by Hieromonk [Archimandrite] Patapios and Archbishop [Metropolitan] Chrysostomos of Etna
In a recently published book
entitled, Netntelegerea Indreptarii Calendarului [The Misunderstanding
of the Calendar Emendations], [1] Nicolae Popescu, a graduate of the
Orthodox Faculty of Theology at the Ovidius University in Constanta, Romania,
ardently defends what he calls the “correction” of the Julian Calendar by the
Orthodox Church of Romania, when, in 1924, that body—and several other local
Orthodox Churches—adopted the Papal, or so-called “New” or “Gregorian”
Calendar, for the calculation of the cycle of the Church’s liturgical Feasts.
(The Romanian State had already adopted the Gregorian Calendar for secular use
on April 1, 1919.) Misunderstanding the calendar issue himself, the author
wrongly equates the Julian Calendar with the Church Calendar, which, employing
the Julian Calendar in its calculations, achieves a clever and complex
arrangement of the ecclesiastical festal year around various solar and lunar
events and the centrality of the Feast of Pascha. It was the scrapping of this
Church Calendar—universally used in the Orthodox Church since the First Ecumenical
Synod of Nicaea (325) and still used by the vast majority of Orthodox
Christians worldwide—, and not a correction of the Julian Calendar, that
was at the heart of the 1924 calendar reforms. It was this breach with Church
tradition that also accounted for the widespread reactions against the
innovation by many Orthodox clergy and believers, the “Anticalendarigtii” (or
“Anti-Calendarists,” a rather vacuous epithet) and "Slilislii” (or
“Stylists,” a pejorative term derived from references to Julian Calendar dates
as “Old Style” dates), as the author refers to Orthodox believers who refused
to adopt the Papal Calendar and who are more commonly known as “Old
Calendarists.” Though an alleged defense of the calendar reform, Mr. Popescu’s
book is essentially an attack against what he sees as the obstinate refusal of
the Old Calendarists to accept the calendar change, ending with a list of
somewhat gratuitous, crudely-crafted, ill-advised and somewhat intemperate
measures that he believes ought to be taken by the “official” State Church of
Romania to restore the erring Old Calendarists to the bosom of the Romanian
Patriarchate.
We have no desire to call into
question the author’s sincerity or his motives for writing such a book. He
obviously believes very strongly that the Old Calendarists have misunderstood
the reasons which led the Romanian Church to relinquish the Julian Calendar and
to adopt the Gregorian (or Papal) Calendar for the Heortologion, that
is, the cycle of fixed ecclesiastical Feasts, albeit retaining the formula set
forth at the First Synod for calculating the date of Pascha. However, his
treatment of the calendar question is marred by numerous distortions,
omissions, and other inaccuracies, some of which we will endeavor to address
within the confines of this brief article.
Needless to say, as Old
Calendarists, we are not at all sympathetic to the ideas set forth in the
present book or to its sometimes polemical approach. Nevertheless, like other
Old Calendarists who espouse a moderate ecclesiology, we are not opposed in principle
to an open, eirenic, and charitable debate of the issues surrounding the Church
Calendar. After all, as Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fill, Chief Hierarch
of the moderate Old Calendarist resisters in the Orthodox Church of Greece,
points out, “the Orthodox Church today, by reason of ecumenism and the calendar
innovation, is divided and in need of being united.” [2] And the very purpose
of our resistance, His Eminence suggests, is to convoke a general unifying
Synod, in order to enable those in error to return to right belief. When we
fail to keep the prospect of such a general Synod uppermost in our minds, he
notes, “quietism and an unhealthy ecclesiological introversion and self-sufficiency
prevail, with all of their tragic and painful consequences on the theological,
pastoral, and spiritual levels.” [3] If we are to avoid becoming introverted,
we must not only endeavor to present an articulate defense of our stand against
ecumenism and the calendar innovation, but must also be willing to listen to
our opponents and to respond in a balanced and fair-minded way to their
criticisms of us. By the same token, however, we may reasonably expect New
Calendarists to display a similar balance and fairness when writing about us.
Unfortunately, Mr. Popescu’s book is neither balanced nor fair, and it thus
does nothing to promote a better understanding among his fellow New
Calendarists of a movement which, since its inception in the 1920s, has been
the object of so much vitriol, violence, and repression on the part of the
powers that be, both temporal and ecclesiastical.
In the first part of the first
chapter of his book, Mr. Popescu offers a reasonably competent summary of the
origins of the Julian Calendar and notes its deficiencies, from an astronomical
point of view. Of course, the Julian calendar, like any other calendar (and
especially the Gregorian Calendar), is not absolutely perfect; but it is not as
significantly flawed as proponents of the Gregorian Calendar would have us
believe. In support of this point, we might adduce the high regard which the
renowned German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss had for the Julian Calendar.
Gauss, who derived the mathematical formula for the calculation of the Orthodox
Paschalion, was fascinated by the antiquity and the sophistication of
the Julian Calendar, which he considered to possess far greater scientific
worth than the Gregorian Calendar. [4] Likewise, the eminent Russian astronomer
E.A. Predtechensky has opined that, whereas the Church Calendar (which, again,
rests on the Julian Calendar) “was so executed, that till now it remains
unsurpassed,” the Gregorian Calendar is, by comparison, “ponderous and clumsy
to such a degree, that it reminds one of a cheap print alongside an artistic
depiction of the same subject.” [5]
In the second part of this
chapter, furthermore, Mr. Popescu’s limitations as a historian become quite
evident. According to Vasile Gheorghiu, whose book on the calculation of Pascha
Mr. Popescu cites, Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople wrote a letter to
Pope Gregory XIII, in August of 1583, maintaining that it was impossible for
the Eastern Churches to accept the Pope’s calendar reform, which had been
introduced without consulting the Eastern Churches, since it might provoke
misunderstanding among the Orthodox Faithful. This is an astonishing over-simplification.
In fact, the major concern for the Patriarch and the Eastern Orthodox Church
was the Pope’s claim that the imposition of his New Calendar was a sign of his
power over time and eternity. And, indeed, this claim was also rejected by
Protestants, and even the American colonies— originally settled by Protestant
dissenters—did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar until the mid-eighteenth
century, originally considering it an impossible acknowledgement of Papal
authority. It is thus a matter of further amazement that Mr. Popescu misses
Patriarch Jeremiah’s mild chastisement of the Pope’s claim to authority over
time and eternity in his proposal that, to determine whether the calendar was
“pleasing to God,” it be submitted to all of the Patriarchs and be implemented
only “with the mutual consent of all.” [6] This appeal to Patriarchal
conciliarity was not, as Popescu tries to argue, an endorsement of the reform
by the Patriarch; it was, rather, a challenge to Papal prerogatives.
More to the point, Mr. Popescu
performs this act of historical legerdemain in the very face of the well-known
condemnations of the Gregorian Calendar that were issued when, ultimately,
Patriarch Jeremiah submitted the question of calendar reform to the Eastern
Patriarchs. Mr. Popescu could hardly be unaware of the very forceful language
of the anathemas contained in the Sigillion signed by Patriarch
Jeremiah, Patriarch Sylvester of Alexandria, and a representative of Patriarch
Sophronios IV of Jerusalem at a Synod held in November of 1583 to discuss the
Pope’s request that the Orthodox Church adopt his calendar. The following
excerpt from the Sigillion in question makes it very clear just how
antipathetic the three Patriarchs were towards the Gregorian Calendar and any
notion of Papal primacy:
Again the Church
of Old Rome, swayed by the proud vainglory of her astronomers, recklessly
changed the most honorable decree concerning Holy Pascha, established by the
318 Holy Fathers at the First (Ecumenical Synod of Nicaea and held in great
esteem by all Christians throughout the world as something inviolable… If
anyone does not follow the traditions and the customs of the Church as ordained
by the Seven Ecumenical Synods regarding Holy Pascha, but rather desires to
follow the Gregorian Paschalion and Papist Calendar, like the atheist
astronomers, contravening all of the decisions of the Holy Synods and trying to
weaken and change them, let him be anathema, banished from the Church of Christ
and from the assembly of Christians. You, the Orthodox and right- believing
Christians, remain steadfast in what you have learned, in that into which you
were bom and educated. And when it becomes necessary, shed your very blood to
preserve the Faith and confession of your Fathers. Guard and protect yourselves
from reformers, so that our Lord Jesus Christ might help you, and may the
prayers of our Faith be with you all. Amen. [7]
Nowhere in Mr. Popescu’s
discussion, in fact, is there so much as a hint of this and other clear
conciliar rejections—and with adamantine resolve—of the Papal calendar.
Instead, he merely notes, rather lamely, that “the Patriarch of Constantinople
affirmed that the Eastern Church would abide for the time being by the rules
for calculating Pascha that had been in use up until then.” [8] He makes
absolutely no mention, moreover, of the two Synods convened by Patriarch
Jeremiah in 1587 and 1593 in order to reaffirm this earlier decisive rejection
of the Gregorian Calendar by the Orthodox Church. In 1587, for example, “the
correction of the calendar was condemned as being perilous and unnecessary,” [9]
while in 1593, no fewer than four Patriarchs—Jeremiah of Constantinople,
Joachim VI of Antioch, Sophronios of Jerusalem, and Meletios (Pegas) I of
Alexandria—condemned the reformed calendar, declaring that anyone found
violating the prescriptions of the traditional Orthodox Paschalion be
“excommunicated and rejected from the Church of Christ.” [10] It is, once
again, hard to believe that Mr. Popescu, in his study of the calendar reform,
was unaware of these very staunch repudiations of the Papal calendar by no less
than three pan-Orthodox Synods. Thus, his insistence that the Orthodox Church
“was aware of the need to correct the calendar,” [11] rings quite untrue. So,
too, does his baseless claim that the Church was unable to implement this
change because, inter alia, it was impossible to convene a pan-Orthodox
Synod under the Turkish Yoke!
Mr. Popescu goes on naively to
enlist, among supposedly pious and serious Orthodox supporters of the reform of
the Church Calendar, such figures as Nicephoros Gregoras, an unrelenting
opponent of St. Gregory Palamas, who was kept under house arrest in a monastery,
for several years, after refusing to accept the vindication of St. Gregory by
the pro-Palamite Synod of 1351; [12] George Gemistos Plethon, die eccentric
Byzantine humanist who advocated a return to pagan Greek polytheism; and,
incredibly and astoundingly enough (if we have understood Mr. Popescu aright),
St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite. One is left bewildered enough at his placement of
St. Nicodemos in such ignominious company; but does he actually believe that
St. Nicodemos favored the correction of the calendar? Did he fail to read the
very sources which he cites? It is true, as Mr. Popescu asserts, that in the Pedalion
(the Rudder, or collection of Church Canons) St. Nicodemos “noted
that the equinox of the Julian Calendar was now lagging behind the celestial
calendar by twelve days.” [13] However, he makes this observation in the
following context:
Let [the Latins]
know that the Ecumenical Synods held after the First Synod, and the rest of the
Fathers, wise as they were, could see, of course, that the equinox had deviated a great
deal [from where it was previously]; nevertheless, they did not wish to change
its position from March 21, where the First Synod found it, because they
preferred the agreement and union of the Church to accuracy in the matter of
the equinox, which causes no confusion in fixing the date of our Pascha, nor
any harm to piety. [14]
In the light of this citation in
context, it is wholly disingenuous for Mr. Popescu to insinuate that St.
Nicodemos believed that it was necessary to alter the Church Calendar. In like
manner, he fails to note that all of the sources to whom he attributes a desire
for calendar reform (e.g., the monk Isaacios and the Canonist Matthew
Blastaris) were simply ignored by the Church. They were outside the
ecclesiastical consensus and did not express the conscience of the Church.
Continuing his “historical” case
for Orthodox sympathy for calendar reform, the author informs us that, during
the years 1863-1864, the Romanian Prince Alexandra Cuza attempted to revise the
Church Calendar. This is quite true, but to be more specific and accurate, the
Prince
convoked a
Church Synod, at which he recommended that the Romanian Orthodox Church change
from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar. Also present at this Synod
was St. Calinic of Cernica (1787- 1868), one of the most dauntless stragglers
for the triumph of the truth and for the preservation of the True Faith. He was
categorically opposed to the calendar innovation and exclaimed as he was
leaving the hall in which the Synod was meeting: ‘I will not be reckoned with
transgressors!’ Thus, the Prince did not succeed in implementing this
recommendation, which had been imposed on him by Freemasons. [15]
This is not a ringing endorsement
for the author’s vision of a Church pining for a reform of its Church Calendar.
Equally questionable is the force of his claim that, after 1900, many Orthodox
Hierarchs and academics demanded that the Church Calendar be corrected—without
telling us, incidentally, who these Hierarchs and academics were. The facts, it
seems, make for quite a different scenario. For example, in 1902, the Ecumenical
Patriarchate in Constantinople rejected a memorandum from the Greek
mathematician, Epaminondas Polydoris, concerning calendar revision; in 1903,
the Jerusalem Patriarchate maintained that any attempt to alter the Church
Calendar would be to the detriment of Orthodoxy; and, in the same year, the
Romanian Patriarchate declared that it was impossible to change the calendar
without violating the Canons of the Church. [16]
In the first paragraph of the
second chapter of his book, Mr. Popescu refers to what he calls the “sinod
interortodox” (“inter-Orthodox Synod”) convened in Constantinople in 1923,
which approved the “correction” of the Julian Calendar. Two pages later, with
greater accuracy, he calls this meeting a “congres” (“congress”), and
elsewhere he terms it a “conferima” or “consfatuire” (“conference”).
To his credit, he also admits that the 1923 congress did not have the authority
of an Ecumenical Synod, or even a pan-Orthodox Council, and that it was not
representative of all the autocephalous Orthodox Churches. [17] The second
chapter is in general, therefore, reasonably objective and much less marred by
snide polemics against the Old Calendarists.
However, we must on two counts
take Mr. Popescu to task for his comments in this chapter. First, like many
other apologists for the New Calendar, he argues that the Romanian Patriarchate
did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar—“as some enemies of the corrected calendar
simplistically say” [18]—but rather “recommended all of the Orthodox Churches
to correct the Old Calendar by a new method, and one much better than that used
for the Gregorian reform.” [19] This specious argument is clearly refuted by
Hieromonk Cassian in his important treatise, A Scientific Examination of the
Orthodox Church Calendar. Patriarch Meletios (Metaxakis) sought to allay
the qualms expressed by Patriarch Damianos of Jerusalem, who immediately
perceived that the so-called “Revised Julian Calendar” was nothing other than
the Gregorian Calendar in disguise, with arguments that show his absolute
ignorance of matters astronomical. As Father Cassian justly observes, Patriarch
Meletios deliberately omitted to mention that “the ‘New [that is, “Revised”]
Julian’ Calendar fully coincides with the Gregorian Calendar until 2800, when,
admittedly, a difference of one day will occur in leap years.” However, this
temporary difference “will disappear in 2900, when, once again, the two
calendars will fully coincide.” [20] In other words, those who introduced the
New Calendar were engaging in a form of astronomical legerdemain in
claiming that they had simply “corrected” the Julian Calendar. They had, in
fact, created a veritable mongrel by combining the Orthodox Paschalion with
the Gregorian reckoning for the festal calendar.
Secondly, in his brief reference
to the meeting of inter-Orthodox representatives commissioned to prepare the
agenda for a new Ecumenical Synod—held in June of 1930 at the Vatopedi
Monastery on Mount Athos—, Mr. Popescu leaves the impression that this meeting
was sympathetic to the calendar reform. This is not so. St. Nikolai
(Velimirovic) of Ohrid, for one, warned that the Serbian Orthodox Church would
boycott the meeting “unless it was assured that the inter-Orthodox commission
would have nothing in common with the ‘Pan-Orthodox’ Congress at
Constantinople, which adopted resolutions concerning the calendar change. ‘If
this condition is not met, the Serbs will condemn the Ecumenical
Patriarchate.’” [21] Moreover, the representatives of the Polish and Serbian
Churches attending this meeting refrained from worshipping with delegates from
those Churches which had adopted the New Calendar, on grounds that the latter
were essentially schismatics. From this we can see that it was not only the Old
Calendarist resisters, but also prominent figures in what would nowadays be
called the “official” Orthodox Churches, who objected to the calendar change
well into the past century.
In the third chapter of his book,
Mr. Popescu abandons any objectivity that might have survived his historical
errors and misrepresentations; unfortunately, in this chapter he gives way to
blatant revisionism. After extolling the Orthodox Church as a powerful source
of spiritual support for the Romanian nation and a treasury of culture and
education for the people, Mr. Popescu assures us that the pre-Communist
Romanian State guaranteed freedom of religion and legal protection to all
faiths, as long as their exercise thereof did not infringe on public order,
good morals, or the laws of the land. Thus, he argues a priori that the
Romanian Old Calendarists were not, when their movement first began to gain
momentum, persecuted, except, of course, to the extent that they violated
social order, behaved immorally, or become transgressors of the secular legal
system. (It should be noted that the author conducted not an iota of
original research for this section, but based his remarks on a book—by one
Constantin Vulpescu, a public prosecutor commenting on the first few years of
the Old Calendarist resistance—entitled The Error of the Old Calendarists [22])
In an array of grandiloquent outbursts about the alleged maleactions of the
Old Calendarists, Mr. Popescu attributes their persecution wholly to
unscrupulous agitators who, using freedom of conscience as a pretext, took
advantage of weak laws meant to protect their religious freedom to stir up
trouble, thereby making of the Patriarchate a laughingstock.
In the frenzied abuse of their
rights as Romanian citizens, we are led to believe, the Old Calendarists
attacked the “official” Romanian Church with impunity. They published
spiritually poisonous attacks, hinging mud and filth at the State Church.
Covering themselves under the protection of secular law, they circulated their
tracts and books freely. And indeed, they had the audacity to claim that they
were Orthodox Christians. The “Stylist” agitators, we read, erected churches
without official authorization and for no reasonable purpose; and when these
illegal churches were closed, they would commit outrages and insult and rebel
against the authorities. People who were previously indifferent to religion
were transformed into fanatics through the malign influence of the Old
Calendarists, who, according to Mr. Popescu, were not only troublemakers and
mudslingers, but also—as incredible as his language may seem to a reasonable
person—scoundrels, idiots, mentally ill, crazy, and individuals devoid of faith
and culture. It is difficult to believe that anyone with a modicum of civility
would resort to such a farrago of accusations or so disingenuously whitewash
the horrendous persecution of the Romanian Old Calendarists, which has gone on
in various forms for more than seven decades. [23] In response, we will simply
cite but two of hundreds of such examples of the persecution unleashed against
the Romanian Old Calendarists in the 1930s, during the very period which Mr.
Vulpescu, whose work Popescu uses as his sole source, was purportedly
describing:
[First, in
1936,] ... the commune of Radascni, Suceava County, was surrounded by several
battalions of gendarmes brought all the way from Cernauti, Cernauti County.
These gendarmes blocked all of the access roads to the village and gathered
most of its inhabitants into the City Hall. Those found to be on the New
Calendar were ordered to go home. The Old Calendarist Faithful were advised to
change to the New Calendar if they wanted to return home. When they refused to
comply, the police took all of the men to the local school, where they were
stripped and told to lie on the floor. They were savagely clubbed, and some of
them suffered for the rest of their lives from the wounds they received. The
women and the youngsters, who remained in the City Hall and stood fast in their
confession of the True Faith, were forced to ran between two rows of gendarmes
who beat them ferociously with clubs. These violent actions had a twofold
purpose. The authorities attempted, on the one hand, to force the clergy and
Faithful to switch to the New Calendar out of fear, and, on the other hand, to
limit their resistance by the destruction of their Churches. For example, the
church of Radaseni was dismantled and moved to another locality, where it was
used as a New Calendar church. [24]
[Secondly, in
Brusturi, in 1935,] ... [i]n order to prevent its pillage or burning, the [Old
Calendar] Church was guarded at night by Petre V. Ignat, then thirty years of
age. Likewise, all of the Faithful who lived in the village were ready to
intervene if the need arose. The New Calendarist Priest was not only
dissatisfied with this status quo, but even wanted to destroy the Church
by any means, regardless of what it would take. He organized, with the help of
the Gendarmerie and the principals of the local schools, Sturza from Brusturi
and Dumitrescu from Grosi, a gang that, dressed as gendarmes, jumped over the
fence during the night and beat Petre Ignat, who was guarding the Church. He
was saved by the intervention of another believer who saw the attack and
sounded the alarm bell. When the people gathered, one of the gang fired several
pistol shots to enable all of the assailants to withdraw. A few days later, the
commune was taken by surprise and surrounded by an enormous number of gendarmes
armed with rifles and machine guns, and all of the access roads in and out of
the area were blocked. At nine o’clock in the morning, the gendarmes entered
the locality and forced the inhabitants to go to their post, where they were
kept under close guard. In addition, Father Vasile Lupescu, the New Calendarist
Priest, was at the entrance gate. The gendarmes confiscated Church books from
the pockets of the Faithful and other items found on their persons after a body
search. The Faithful were warned to renounce their beliefs, but they stood
their ground. The gendarmes then took ten people at a time (men or women) into
a room, forced them lie face down, and savagely beat them with cudgels so
severely that blood gushed through their clothing. ...The same question was
repeated over and over again: ‘Are you still keeping the Old Calendar?’ Among
those brutally beaten were the parents of Archimandrite Timotei of the
Slatioara Monastery. [25]
In the second part of the third
chapter of his book, Mr. Popescu enumerates what he perceives to be violations
of Church Canons by the Old Calendarists, who have, oddly enough, always prided
themselves—and quite rightly so—on their strict adherence to these same Canons.
We will not attempt to refute all of these allegations of canonical
infractions, for the simple reason that not one of them has any relevance to
the situation faced by the Old Calendarists. However, in the interest of truth
and honesty, we must deal with five of these allegations. In the first place,
Mr. Popescu asserts, without any
evidence whatsoever, that the Old Calendarist clergy serve the Divine Liturgy
using Antimensia (a cloth, into which sacred Relics have been sewn, upon
which the Divine Liturgy is celebrated) not given to them with the blessing of
the local Bishop, and that in other cases they even use stolen Antimensia. This,
in his opinion, constitutes a violation of the Seventy-Third Apostolic Canon.
In actuality, this Canon states that no one should ever appropriate for his own
use any gold or silver vessel, or any cloth, that has been blessed for Church
usage. According to St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite and other canonical
commentators, this Canon is meant to prohibit the promiscuous (that is,
profane) use of sacred things. He illustrates this by citing the example of
King Baltasar, who used the sacred vessels seized by his father, Nabuchodonosor,
from the Temple of Jerusalem for a banquet. [26] Quite obviously, even if the
Old Calendarist Priests had stolen Antimensia from New Calendar
Churches—for which there is not a single shred of evidence—they would not have
been using them, like Baltasar, for profane purposes.
Secondly, Mr. Popescu cites
numerous Canons pertaining to clergy who, having shown contempt for their
Bishops and thus having excommunicated themselves from the Church, proceed
nonetheless to form their own congregations and set up their own altars, in defiance
of the local Bishop. [27] None of these Canons has any application at all to
those traditionalist clergy who opposed the uncanonical imposition of the New
Calendar. All of these clergymen were deposed in a spirit of revenge for
objecting to an innovation which introduced discord and division into the body
of the Church. The Canons that Mr. Popescu cites are directed against Priests
who separate themselves from communion with their Bishops for purely personal
reasons or for purposes of self-aggrandizement. More to the point, we might
note that the Canons enjoining obedience to one’s Bishop always presuppose that
the Bishop in question is right-believing. A Bishop who openly preaches heresy
or introduces innovations such as the New Calendar, which provoke confusion and
division among the Faithful, is no longer a properly-functioning Orthodox
Hierarch and is, therefore, not entitled to demand obedience from the members
of his flock.
Thirdly, Mr. Popescu asserts that
Old Calendarists do not have Priests to celebrate services for them. He
evidently means by this curious, if provocative and rather presumptuous, remark
that, since they are, in his eyes, schismatics, their clergy are mere laymen
masquerading as Priests. He then goes on to claim that they permit non-Ordained
monks and laymen to perform Baptisms and funerals and to hear confessions. This
is simple poppycock and an artless retreat into cheap ridicule and slander.
Using the Church Canons to adorn his loutish charges, Mr. Popescu adduces, of
all things, the Fifteenth Canon of the First-Second Synod (861) to support his
view. There is, as any canonical scholar knows, no reference anywhere in the
text of this Canon to illicit lay celebrations of Divine services. In fact,
this Canon is the very locus classicus of lawful resistance to
theological error and the kind of resistance undertaken by the Old
Calendarists; indeed, it asserts that those who wall themselves off from a
Bishop who teaches false doctrine “have not sundered the unity of the Church
through schism, but, on the contrary, have been sedulous to rescue the Church
from schisms and divisions.” [28]
Fourthly, Mr. Popescu berates the
Old Calendarists for their belief that the Fathers of the First Ecumenical
Synod devised a Paschalion in perpetuity—which, of course, they did—and
goes on to argue, on the assumption that the proceedings of the Synod have been
completely lost, that there is no evidence that the First Synod issued any
regulation concerning the date of Pascha. This is an inane position, given the
fact that the Orthodox Church has, in fact, accepted the pronouncements of this
Synod in calculating the date of Pascha to this day—including, of course, the
New Calendarists, who, even in reforming their Church’s Festal Calendar, have
not abandoned Her traditional Paschalion. Mr. Popescu is also evidently
unaware—a curious lapse for a student of theology—that proceedings of the Synod
of Nicaea are, in fact, preserved in the Ecclesiastical History of
Gelasios of Cyzicus. [29]
Fifthly and finally, Mr. Popescu
claims that the chief founder and inspirer of the Old Calendar Church of
Romania, Hieromonk (later Metropolitan) Glicherie and his co-ascetic,
Hierodeacon David, along with ten other monks, were “expelled from monasticism”
[30] by the Metropolis of Moldavia in April of 1931, and that, by virtue of
this “deposition.” were deprived of the canonical right to celebrate the Divine
Liturgy or any other Church services. This is absurd, since a monk cannot be
“deposed” from the monastic state, though this fact is little understood by
modernist Churchmen. Mr. Popescu also fails to explain what bearing this
putative expulsion from monasticism has on someone’s right to exercise his
Priestly faculties. Moreover, as St. Maximos the Confessor explains in his
commentary on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of St. Dionysios the Areopagite,
“If a Hierarch excommunicates anyone contrary to God’s purpose, Divine judgment
does not come upon that person; for the Hierarch ought to apply these measures
in accordance with Divine judgment and not in accordance with his own will.” [31]
In other words, depositions issued in a spirit of malice and pettiness, for
political reasons, or for the purpose of revenge and merely making some point,
have no binding force.
The final chapter of Mr.
Popescu’s agonistic volume contains some recommendations, primarily for New
Calendar Priests in Romania, on how to “enlighten” the misguided “Stylists.”
Much to his credit, the author makes some rather civil comments in this
chapter, in contrast to his odiously crude and sometimes pantagruelian remarks
in the foregoing chapter. Among other things, Mr. Popescu suggests that New
Calendar Priests comport themselves in a morally irreproachable manner, so as
to avoid furnishing Old Calendarists with additional pretexts for remaining
separated from the official Church. In essence, he suggests that Patriarchal
clergy employ the “velvet glove” rather than the “iron fist,” when dealing with
Old Calendarists. This would certainly constitute an improvement over the
policies pursued by the Romanian Patriarchate and State in the 1930s and
subsequently. He also proposes that New Calendar clergy engage in eirenic
public debates with representatives of the Old Calendar movement and that the
“correction” of the Church Calendar be clearly explained in religion classes at
the nation’s schools. In fact, the Romanian Patriarchate has assiduously
avoided such confrontations and would no doubt avoid an objective consideration
of the Old Calendar in public schools, since the issue, as we have pointed out,
is not quite as Mr. Popescu and others have claimed.
Indeed, in any open forum with
competent representatives of both the Old Calendar and New Calendar factions of
the Romanian and other local Churches, the calendar issue would emerge as
something far more significant than most would think. Much in the same way that
the Iconoclasts mocked the Iconodules, in the eighth and ninth centuries, for
believing that Icons were an integral part of Holy Tradition, so Old Calendarists
are mocked, today, for “worshipping a calendar” or attributing “dogmatic significance”
to mere days. Yet, just as when the matter of Iconoclasm was carefully examined
by the whole Church, it proved to be an issue of immense moment, so the
calendar issue, when examined in a careful and intelligent manner, rises to a
level of critical importance. The following quotation brings that fact into
focus:
Concerning this
question, Father Paul, a monk of the Holy Sepulchre, remarked most justly that
a board, before it has the countenance of our Saviour portrayed upon it, is but
a common piece of wood which we may bum up or destroy. From the moment, however,
that we paint the Icon of Christ, the King of All, upon it, this wood becomes
sanctified and a source of sanctification for us, even though the wood be of
inferior quality. Likewise, the solar calendar, insofar as it is a calendar of
days and months is, in itself, nothing to be esteemed. But from the moment when
the Holy Church placed Her seal upon it and organized Her life upon this
foundation, even though it has become astronomically erroneous, still it
remains holy! The calendar is no longer Julian, but ecclesiastical, just
as the board is no longer a simple piece of wood but an Icon. [32]
Indeed, it is further clear that
the traditional Church Calendar is so intimately bound up with the liturgical
life of the Church—and, in particular, with the Typikon, or the rules
and rubrics governing the Church’s worship services—, that when the New
Calendar was introduced it gave rise to numerous liturgical anomalies. For
example, even the somewhat innovative revised Typikon of the Great
Church (of Constantinople), compiled by George Violakis and published in 1888,
provides rules for combining the Feasts of Pascha and the Annunciation (Kyriopascha).
Yet, this “unique concelebration of salvific events” [33] is altogether
precluded by the New Calendar. Likewise, the Feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs of
Sebaste can fall, according to the New Calendar, as early as the Tuesday of the
Week of the Prodigal Son, and so New Calendarists find themselves chanting the
following hymn while partaking of non-fasting fare: “O Prize-winners of Christ,
ye have rendered the most honorable Fast more radiant through the commemoration
of your glorious suffering; for, being Forty in number, ye sanctify the forty
days of Lent, through your own suffering for the sake of Christ emulating His
saving Passion.” [34] Finally, there are certain years in which the Apostles’
Fast is simply eliminated, if one adheres to the New Calendar. In 1983, for
example, die Bulgarian New Calendarists celebrated the Apostles’ Fast by
fasting for one day during the week after Pentecost, when fasting is actually
prohibited by the Typikon. [35]
Again, in an open forum, where
the Old Calendarists may objectively confront the vacuous polemics of critics
such as Mr. Popescu, no reasonable individual could argue that the Church
Calendar is not a part of Holy Tradition; that the New Calendar has not
introduced confusion into the liturgical life of the Church; or that the
calendar reform is, in fact, anything but an ill-conceived innovation. Thus, in
response to the claim, in the preface of this volume, by the late Deacon Father
Petra David (a rabid critic of the Romanian Old Calendarists [36]), to the
effect that the author has succeeded in clarifying the situation created by the
calendar change, we would say just the opposite: he has obfuscated the issue
and misrepresented myriad facts. Father David’s hope that the author will
produce other works “in the realm of learning and truth” we can only confront
with our sincere hope that, for the sake of accuracy, he does not do so in the
realm of theology or Church history. Mr. Popescu being, as we are told in this
book, a student in the Law Faculty at the University of Constanta, we, on our
part, strongly urge him to pursue a legal career and to leave the task of
writing theology to those who are not only better qualified than he, but who
are also perhaps a bit more disinterested and less rectitudinous in their
approach to ecclesiastical matters.
Notes
1. Constanta: Europolis, 2002. Unfortunately, this at times
odiously polemical book claims an imprimatur from the New Calendar Romanian
Orthodox Church.
2. The Heresy of Ecumenism and the Patristic Stand of the
Orthodox, tr. Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna and Hieromonk Patapios (Etna,
CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1998), p. 44.
3. Ibid., p. 50.
4. Hieromonk Cassian, A Scientific Examination of the
Orthodox Church Calendar, ed. Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna and Hieromonk
Gregory (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1998), pp.
73-74.
5. Church Chronology and a Critical Review of the Existing
Rules for Determining Pascha [in Russian] (St. Petersburg: 1892), pp. 3-4.
Cited in Ludmila Perepiolkina, “The Julian Calendar: A Thousand-Year Icon of
Time in Russia,” tr. Daniel Olson, Orthodox Life, Vol. XLV, No. 5
(September-October 1995), p. 14.
6. Nofiuni de Cronologie fi Calcul Pascal (Bucharest:
Editura Cartilor, 1936), p. 59, cited in Neintelegerea, p. 22.
7. Cited in Constantin Bujor, Resisting Unto Blood:
Sixty-Five Years of Persecution of the True (Old Calendar) Orthodox Church of
Romania (October 1924-Decetnber 1989), tr. Deacon Father loan Comanescu
(Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2003), pp. 36-37.
8. Neintelegerea, p. 22.
9. Father Basile Sakkas, The Calendar Question, tr. Holy
Transfiguration Monastery (Jordanville, NY: Floly Trinity Monastery, 1973), p.
23.
10. Ibid., p. 24.
11. Neintelegerea, p. 23.
12. Curiously enough, Mr. Popescu calls him “one of the great
Patrologists.”
13. Neintelegerea, p. 23.
14. The Rudder, tr. D. Cummings (Chicago: Orthodox
Christian Educational Society, 1957), p. 10 [We have made some slight
terminological amendments to this translation, based on the Greek original].
15. Resisting Unto Blood, p. 10.
16. Cited in Sakkas, The Calendar Question, p. 26.
17. Neintelegerea, pp. 28-29.
18. Neintelegerea, p. 27.
19. Neintelegerea, pp. 27-28.
20. Scientific Examination, p. 54.
21. Bishop Photii of Triaditza, The Road to Apostasy:
Significant Essays on Ecumenism (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist
Orthodox Studies, 1995), p. 35.
22. Ratacire Calendaristica (n.p.: Editura Mitropoliei
Moldovei, 1935).
23. See a full recounting of this persecution in Constantin
Bujor, 65 de Ani de Persecute a Bisericii Ortodoxe Romane de Stil Vechi:
Octombrie 1924-Decembrie 1989 (Slatioara: Editura “Schimbarea la Fata,”
1999).
24. Resisting Unto Blood, p. 64.
25. Ibid., pp. 68-69.
26. The Rudder, p. 131; Daniel 5:1-4.
27. E.g., the Thirty-First Apostolic Canon, the Fifth Canon
of the Synod of Antioch, and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Canons of the
First-Second Synod.
28. The Rudder, p. 471.
29. Book 11, ch. 37, §13. See also Socrates, Ecclesiastical
History, Book I, ch. 9 (Patrologia Grceca, Vol. LXVII, cols.
81B-84A), and the excellent article by Archimandrite Sergius, “The First Ecumenical
Synod and the Feast of Pascha,” Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XIV, Nos. 2-3
(1997), pp. 2-8.
30. Neintelegerea, p. 42.
31. Patrologia Grceca, Vol. IV, col. 18IB.
32. Sakkas, The Calendar Question, p. 11.
33. Scientific Examination, p. 116.
34. March 9, Matins, Doxastikon at the Praises.
35. Scientific Examination, p. 132.
36. See Archbishop Chrysostomos, “An Orthodox Auto-da-Fe:
Critical Comments on a Recent Book on Sects,” Orthodox Tradition, Vol.
XX, No. 1 (2003), pp. 5-20. Also in Romanian, “Un Autodafe Ortodox,” tr. Ioana
Ieronim, Dilema, XI (2003), nrs. 522, 523, & 524.
Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XXI (2004), No. 2, pp.
14-26.
