The Root of the Division of Those in Resistance (Part 3)

The Division and the Personality of the former Metropolitan of Florina

Monk Damianos Agiovasileiatis

(Part 1: https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-root-of-division-of-those-in.html)

(Part 2: https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-root-of-division-of-those-in.html)

 

 

A wicked offspring of the calendar innovation is the theory of the loss of the grace of the Mysteries of unjudged schismatics or heretics, with its first progenitor being the very one who dared to touch the two-thousand-year festal calendar of the Church. He did not openly preach this specific theory, since, being knowledgeable in Ecclesiastical Law, he knew its absurdity; but he followed another, more practical path, and, why should we hide it, one likewise wicked. [1] The executor of the innovation appears to have been taken by surprise by the division that ensued, because he had not reckoned with the resistance of the faithful; instead of taking into account the critical nature of the division and the spiritual harm that would follow for the flock, he tried with all his strength to suppress the movement of the resisters. He convened an unlawful conference in order to give a synodal character to an act ecclesiologically unfounded, aiming at the invalidation of the Mysteries of the resisters, whom they mockingly called Old Calendarists. He abused his archiepiscopal authority, dragged along the civil legislator, and by a law of the state persecuted the resisters against his innovation, supposedly for usurpation of authority.

That is, in an ecclesiastical matter of dispute between members of the Church of Greece, clergy and laity, and his servile synod—or rather, with himself—which required, and still requires, judgment by a greater council, he usurps its competence and judges the case himself. Precisely here lies the ecclesiologically unfounded character of this action of his. The leader of the resisters, Metropolitan Chrysostomos, formerly of Florina, was absolutely right when he later wrote in his appeal to the Areopagus: “...the members of the Synodal Court, apart from the fact that they were opposing parties, having been denounced by us to the other Orthodox Churches for the festal-calendar innovation, did not have the right to judge us, because before the trial we had broken ecclesiastical communion with them in writing...” And Saint Nikodemos pronounces categorically, leaving no room for any other interpretation, that the greater council, that is, an ecumenical council, is “the final judge of all ecclesiastical matters, and every appeal is brought up to it.” Therefore, however great the authority of the accuser or the accused may be, for him to impose despotically a decision of his, at the moment when his opposing party invokes sacred Canons in order to support his objection, this imposition is unjust and canonically invalid.

This very erroneous theory concerning the loss of the grace of the Mysteries of unjudged schismatics or heretics has been broadened to the utmost by the side of the resisters—this time, of course, against the innovating Hierarchy, by figures possessed of excessive zeal, but “not according to knowledge.” Through lack of organized theological education and ignorance of Ecclesiastical Law, as the former Metropolitan of Florina had characterized them, they unfortunately divert the God-pleasing objection of the resisters into extremes and divisions.

After the courageous and dynamic accession of the three bishops to the body of the resisters in the year 1935, the hasty selection and promotion of four hieromonks to bishops led to a sharper emergence of the problem, because it gave it the mantle of episcopal authority and power. Only two years after the accession of the three, in 1937, because of this deviation, the first schism occurred in the body of the resisters.

In order for one to understand the magnitude of the deviation from ecclesiastical propriety, it is enough to mention the unheard-of fact that simple hieromonks, not even bishops, and even mere monks, pronounced, as though in the manner of an ecumenical council, [2] that the New Calendarist Church is definitively, in actuality, schismatic. Consequently, it is also outside the Orthodox Catholic Church. The poor men anathematized, together with the Metropolitan of Demetrias [Germanos], even the leader and soul of the struggle of the resisters, Metropolitan Chrysostomos, formerly of Florina.

A consequence of this deviation of those who had split off, besides the invalidation of the Mysteries of the New Calendarist Church, is also the self-proclamation that they now constitute the Autocephalous Church of Greece.

From then on, every effort toward union, chiefly by the former Metropolitan of Florina, met with the unpersuadable insistence of the newly ordained Bishop Matthew of Bresthena. He was the chief representative of the deviation, and also of the schism. Literally, the life of the ever-memorable hierarch was consumed, together with exiles, in the struggle for the union of the two factions. He clearly perceived the reality that without this unification, the restoration of the Julian Calendar in the Greek Church would be impossible, which was his chief goal. He developed in writing and orally the correct interpretation concerning the status of the New Calendarist Church as potentially schismatic, on account of the calendar innovation, with clear ecclesiological consistency, [3] basing himself on Ecclesiastical Law, hoping to find a response; but the schism became even stronger. The persistence of the seceded Bishop Matthew and of those who followed him had such obstinacy that it even reached the unheard-of slander of the great leader, that he was the Trojan horse of the New Calendarists within the body of the resisters. In every way, they also reviled and spoke evil of him, and in their circles, he was the most hated person, even more than the innovating hierarchs themselves. The worm of hatred and discord had penetrated them so deeply that every hope for union was now lost. A striking proof of this truth is the condescension of the former Metropolitan of Florina, after the death of Bishop Matthew, in his encyclical of 1950, which presents him as holding the same views as the Matthewites. How did the great Hierarch come to deny the ecclesiological interpretation, so well documented and thoroughly set forth by himself, concerning the potentially schismatic Church of the New Calendarists? Why did he sign something which until then he had opposed?

First of all, there are confirmed testimonies that he was pressured by everyone, even by his own circle, except for certain exceptions, to sign the unfortunate encyclical. When he signed, there are also confirmed testimonies that he said the following memorable words: “I am signing what I do not believe. [4] But my suitcase is ready for the exile that will follow.” And this indeed happened a little later.

What also shows that he did not agree with the content of the encyclical he was signing is that it does not include even a trace, not even the idea, of a refutation of what until then was supposedly his erroneous mindset. Neither in the text of the encyclical itself, nor anywhere else. Such a change of mind, had it been real, would necessarily have required from the signatory himself a detailed and fundamental retraction of his public statements up to that time, both oral and written, concerning the Church of the New Calendarists as potentially Schismatic. In any case, the integrity of his character and his immense learning would not have allowed him, under any circumstances, not to refute and ecclesiologically document the content of the encyclical.

What, then, remains? Every rationally thinking person would come to the conclusion that, since his burning desire was the union of the two factions, nothing else justifies his above-mentioned signature except the reason of oikonomia. The time at which the encyclical was issued [May 26, 1950, O.S.], two weeks after the repose of Bishop Matthew [May 14, 1950 O.S.], also testifies to the purpose of oikonomia.

This condescension of his also testifies to his character and humility, whereby the pain of his soul over the accursed schism and his longing for union compelled him to sacrifice even his personal dignity. He did not wish to leave even the slightest suspicion among his opponents that he persisted in his first opinion out of egoism and obstinacy, which he clearly saw in them and was confronting. But as we mentioned above, hatred toward his person and discord had penetrated them deeply, with the result that even this condescension failed. On the contrary, the encyclical became an object of exploitation down to the present day, in such a way that not only is the holy hierarch slandered as holding the views of the Matthewite ravings, but very many also deviated into the present aberration.

For the same reason he had earlier also issued his encyclical of 1948, immediately after the ordinations performed single-handedly by the same bishop [Matthew]. At that time too, he hoped for the isolation of these incurable clergymen by drawing the faithful to his faction, looking to their reaction because of the manifest uncanonicity of the ordinations.

Finally, the strongest argument that he was not in agreement with the encyclical is what is said: that, disappointed by the fact that the majority of the clergy of the Old Calendarists held the views of the Matthewites, when he died in 1955, he left his faction without bishops. We know, however, that he had made a proposal for consecration to at least two archimandrites (there are testimonies), who indeed agreed with him, but unfortunately refused, not perceiving the gravity of the circumstances. One of them later became a bishop, when matters had already taken another turn.

How serious is the question of the delusion of automatism? There is hardly any need to point it out. The fact that it invalidates valid Mysteries through which the love of God for mankind works the salvation of many souls makes it an outright evil of immeasurable dimensions. It appears with a mask of self-justification, behind which hypocrisy, fanaticism, and slander are concealed. And these in turn constitute the spiritual Kaiadas into which those who do not embrace their delusion are mercilessly cast, so that their spiritual disability may not be reproved. It is the anesthetic that deadened those who accepted it, with the result that they fight against everything spiritually and ecclesiastically sound, and which led to the accursed schism, to practices contrary to every concept of Ecclesiastical Law, and by extension to the factions of the Old Calendarists.

Truly, this delusion of the automatic loss of the grace of the Mysteries constituted the root of all evils for the resister Old Calendarists. Many of the Matthewites, who so greatly fought against the great hierarch, passed over to his faction after ’48, while persisting in the same delusion.

Indeed, “when one evil is granted, countless others follow.” Thereafter other divisions also followed, with the result that Old Calendarism has unfortunately ended up in the unheard-of situation of division into five or six factions. Indisputably, this constitutes a most serious ecclesiological deviation. No canonical reference, no practice of the holy Fathers of the Church, no ecclesiastical parallel justifies factional logic. The fact that we live in a forerunning age of the Antichrist, and we have heard even such excuses, does not remove, nor even lessen, the magnitude of the deviation of the divisions. On the contrary, every possible effort toward union on the basis of truth is obligatory, so that we may confront, all together, the beast of the Apocalypse and, for our days, the pan-heresy of Ecumenism; and also, so that many well-intentioned people from the New Calendarist Church, who seek the pure truth, may find rest.

Union is obligatory because: “The voice of blood,” not of a brother or brothers to the Lord, but of the Master Christ Himself from the sacred altars of the factions, cries out to all: “One Lord, one Church, one faith, one baptism.” And Paul entreats: “that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” (1 Cor. 1:10). And the sacred Cabasilas says: “Through the Mysteries the Church is signified, being the Body of Christ.”

The holy Fathers of our Church, when they walled themselves off from their heresy-professing bishops, awaited, with a calm conscience and by the good pleasure of God, the restoration of the peace of the Churches through a council. They did not create factions, nor irregular synodal structures replacing the one and only institution of the lawful Archbishop, [5] though under judgment, nor, much less, did they exhaust the boundaries of the autocephalous local Church in their own faction. There was always one faction of those walling themselves off, which constituted the healthy remnant of the Orthodox. They never invalidated on their own authority the Mysteries performed by those who were heresy-professing and holding the thrones of the Churches, but awaited their authoritative condemnation by the councils of the Church. A return to the crystalline ecclesiology of the former Metropolitan of Florina is obligatory, respecting his struggles, his pains, his exiles, which testify that he alone was feared by the opponents, as one intact in faith and mindset. A return is obligatory to the good and God-pleasing walling off before ’37, on account of the calendar change, and much more today on account of the ecumenism-professing New Calendarist Church, because of communion and not only that. These were and are the reasons why the walling off took place, and not whether they have or do not have valid Mysteries. The question, “If the New Calendarists have valid Mysteries, then why did we leave them?” is so naïve that one wonders how it is uttered by priestly and even hierarchal lips. We have already explained at length that the purpose of an Orthodox faithful person’s walling off from his heresy-professing bishop is the avoidance of defilement through communion with the heretical “weed.” Anything beyond these things, such as the above, consists of overextensions of competencies that belong to a Greater Council.

If the occasion of the first division is not healed, the root of the problem of the resisters, that is, automatism, then any other union will be condemned to end once again in failure. A new beginning from erroneous ecclesiology cannot bear good fruits.

Nevertheless, two years ago a beginning toward union was made with two factions, the most important ones, of which one unreservedly accepted the correct ecclesiology of the former Metropolitan of Florina. We hope and pray that it may reach a favorable end, and that at last an end may be put to all the problems to which we have referred.

 

NOTES

1. Perhaps some may be surprised by this reproach against the then Archbishop of Athens [Chrysostomos Papadopoulos]; but what else can one suppose when, only one year before the audacious act, as a member of the committee of January 16, 1923, for the advancement of the innovation, he submitted, together with the other members, a relevant report to the Government, where among other things he writes: “that the Church of Greece, as also the other Orthodox autocephalous Churches, though independent, are nevertheless internally closely connected with one another and united through the principle of the spiritual unity of the Church, constituting one and only one Orthodox Church, and consequently none of them can separate itself from the others and accept a new calendar without becoming schismatic in relation to the others”?

2. “We too reject and anathematize, as did the three Councils (!!!), the new calendar; we regard all those who follow it, both clergy and laity, as schismatics and corrupted members and strangers to Orthodoxy... and together with them also the two former hierarchs who have recently joined them in essence, Germanos of Demetrias and Chrysostomos of Florina, and those who follow them...” (our emphasis). From a letter of Athonite zealot fathers after the schism of the Matthewites.

3. In the clarification of his pastoral encyclical, pp. 9–10, answering an accusation against him concerning contradiction, he himself clarifies that: “...at first he called the New Calendarist Hierarchs schismatics and the New Calendarist Church schismatic, without adding, through oversight, that they are schismatics potentially and not in actuality, which means that only then will they undergo the consequences of their separation from the trunk of the whole Orthodox Church, being deprived of the right to perform the Mysteries validly... when they are judged by a greater valid Council and are condemned to deposition for evil belief, while remaining unpersuadably obstinate in it.”

4. Elder Fr. Charalambos Dionysiatis († January 1, 2001), a hieromonk and former zealot, said the following: “Within the ranks of the Old Calendarists there was a difference of opinion. Some believed that with the change of the calendar grace had been lost; others said that grace exists and that our position is a position of protest. I too agreed with the latter. When the Metropolitan of Florina joined, he also supported the same thing. However, around 1950 the fanatics prevailed. We gathered with the bishop presiding at a conference. He himself explained to them and pleaded with them: ‘I beg you, do not go to extremes. Listen to me and I promise you that we shall win the struggle. For ten whole years I was a New Calendarist bishop. If I support the claim that with the new calendar grace was lost, then I too do not have grace; I am a false bishop.’ The fanatics answered him: ‘You are a bishop; you have grace because you are an Old Calendarist. But the New Calendarists do not have Mysteries.’ I too tried to discuss it; but I saw that nothing came of it. Lack of understanding and confusion. In the end they compelled Chrysostomos as president to sign an encyclical stating that the official Church of Greece, by its accession to the new calendar, automatically became heretical and lost grace. Indeed, the bishop was heard to say: ‘I am signing what I do not believe.’ And yet he signed it.”  (The Calendar Question. Orthodoxos Typos edition, 2004, pp. 61–62.)

5. This unheard-of statement concerning the New Calendarist Church has also been heard and written by a bishop who is himself glorified as an “archbishop”: that since it is another Church, it is also another religion. It is clearer than the sun where automaticism leads, regardless of whether in practice they do other things than what follows from their theory, as we know very well also concerning him himself.

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2016/07/blog-post_12.html