The Holy Mountain and its Stance Toward the Calendar Innovation

Greek source: Το Άγιον Όρος και η Διαχρονική του Στάση Έναντι των Αιρέσεων [The Holy Mountain and its Historical Stance Toward Heresies], Hieromonk Chariton the Athonite, Holy Kellion of the Ascension, Mount Athos, 2017, pp. 210-225.

 

 

1. Meletios Metaxakis (1922–1923), and the innovation of the change of the Calendar

The case of this patriarch is a historically difficult phenomenon to interpret. He was a hierarch of four thrones (of Kition-Larnaca, Archbishop of Athens, Patriarch of Constantinople, Patriarch of Alexandria, and very nearly also of Jerusalem). He was a most daring innovator and a Mason, according to the archives of Freemasonry.

He became Patriarch of Constantinople solely and exclusively for the change of the calendar, with the fraternal-Masonic support of Eleftherios Venizelos. In 1923 he hastened to convene, not a Pan-Orthodox Synod, but a crude ten-member “Congress” with only seven Bishops and three clerical representatives! The first and principal subject of the Congress was the change of the Calendar and of the Paschalion, as being “possible.” However, this was not carried out, because of the explicit negative declaration of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and also of the representative of the Church of Greece. Nevertheless, in the end only the Metropolises of the Ecumenical Throne, the Church of Greece, and the Church of Cyprus accepted the change of the Calendar, the latter of which he had prepared for, as Metropolitan of Larnaca. The rest initially remained with the Julian Calendar, but later some of them adopted the New one. As long as Photius was Patriarch of Alexandria, the Patriarchate of Alexandria did not accept the calendar change. After his death, Meletios Metaxakis hurried and took his seat on the Alexandrian throne, and immediately at once the Patriarchate of Alexandria also proceeded to the innovation of the change of the calendar. [2]

The Church of Greece proceeded to the calendar change on December 27, 1923. At the Fourth Session of the First Assembly of the Hierarchy, under the pressure of the politicians of the revolutionary government of Stylianos Gonatas, and despite the reservations of several members of the hierarchy, it accepted the change. The decision of the hierarchy, under the direction of the Archbishop of Athens, Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, moved on the following level: only the festal calendar of the fixed feasts would be adjusted to the new dates of the corrected calendar, but not the Paschalion, which included the cycle of the movable feasts (dependent on Pascha). As the date of implementation, with the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch, March 10, 1924, was appointed.

2. The innovation of the change of the Calendar on Mount Athos

The decision for the change of the calendar, which was taken in Constantinople and with the agreement of the representatives of the Church of Greece, was officially made known also to the Holy Mountain by an Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarch to the Holy Community on February 27, 1927 (after three years!).

The Encyclical requested from the Athonites:

“...Inevitably, from the 10th of the coming month of March, the festal calendar of the Orthodox Church also, insofar as concerns the fixed feasts, must be adjusted to the civil calendar; only the Paschalion, for the present, is to remain as it is, until its final settlement also thereafter by the Universal Church.” [3]

It is worthy of wonder how the Patriarchate addresses a monastic center of more than a thousand years, such as the Holy Mountain, without any sense of respect for its age-old tradition, without even calling the Athonites to a hearing and dialogue (since it loves dialogues so very much). On such a very serious matter of ecclesiastical tradition, how does the Patriarchate decide all by itself? And indeed, in the absence of three Patriarchates, and it orders “inevitably” the change of the calendar, as though someone were merely going to change an old garment that had torn for a new one!

The Holy Community, taking into account the negative opinion that was taking shape among the people and the monks, convened a Double Assembly of the Abbots and the Representatives of the Holy Monasteries. Of the 20 Holy Monasteries, 15 declared against it, four did not arrive at any decision. Only the Holy Monastery of Vatopedi complied and accepted the calendar innovation, until 1981–82. The Holy Community finally decided that “it would accept [the revised Calendar] only after a decision of an Ecumenical Council.”

Striking a balance between not departing from the traditional ecclesiastical calendar, yet also not disturbing its relations with the Mother Church, it arrived, in 1927, at the official decision:

“To preserve the Julian calendar then in use and not to adopt the new one, yet without breaking communion with the Churches that had adopted it, since this change affected neither the dogmas nor the tradition of Orthodoxy.” [4]

Thus, the Monasteries of the Holy Mountain “remained devoted to the observance of the Old Calendar, ‘since an Ecumenical Council had not yet been convened,’ but they did not cease to communicate with those who had embraced the New Calendar and to commemorate the august name of the Ecumenical Patriarch.” Despite the efforts of the Holy Community to find a “golden mean” and a balance in the face of the innovation decided upon by the Patriarchate, the Holy Mountain, through the wavering line it chose, already enters as an institutional authority into a new page of its sacred history.

The purpose of the present study is not, of course, the theological and ecclesiological analysis of this great issue; that should already have been done by the esteemed hierarchs and shepherds and by those of Orthodox theology who are established in the practice of virtue and in contemplation. The fact, however, is one: that on the Holy Mountain this innovation became the cause for it to mourn and still to mourn, because a spiritual civil strife entered into its very bowels.

At that time, the holy Elders of the Holy Mountain thought about and viewed these matters very differently from us contemporary monks. Then, the whole of the Holy Mountain, like one body and one soul, resisted this innovation of the change.

“The struggles of the Hesychasts, the Anti-Unionists, the Kollyvades, with as pioneers a multitude of named and unnamed Athonite saints, who were tormented, driven out, imprisoned, and martyred for the defense of the unadulterated faith and the traditions of the fathers, inspired the spirit of these men... Most of the 5,000–6,000 monks at that time, desiring their salvation, naturally became concerned, but also sought to take a correct stand in the face of the sudden challenge. If one takes into account that the Athonites regard themselves as guardians of Orthodoxy, with a blood-soaked history in the struggles for the right faith, which is renewed in their wakeful conscience by the daily Synaxaria, one will easily understand their militant psychology.” [5]

We mention one example among many from the old Athonite fathers who resisted the calendar innovation. One such bright star was also Elder Avvakoum the barefooted, of Lavra. When the Patriarchate tried to impose this innovation, then at the Monastery of the Great Lavra 27 hieromonks and monks reacted, among whom were the physician Elder Athanasios Kampanau and Elder Avvakoum, who was distinguished both for his love toward all, and especially for his ministry in the monastery’s hospital and old-age home:

“At the beginning of 1927, the Monastery of Lavra wanted to put an end to the continuing division of the brotherhood. To achieve this, it invited in writing the civil Governor to preside over the session of its Council of Elders, at which the matter of the zealot fathers was to be examined yet again. At the proposal of the zealot physician Fr. Athanasios (Kampanau), Fr. Avvakoum was chosen as the representative of the zealots of the Monastery. On the appointed day and hour, he appeared in the monastery’s synodal hall, where the Elders were present together with the Governor. To the Governor’s question:”

“Why, Father, did you break away from the brotherhood and bring disorder into the Monastery, and why do you not pray together with the brother fathers?” Fr. Avvakoum answered with meekness and humility:

“Sir Governor, have you studied the Holy Canons of the Pedalion?”

“What does the Pedalion say, Father?” the Governor replied.

“Since you are ignorant of its contents, first read it, and then come to judge us.”

This answer was judged by the Council of Elders as contempt for the Authority, and he was exiled to the Holy Monastery of Xeropotamou. Thus, poor Avvakoum was removed from his monastic repentance for the third time! About two months later, because the Monastery of his exile was celebrating its feast (March 9), the civil Governor was also invited to attend the vigil, and immediately after the vigil he departed in haste by mule for Karyes. Then Fr. Avvakoum found the opportunity, taking hold of the animal’s bridle and walking beside it, to explain in his gifted manner why the Fathers of the Holy Mountain had reacted to the calendar innovation and what the texts of the Church say about this just reaction of theirs. His simplicity, his great knowledge of Holy Scripture, and the childlike and enthusiastic manner of his speech immediately convinced the Governor that this was a pure-minded idealist and virtuous man. As soon as he reached Karyes, he at once requested that his exile be revoked. Thus, after a few days, the Great Lavra received him once again into her embrace.”

When once Fr. Ephraim, little Ephraim, the ecclesiarch of Lavra, asked him why he had become a zealot—(that is, why he did not commemorate the Patriarch?)—he answered him:

“Because God will demand an account from me. He will say to me: Avvakoum, you knew the law of the Church; how did you trample upon it?” [6]

Today’s monks avoid learning the law of the Church, the Holy Canons, which forbid us to commemorate a heretical Patriarch, so that, as they suppose, they may keep their conscience at peace and put forward excuses in sins, thus believing that they will deceive the judgment of God.

In the end, Elder Avvakoum was compelled, because of internal pressures from the Monastery, to take refuge in the desert of Vigla, where with crowbar and sledgehammer he built from nothing the kellion of St. Phanourios. There he reached his end, fell asleep, and was buried. Yet later a hieromonk from Lavra made an exhumation and took his relics, which he scattered in the monastery’s ossuary, so that the “deluded” zealots might not find them and make him a saint!!! To such a point reaches the fanaticism of the ecumenists-modernists, and then they accuse the zealots of being fanatics. May God someday grant them repentance, that they may come to their senses…

As for Elder Avvakoum, the barefoot child of the Panagia, he has no need of canonizations. Those who knew him know the virtue of the man.

“He knows things that usually only University Professors know. He can make every wise man ashamed. He is poor, yet he possesses more than all the wise and intellectual men of the world. He is truly enlightened.” (N. Louvaris, Academician), and “Divine grace! Such boundless memory I have neither heard of, nor shall I hear again.” (I. Karmiris, Academician). Elder Avvakoum had the gift of knowing Holy Scripture and many of the Holy Fathers by heart; he had boundless memory, like St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite.

Here we see how, on the one hand, the lack of timely information from the Patriarchate to the Holy Mountain and the Holy Community concerning the reasons why this innovation was being made, and on the other hand the refined sensitivity of the Athonites in matters of faith and tradition, as well as the genuineness of their ascetical and neptic life, the straightforwardness of their character—which are a daily lived reality for monks—but above all, the unloving, demanding, and psychologically insensitive manner of the Patriarch-Patriarchate in imposing the change of the Calendar, all these gave the Athonites of that time the sense that this was indeed an innovation, which was being imposed in a tyrannical manner. An innovation which harmed not only Sacred Tradition, but also, indirectly and secretly yet clearly, was the beginning of the future assault upon the dogmatic consciousness of the Orthodox faith, as is unfortunately proved today by the heretical openings of Ecumenism.

After the passage of 90 years since then, the issue of the calendar no longer seriously concerns the body of the Athonites and [most] Christians. They believe that all this is not worth discussing, that the change of the calendar was a simple change of 13 days, a “jump of 13 days,” as some used to say. But this is not how things stand, as emerges from the study of the historical facts, which we briefly mentioned above. Those daring men behind the calendar change were also seeking the change of the Paschalion. This did not happen then, because “...to innovate concerning this... was for the present premature”; the time had not yet come for union to be accomplished through the simultaneous celebration of the great feasts by all the Churches.

The ecumenists may not yet have succeeded in changing the Paschalion, but through the “first step” of Ecumenism they did succeed in bringing about the festal division of the Church and the division of the monastic commonwealth of the Holy Mountain.

We saw what the Athonites thought at that time, being informed moreover that Patriarch Basil III (1925–1929) was also a member of occult organizations (he was initiated into Freemasonry in a lodge of Constantinople). [7]

As a Mason, Patriarch Basil had many reformist tendencies regarding the clergy and negative dispositions toward Monasticism. Thus many monks, from the Sketes, the Kellia, and the hermitages, began at first to keep their distance, while others broke ecclesiastical communion with the Monasteries. The beginning was made with the Holy Monastery of Vatopedi, which was the only Monastery on the Holy Mountain that followed the new calendar until 1981–82. This stance of the Monastery of Vatopedi became the cause of its coming into conflict with the so-called “Zealots,” who broke ecclesiastical communion with it. Indeed, when in 1926 the former abbot Adrianos of Vatopedi served as Protepistatis, many zealots avoided receiving documents of the Holy Community that had been issued upon their own request, so as not to “make a metanoia” to him. [8]

At that time, the Athonites organized themselves and in 1926 established the “Sacred Association of Fathers,” with a constitution and with the title The Anchor of Orthodoxy, and with the signatures of more than 300 hieromonks and monks, most of whom were from the Sketes and Kellia.

The Patriarchate, perceiving the magnitude of the problem that had arisen, reacted by sending a letter to the Holy Community, demanding and seeking from the Athonite monks “the due reverence and obedience to the decision of the Church.” It further expressed its displeasure “at the ventured contrary stance of kelliotes and ascetics, indeed in contrast to their own ruling Monasteries,” and recommended to the Holy Community, with “motherly love,” of course..., “that all the force of your holiness be exercised against every refractory one who has not yet conformed to the decision of the Church, which must inevitably be carried out by all without exception.” [9]

Under these conditions and the threats of the Patriarchate, the situation was worsening. A significant number of hieromonks and monks ceased commemorating Patriarch Basil III. Thus, after so many centuries, the Holy Mountain, on account of the calendar innovation—which became the first step of the pan-heresy of Ecumenism—made a cessation of commemoration, as had also happened formerly against the unionist efforts of the Latin-minded, and as the Holy Canons of the Church prescribe in time of heresy.

The Holy Community, while at first maintaining a relaxed and discreet stance, because the whole Holy Mountain—monastics and kelliotes alike—was opposed to the calendar innovation, nevertheless, being pressured by the Patriarchate, began thereafter to change its stance. By its Encyclical to the 20 Holy Monasteries on May 3, 1926, the Holy Community condemned the cessation of commemoration as an omission contrary “to the most ancient sacred institutions and the age-old spiritual ordinances...”. They regarded the interruption of commemoration as disobedience, because at that time the pan-heresy of ecumenism had not yet appeared clearly, as it has today. This decision remained unenforced, because the police refused their assistance.

Meanwhile, the monks were protesting more and more, and a great multitude of ascetics and hermits had gathered in Karyes—men of prayer and ascetic struggle—in order to demonstrate their opposition to the decisions of the Holy Community. Among these ascetics were many whom today we honor for their sanctity, such as Elder Joseph the Hesychast, the spiritual forefather of several Abbots and Monasteries today, and others.

In the same Encyclical, the Holy Community repudiated the book of the monk Arsenios Kotteas, which bore the title Center of Our Holy Eastern Church, the Trumpet of the Hesychast Athonite Monks. The book in question had been circulating since 1925 and had until then been freely distributed in all the Monasteries. At that point, it ordered its burning and condemned the author himself as a liar and deceiver of the people.

The developments of 1926 showed that the phenomenon had taken on large proportions and that the movement of “Zealotism,” as it had begun to be called, was threatening the unity and very existence of the Holy Mountain.

The Association of the Athonites, which appears as organized with many members and also with a dynamic and militant mobilization, sent, on July 2, 1928, a letter of protest to the Holy Community, in which it set forth its positions with patristic and canonical arguments and submitted a series of requests-conditions:

a) Restoration of the old calendar in the Holy Monastery of Vatopedi,

b) Cessation of the commemoration of the Ecumenical Patriarch (for the reasons we mentioned),

c) Recall of the nineteen exiled monks,

d) A change in the stance of the Holy Community on the matter of the new calendar and its public denunciation by it.

It is noteworthy that of the 19 signatures on the text, 12 are from Monastery monks. This shows that the monks in the Monasteries were also protesting vigorously. [10]

It is very important for the historical researcher to examine for what reason the Holy Community began to change its stance toward the majority of the Athonites, who were opposed to the calendar innovation. As the excellent historical researcher Demetrios Mouzakis observes: “The fact that the majority of the members who joined this movement consisted of dependent kelliotes-ascetics  raises questions and concerns... The question should be raised whether the issue of the Zealots constitutes yet another manifestation of reaction on the part of the dependents, and perhaps of the lower monastic orders, against the centralization and the administrative arbitrariness of the 20 Monasteries and their higher administrative rank. It is also noteworthy that at the time when the Kelliote Brotherhood was declining, another movement of dependents appeared on the scene, perhaps with a different occasion, but probably with the same motives. That is, the impression was widespread among the simple monks, and especially among the dependents, that the general polity and actions of the monastic elite were far removed from the monastic ideal and the genuine mission of Athonite Monasticism.” [11] Their stance, however, was chiefly for reasons of faith.

Moreover, even the very designation “dependency” which the Monasteries use with respect to the kelliotes, is disparaging and shows conceit, because the Kellia, the hermitages, and the ancient small monasteries are chronologically earlier than the monasteries. The kellia began to come under the Monasteries from 1600 onward, for purely financial reasons; until then they were under the Protos of the Holy Mountain, who today functions simply as an ancient institution. When St. Athanasios the Athonite came to Athos, he found the institution of the Protos and the Sacred Assembly of the Elders in Karyes, and the scattered small monasteries and kellia, and afterwards he built the Lavra, which is the first great coenobitic Monastery. St. Athanasios himself was not only a great coenobiarch; he was also a great hesychast cave-dweller, living even in a cave, and he never despised the kelliotes, as happens today. This contemptuous attitude of the Monasteries toward the Kelliotes-Ascetics shows an arrogance, as though they were second-class monks. This, of course, does not honor the Monasteries; on the contrary, humility is a virtue for the kelliotes, since the Lord Himself was despised by the religious leadership of His time. The Holy Monasteries ought to be like loving mothers toward the kelliotes and their fellow monks, and not behave as those possessing authority, but rather as those rendering service. Besides, we know that most of the saints of the Holy Mountain and the founders of the Monasteries were kelliotes. Could it be that the cause for the change in the stance of the Monasteries was not so much their fear lest the kelliotes acquire more rights (!), but rather the protest itself against the calendar innovation, which, under pressure from the Patriarchate, the Holy Community regarded and accused of being an unbridled zealotry “not according to knowledge”?

Nor is it correct that the adoption of the Gregorian-Papal calendar was something indifferent and did not touch the Holy Canons and the Tradition of the Church, as is believed even to this day. Already from 1752, under Jeremiah the Great, until 1895, through thirteen Pan-Orthodox and Local Synods, the Orthodox Church rejected and condemned the Gregorian-Papal calendar, as was shown and mentioned above. To what, then, “most ancient sacred institutions and age-old spiritual ordinances...,” does the cessation of commemoration of an innovating-heretical patriarch stand opposed?

 

NOTES

2. See Fr. Nikodemos Bilalis, op. cit., pp. 43, 44.

3. See Demetrios Mouzakis, Mount Athos during the Interwar Period, publ. N. Sakkoulas, Athens–Komotini, 2008, p. 348, and Archive of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, cod. A/93, pp. 692–3.

4. See Dem. Mouzakis, op. cit., pp. 348, 349, 350.

5. See Monk Theoklitos of Dionysiou, Introductory Remarks on the Old Calendarist Schism, ed. 1979, pp. 3, 4.

6. Theodoretos [Mavros] the Hagiorite, Avvakoum the Barefooted, ed. 2002, p. 30.

7. See Michael Physentzides, Prominent and Famous Greek Freemasons, vol. I, Vogiatzis edition, p. 149.

8. See op. cit., p. 349, note.

9. See Dem. Mouzakis, op. cit., pp. 352, 353.

10. See D. Mouzakis, op. cit., pp. 355, 356, Archive of the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou.

11. See op. cit., pp. 53, 54.