Elder Philotheos (Zervakos): The Truth about the Calendar Issue & Metropolitan Cyprian

by Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VIII (1991), No. 3, pp. 4, 15.

 

Readers can learn elsewhere in this issue of Orthodox Tradition of the unbecoming threats by New Calendarist Church authorities against Father Ephraim, former Abbot of the Monastery of Philotheou. This man, whom they not long ago called a clairvoyant Elder (a perhaps unwise or careless attribution), many New Calendarists are now calling a charlatan. Along with this slander, a renewed polemic against the Old Calendarists has surfaced, a vituperative attack centered, oddly enough, on us moderates and Metropolitan Cyprian.

Several New Calendarist Priests are claiming that Metropolitan Cyprian returned to the Old Calendar without the blessing of his spiritual Father, the Elder Philotheos (Zervakos). It is further claimed that, after his punishment by the State Church for "Old Calendarism," the Metropolitan had no right to call Father Philotheos his spiritual Father. Others assert that Father Philotheos did not, in fact, follow the Old Calendar and never advised New Calendarists to leave the New Calendar Church. The New Calendar Church of Greece is now quite healthy, they contend, having produced numerous holy men, none of whom has advocated that New Calendarists return to the Old Calendar. Cited among these holy people are, in addition to Father Philotheos, Father Gervasios of Patras, Father Amphilochios of Patmos, and the Athonite Elders Joseph and Paisios.

We question, indeed, the spiritual sobriety and stability of this new breed of polemical New Calendarists, who, without even knowing us personally, would suggest that we are liars. But in the interest of fairness, we will respond to this unseemly and shocking rumor-mongering with facts and details that tell the truth.

In the 1960s, Metropolitan Cyprian was advised by his spiritual Father, Elder Philotheos, to join the Old Calendar movement. In a letter dated 14 February 1969, Father Philotheos congratulated the Metropolitan for finally doing so, calling his official statement to that effect "good and suitable" and advising him to "...take courage and prepare for the temptations which will come your way and for tribulations." (See Ή Διακοπή τής Εκκλησιαστικής Επικοινωνίας τής Μονής μας Μετά των Νεοημερολογιτών [Athens, 1979], ρ. 23.) He greeted the then Abbot Cyprian, in this same letter, as an Archimandrite and his "...Spiritual Child in the Lord" (Ibid.).

With regard to the Metropolitan's deposition by the State Church for "Old Calendarism," Father Philotheos writes to a New Calendar clergyman (in a letter dated May 16, 1973, and reproduced in Παπα-δημήτρης Γκαγκαστάθης [Thessaloniki, 1990], p. 239-240) that, if Metropolitan (then Father) Cyprian was punished only because he became an Old Calendarist, then his deposition "has no validity unless the State Church of Greece condemns all Old Calendarists" and the Old Calendar as a heresy. He goes on to point out that this is impossible, since the New Calendar was introduced uncanonically and since it violates Holy Tradition and the pronouncements of numerous Church Synods. He thus did not recognize the punishment imposed on the Metropolitan by the New Calendarists for his act of conscience.

Furthermore, Father Philotheos certainly did follow the Old Calendar within the State Church. He wrote thus of his conviction: "Two days before the April 21 [1967] coup, when I visited Archbishop Chrysostomos [the New Calendar Greek Prelate], he playfully told me: 'Chrysostomos introduced the New Calendar, and Chrysostomos will uproot it.'...He died without having time to do it. In order that the same not befall me, ...from the day of the Feast of All Saints, ...I have followed the calendar given to us by the Fathers and I will follow it to my death." He did. (See Orthodox Tradition, VII, 3 [1990], p. 2.)

As does our Synod of Bishops, the Elder Philotheos flatly condemned the extremist Old Calendarists. Nonetheless, he advised many of his spiritual children to return to the Old Calendar. After seeing him briefly in Thessaloniki in 1968, I wrote Father Philotheos for advice myself. (I did not then even know Metropolitan Cyprian). Though he rightly chastised me for my unfortunate fanaticism at the time, he also advised me to stay loyal to the Old Calendarist movement and to avoid even communion in the New Calendar Greek Church in America.

Father Philotheos was wise and admittedly cautious in his advice to the Faithful with regard to the New Calendar Church of Greece. He knew that not everyone could face the challenge of resistance against the Mother Church—to some extent even himself, since his resistance was limited. Especially in the case of parish Priests, he advised great deliberation in decisions to join the Old Calendar movement. But he was unequivocal in his conviction, both in print and in personal communications, that the State Church of Greece was in error and that unity would come to it only when it returned to the Church Calendar. If his actions were less unequivocal, one need only look at the measures taken by the New Calendarists against those who act in good conscience to understand that hesitancy.

Finally, the State Church has indeed produced holy men and women under the New Calendar. However, as the spiritual state of the New Calendar Church of Greece gets worse—and it getting far worse, not better—, these people are fast disappearing. Moreover, we do not attribute their holiness to the New Calendar, but to their love of Holy Tradition. And all of these individuals were deep admirers of the Old Calendar. Father Amphilochios, a spiritual brother of Metropolitan Cyprian, was hardly a supporter of the New Calendar innovation. The Elder Joseph, whose niece is the Abbess of one of our convents, would have been appalled at where the Calendar innovation has gone, and certainly he never supported it in any way whatever.

A New Calendar polemic against us True Orthodox based on misrepresentations, false accusations, and distortions of the truth is not seemly. If it is meant to justify extremist modernists, it does just the opposite. It sounds an alarm to the prudent.