To observe the strictness of the
sacred canons is indeed the safest path for the resolution of ecclesiastical
problems that touch upon the salvation of the faithful. There is, however, also
the path of economia, which for a time overlooks strictness for the sake
of settling issues for which, if strictness were observed, greater problems
would have been created than those already existing. Both paths, of course,
constitute the timeless tradition of our Church. I think that the conflicting
views concerning [episcopal] ordinations considered or not considered to be
contrary to the canons move between strictness and economia. If I have a
tendency to incline more toward strictness, while the middle way lies on the
side of economia, then strictness ends up as an attachment to the letter
of the law. If I incline more toward economia while the middle way lies
on the side of strictness, then my economia ends up as a transgression
of the law. The middle way that will make it possible to resolve such problems
requires the most thorough knowledge of ecclesiastical history, of the Acts of
the Councils, and above all the gift of discernment, an indispensable
prerequisite for the correct judgment of such delicate ecclesiastical matters.
It is needless to say, of course, that the only authority that has the
prerequisites and the competence to resolve such ecclesiastical problems by a
single decision is a pan-Orthodox Council. Given, at least for the present, the
inability to convene a great Council, clearly something must be done.
Fathers and brethren, I place
before your judgment the following question. Should approximately one million
faithful [in 1935] who did not follow the new calendar (they [i.e., the new
calendarist Official Church] made the calendar schism and not those who
remained in the tradition) have been left without shepherds, with the
assumption that strictness required the ordinations to be approved by the Synod
of the Official Church? Or do you believe that Chrysostomos Papadopoulos would
ever have approved them? Does the fact that the triad of bishops ordained
titular bishops tell you nothing?
What is the greater matter, the
flock or exactitude concerning the ordinations of bishops? Man or the law of
the Sabbath? You know the answer and what it entails.
Perhaps you are unaware of the
ferocious campaign carried out with planted agents ([Fr. Eugenios] Tombros and
[theologian Athanasios] Sakarellos, the well-known ones), the exile of the
leader of the struggle, trials upon trials, bans on the faithful attending
church, and the relentless propaganda of the new-calendarist ecumenists—do not
you too take part in this, because beyond the correctness of your walling off,
here you err.
- Damianos, monk
***
Congratulations, Fr. Damianos!
Let me put it in other words as well: do the respected walled-off Fathers
consider that the Old Calendarists, after 100 years, ought—for some supposed
strictness—to continue receiving the Mysteries (baptisms, marriages, etc.) from
the reservoir of the ecumenists? That is, if we are lucky for a priest to wall
himself off somewhere from time to time, should we run to receive the Mysteries
only from him? Whereas if one or two or three bishops wall themselves off, as
in ’35, are we to regard this as illegality? I think it is known to most that
St. John Chrysostom, deposed and exiled, ordained priests and bishops and
performed all the Mysteries normally. Take note: both deposed and beyond the
borders—that is, within “illegality”!
- Giannis Karagiannakis
***
A prominent New-Calendarist
anti-ecumenist, disappointed by the fact that not a single Bishop of the New
Calendar walled himself off after the “Council” of Crete in 2016, told me:
brother, God must have known something when He allowed the Bishops of the G.O.C.
to come into being. Did not Fr. Savvas [Lavriotis] and his group, or likewise the
Thessalonian walled-off clergy [led by Fr. Theodoros Zisis], struggle or seek for there to be walled-off
Bishops from the New Calendar or other official Churches? If indeed some
Bishops had walled themselves off and assumed their leadership, would they not
have been de facto a parallel Synod? Therefore, their problem, in
essence, is not the existence of a parallel Synod but the Bishops of the G.O.C.
and, in general, the very existence of the G.O.C.
- Anonymous
Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2022/07/blog-post_13.html
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