and
officially establish a peculiar form of ecclesiastical racism, like Germany, which
you so admire??
2. We follow the New Calendar,
and just as we consider the correction of the ecclesiastical calendar to be
something necessary due to the accumulated astronomical errors, we equally
respect the freedom of those Greek citizens who wish (for their own reasons) to
follow the Old Calendar. There are many disagreements, but it would be best for
the “Old Calendarist issue,” in all its aspects, to be examined by a
Pan-Orthodox Council of Orthodox bishops—which to this day has not taken place.
This is what you should be calling for, Your Eminence, and not implicitly, yet
clearly, proposing the policing by law of the religious conscience of Greek
citizens—that is, the institutionalization of the Sergianist Church in another
form.
3. Are you bothered by the
recognition of the legality of the ecclesiastical community of the Old
Calendarists, but not by the legality of the Muftiate of Thrace and the
legality of all Christian but heretical confessions and other heterodox
communities? Do not forget, your Eminence, that the so-called anti-ecumenist
movement began within the Old Calendar community. We also honor saints who were
associated with the Old Calendarist realm.
I mention briefly Saint Sophia of
Kleisoura (who had as her spiritual father the Old Calendarist Bishop
Kyprianos, who also tonsured her a nun with the name Myrtidiotissa), Saint
Ephraim of Katounakia, who was ordained by the Old Calendarist bishop Germanos
Varykopoulos (who had been deposed by the official Church of Greece along with
the “hierarchs” who ordained him), and WAS NOT RE-ORDAINED. However, some
Fathers doubted the canonicity of his ordination, which is why he turned to the
superior of the ruling Monastery of Great Lavra, to which the Skete of Saint
Anna belonged, Elder Platon, to find out what he should do.
He turned to the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, and Patriarch Athenagoras (!!!!) responded to him: “We receive
the brother as he is.” These things were recounted by Saint Ephraim of
Katounakia himself.
Saint Joseph the Hesychast also
had, for the greater part of his life, ecclesiastical communion with zealot
circles of the Old Calendarists.
The mother of Saint Joseph, as
well as his two sisters, were tonsured as nuns by an Old Calendarist priest and
reposed while living the monastic life at home according to the Old Calendar.
His niece, Barbara, daughter of
his sister Ergina, was tonsured a nun with the name Vryaini at the Old
Calendarist Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Thrakomakedones. Her
elder, Parthenios Skourlis (later “Bishop of the Cyclades” of the Old Calendar),
and the Abbess Euthymia were held in utmost reverence by the Saint until the
end of his life. Vryaini later built her own monastery dedicated to the Theotokos
Myrtidiotissa in Stamata-Drosia of Attica, where she reposed, and which
exists to this day and belongs to an Old Calendarist faction.
Therefore, within the Old
Calendarist community, there still exist today notable individuals and highly
moral clergy.
4. Who performs ordinations, Your
Eminence? The politicians of the time or the Hierarchs? You, as bishops, are
unable to safeguard the priestly office and ask the State for assistance? The
phenomenon of various forms of immorality in the ecclesiastical sphere—which,
unfortunately, has made newspaper headlines and been covered by the
media—proves that the holy canons concerning the priesthood are being
shamelessly violated. And those who violate these canons, whether they belong
to the Old Calendarists or the New Calendarists, they are the ones who degrade
the priestly office.
5. Ecclesiastical charlatanism
does not thrive only within the Old Calendarist sphere, but also within the
New. The news reports are still fresh, showing clergy entangled in antiquities
smuggling rings. You conceal, Your Eminence, that the phenomena of Vezyreas and
Tsakos were born and grew up within the state Church, violating a multitude of
holy canons related to the priesthood. Vasilis Vezyreas studied at the Middle
Ecclesiastical Preparatory School of Kalamata and later at the Rizareios
Ecclesiastical School of Athens. He was subsequently ordained hierodeacon and
made a great-schema monk by Chrysostomos Papadopoulos of Carthage. Can you tell
us, Your Eminence, at what age was he ordained? Who gave the co-testimony for
his ordination, and in which monastery did he live as a celibate clergyman?
Were all things done as prescribed by the holy canons? Our information
indicates that nothing of what is stipulated was observed—and the results are
what we now see. When the holy canons are SHAMELESSLY VIOLATED, they punish in
various ways. Not even the age requirement was upheld, as established by
ecclesiastical canons—twenty-five for ordination to the diaconate, and thirty
for the presbyterate—so that the decision for ordination may be, as far as
possible, mature, firm, and tested. Are these canons being applied today??
Also, Dorotheos Tsakos was a New
Calendarist Archimandrite (of the Metropolis of Sidirokastro), who, after being
convicted and deposed for sodomy in 1968, was “ordained bishop” by Nikolaos
Katsounakis of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, who had been “ordained” as a
pseudo-bishop of Venezuela by self-ordained Ukrainians!!! Why don’t you write
about these things??
Seraphim Michas was a Hieromonk
(of the Metropolis of Kythera), who was deposed in 1981 because he defrocked
himself.
6. The blatant violation of the
holy canons, the establishment of Archimandritism, and the rise of the
phenomenon of Elderism—these are pathological conditions that plague the body
of the Church, Your Eminence. Do you not see them?
On February 27, 2005, truths
about the phenomenon of Archimandritism were published in a related article in
the newspaper Kathimerini.
“What are
archimandrites? They are celibate priests in the world, without, however, being
monks — they are merely registered, for formal reasons, in the monastic
registry of a monastery. This third category, beyond the married priests and
the monks, consists of career clergymen. They donned the cassock, usually at a
very young age, desiring ecclesiastical ranks and primarily, of course, the
episcopate. They become archimandrites in order to become bishops. Celibate
priests in the world have always existed in the Church, but only today—and
especially within the boundaries of the Church of Greece—have they formed a
separate body and acquired such power. The Greek Orthodox Church is
governed—read: dominated—by the archimandrites, by this body of ambitious, untheological,
uneducated, authoritarian, and psychologically troubled—so as not to say
something worse—individuals. When a young Christian, seventeen or eighteen
years old, wants to wear the cassock not to become a priest or a monk, but an
archimandrite, something is wrong from the outset with his psychological
balance. Archimandrites know one thing well, exactly what every careerist
knows—the art of alliances: whom to attach themselves to, with whom and when to
form alliances, with whom to establish transactional relationships, which, as
the current crisis has shown, can go very far.”
Also, the noteworthy book by
Stavroula Ziazopoulou–Zachou, My Own Sophia (Estia Publications, 2010),
which addresses the phenomenon of Elderism through real events, concludes as
follows:
“I understood
through my contact with men in cassocks — that is why they often wear it —
because the cassock gives them power, asylum, alibi, favor. Ah, wretched
Church, what relation do you have with all those who represent you… Far from
them, far away — I feel that only far from them can I breathe the air of my
God, the source of truth… I do not want to kiss the hand of a priest that on
one side smells of incense, and on the other has ‘grabbed’ money, feelings,
consciences… I hate those spotless, plump hands of clergymen, and together with
them, the smell of their cassock, when it mocks the most sacred thing that
every human soul has by nature since the foundation of the world: reverence for
the divine. Woe unto you, and again woe, hypocrites.”
7. From the official publications
of the Church of Greece, we are informed that even today there are depositions
of clergymen for “canonical offenses.” Among these offenses are also moral
deviations. However, we have not seen, Your Eminence, the BISHOPS who performed
the ordinations of such clergymen being PUNISHED. Do not tell us that those who
were deposed suddenly became IMMORAL, while they were exceedingly MORAL before
being ordained!!!
8. The Synodal courts, however,
also consider as a canonical offense the act of walling-off, and all clergymen
who were referred to a Synodal court for breaking ecclesiastical communion FOR
REASONS OF FAITH were triumphantly deposed. Is this or is this not a violation
of ecclesiastical canons?? Or is the State also to blame for this?? We remind
you of the following:
The disciple of Saint Gregory
Palamas, the monk Joseph Kalothetos, following the ecclesiological teaching of
Saint Gregory Palamas and the earlier Holy Fathers:
a) Distinguishes the Church of
Christ, of the Apostles, and of the Martyrs from the so-called new church which
is founded, due to their apostasy, by bishops who embrace heresy and who
erroneously believe that theirs is the Church. This so-called new church of
heresy is deluded and severs those who commune with it from God. That is, the
institutional church (or autocephalous church), when governed by heretical
bishops, is heretically severed from the Church of Christ, of the Apostles, and
of the Martyrs.
b) He notes that the
distinguishing marks of the Church are: (1) the absence of any heretical
teaching, and (2) the purity of the dogmas of the God-bearing Saints.
c) He clarifies that the breaking
of communion with heretical bishops (or pseudo-bishops) aims: (1) at preventing
communion with the so-called new church founded by them due to their apostasy,
and (2) at preserving the faithful within the Church of Christ, of the
Apostles, and of the Martyrs.
d) He emphasizes that the
obligation of obedience in the Lord by Orthodox faithful to bishops who have
adopted heresy—and to clergy who commune with them—is lifted.
e) He states that whoever among
the Orthodox forgives a heretic before he repents and returns from heresy to
the right faith is not forgiven by God and sins doubly: first, because he
forgives him before he repents and returns to God; and second, because he
pretends to be more merciful than God.
9. In his article, His Eminence
of Piraeus also raises the issue of the canonicity of the priesthood of the
G.O.C. On this matter, the competent bodies to respond are the Synods of the
G.O.C. However, since His Eminence believes that the state Church is spotless
and undefiled with regard to canonicity, we remind him of the document sent to
the Synod of the Church of Greece (on January 12, 1974) by the ever-memorable
Metropolitan Ambrosios of Eleftheroupolis, in which he wrote the following:
“…I ask you,
holy brethren: Are we truly and absolutely canonical? Do we possess spotless
canonicity? I respond with a stentorian voice: NO! NO! NO!
We too are
uncanonical, first, because—as I have emphasized in my recent telegrams—we all
bear within ourselves the original sin of uncanonicity, directly or indirectly,
from the hierarchy created by the uncanonical five-member ‘aristindin’ synod of
1922, which elevated Chrysostomos Papadopoulos to Archbishop, and indeed with
only three votes. From this Synod were also elected the Metropolitans Gregory of
Chalkis, Damaskinos of Corinth and later of Athens, Constantine of Acarnania, Antonios
of Ilia, Dorotheos of Kythera and then of Larisa and then of Athens, Athenagoras
of Corfu and then of America and Constantinople, and finally Panteleimon of
Karystia and then of Chios, who ordained others, who in turn ordained others,
and so on. Therefore, we all, by origin, bear within ourselves the original sin
of uncanonicity. ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’ against the
others.
We too are
uncanonical, second, because in the present Synod there sit Hierarchs elected
by the ‘aristindin’ Synod of Archbishop Damaskinos.
We too are
uncanonical, third, because about half of the members of this current Synod are
co-responsible for what took place after 1967.
We too are
uncanonical, fourth, because the entirety of the members of this current
Synod—or at least the overwhelming majority—received ordination as Deacon or
Presbyter, or both, at an age lower than that set by the Holy Canons. And if
the absolute canonical exactitude were to be applied—which, nonetheless, we
demand with rabid insistence when it comes to the election of Hierarchs after
1967—they would be at risk not only of being excluded from the current Synod,
not only of losing their episcopal throne, but of being entirely deposed from
every priestly authority, since the Holy Canons impose the penalty of
deposition for such a transgression.
I repeat the
words of my telegrams: ‘In the Church of Greece no Hierarch will be found clean
from the stain of uncanonicity.’ And: ‘If You, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?’... It was most aptly written the other day in a daily
Athenian newspaper that if the State wishes to find Bishops of irreproachable
canonicity so that they alone may elect the new Archbishop, it has but one
solution: To ask of God to once again send the 12 Apostles to earth!” (Sp.
Karatzaféris, File: Church, pp. 137, 139).
Also, our research showed that
Dorotheos Tsakos was “reordained,” allegedly as “Metropolitan of Patras,” by
the Old Calendarist Bishops (with succession from the ROCOR) Maximos
Vallianatos of Kefallinia and Gerasimos Vrakas of Thebes (and NOT Damaskinos
Vrakas).
10. His Eminence writes:
On Acharnon
Street, there is a stone-built Byzantine Church of the Holy Trinity, which,
however, is not an Orthodox church but Roman Catholic, and inside it
serves—wearing full Orthodox Hierarchical vestments—a Spanish Benedictine
priest, Mr. Manuel Nin, a member of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy of Greece,
who, in a single night, took off the Roman Catholic vestments of the Spanish
Benedictine priest and put on the Orthodox Hierarchical vestments of the
“Bishop of Carcabia” and celebrates using the liturgical rite of the Orthodox
Catholic Church.
Is this or is
this not usurpation of authority and deception of our people?
Mr. Nin is not
an Orthodox Hierarch, nor is he Greek, supposedly having converted to Roman
Catholicism as a so-called Greek-Rite Catholic.
COMMENTARY: Let us also ask His
Eminence the following. Does the so-called “Greek-Rite Catholic Church”
(Uniates) perhaps belong to the Christian confessions that were characterized
as Churches by the Council of Crete? Manuel Nin is a Roman Catholic Benedictine
priest—meaning he comes from the SISTER PAPAL CHURCH, which, according to the
Council of Kolymbari, possesses Priesthood and Mysteries. Why, then, is His
Eminence protesting about usurpation of authority?
In conclusion, we will repeat
once again: for the degradation of the Priestly Schema, the responsibility lies
exclusively with THOSE WHO MANAGE THE OFFICE OF PRIESTHOOD, and these are
primarily the bishops and those who deceitfully usurp it. Let us not deceive
the Christ-loving flock by shifting the blame. If bishops were also held
accountable for failed ordinations, then phenomena of imposture and
charlatanism would not exist.
Greek source: https://apotixisi.blogspot.com/2025/11/blog-post_99.html
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.