New Dimensions in Pride and Insanity

The Calendar Question Revisited: The Fathers or the Papacy? [1994]

 

 

In the May issue of The Word, the official organ of the Antiochian Christian Archdiocese of North America (vol. 38 #5, pp. 5-7), the dean of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Toledo Ohio, Fr. Nabil Hanna, published an article, Why is it So Late This Year!, in which he argues against the traditional formula for calculating the date of Pascha, suggesting that the Orthodox formula is in violation of the spirit of the First Ecumenical Council, and concluding his article with the words: "Let us pray that one day soon, we can rediscover the goal of the First Ecumenical Council, that the whole Orthodox Church might adopt the most precise calendar available, and much more important-that we might demonstrate our unity by celebrating all our feasts together, with one accord and in the same manner."

Rather than give any credence to the pseudo-scholarship in this article, and remembering the admonition of the holy Apostle John, who says "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world" [I Jn 4:1], it might be better to test this article using the following questions as a humble guide.

Is it not quite extraordinary and noteworthy that for the last 1,669 years, since the First Ecumenical Council, and particularly during the last 412 years since Gregory XIII, Popе of Rome, and his atheist astronomers revised the Julian Calendar (on 5 October 1582, and not 1528), no reputable Orthodox scholars or Orthodox canonical interpreters, no distinguished Orthodox Hierarchs* and no Orthodox saints have ever discovered what our sincere but misguided Fr. Nabil Hanna has discovered – i.e., that the traditional Orthodox formula for calculating the date of Pascha is in violation of the spirit of the First Ecumenical Council?

Are we to believe that Fr. Nabil Hanna has greater insight into the interpretation of the Holy Canons than the great and renowned Orthodox canonical interpreters Blastaris, Zonaras, and others, who have handed down to us precise and concrete instructions regarding the traditional Orthodox formula for calculating the date of Pascha, as laid down at the First Ecumenical Council?

Are we to believe that Fr. Nabil Hanna has greater wisdom than the venerable Orthodox Patriarchs, Jeremiah II of Constantinople, Silvester of Alexandria, Sophronios of Jerusalem, and the other hierarchs, who condemned, by means of an Encyclical Letter to all genuine Orthodox Christians in the year 1583, the then newly-invented Paschalion of the Pope of Rome, which Fr. Nabil Hanna now promotes and advocates?

Or are we to believe that Fr. Nabil Hanna possesses greater knowledge and expertise in the matter of the Paschalion than the venerable Orthodox Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, together with the plenipotentiary of the Russian Orthodox Church and other distinguished and outstanding Orthodox hierarchs and scholars representing the local Orthodox Churches, who condemned in Council the papal Paschalion in the year 1593?

Are we to believe that Fr. Nabil Hanna is better able to impart to us the Mystery of righteousness than were the Orthodox saints and martyrs who unanimously experienced the Resurrection and were sanctified, celebrating the Pascha calculated according to the traditional Orthodox formula?

Are we to believe that the recently canonized hieromartyr St. Joseph the Damascene, who labored both lovingly and diligently to reunite the Melkites (Greek Catholics) to Orthodoxy (especially after the Western calendar and the Western date of Pascha had been forced upon them by their patriarch), and who wrote apreface for the book by Shibi Al-Demashki, titled Christian Law is Far above the Astrological Considerations ("a precise calendar is not the most important thing; the Holy Scriptures teach us that time will pass away no matter how we measure it"),would agree with Fr. Nabil Hanna's assessment of the traditional Orthodox formula for the calculation of the date of Pascha?

Are we to believe that our present traditions violate the spirit of a Universal Synod, and that the Church Fathers have been errant in their pronouncements about the calculation of Pascha, and that the flamboyant Orthodox Churches of North America, mired in the hypocrisy of political ecumenism and modernism, laden down with the riches of this world, impoverished in traditional Orthodox spirituality and piety, deprived and destitute of true Orthodox monasticism, as well as being both cut off from and ashamed of our old-world Orthodox roots and traditions, have a better understanding of the Apostolic spirit?

Are we to believe that the small, unhealthy Church of Finland, the only Orthodox Church in the world which celebrates Pascha with the West, constitutes, in its few years of practice, the correct liturgical standard (even though one of the accursed results of the introduction of the new Paschalion was the destruction of the holy and renowned Monastery of Valaam), while the rest of Orthodoxy, following at least sixteen hundred years of tradition, is in error?

Are we to believe in the vile pronouncements of "the important council in 1922" (actually 10 May/8 June 1923) which Fr. Nabil Hanna cited in his article, and which was nothing more than the mouthpiece of the unstable, restless, power-hungry, evil demon of bitter memory, Meletios Metazakis, who (after being expelled from Jerusalem by Patriarch Damianos for activities against the Holy Sepulchre and later impeded from taking the throne as Archbishop of Athens), through usury had himself uncanonically elected and enthroned as Patriarch of Constantinople (and who later retired when faced with the prospect of being deposed and physically expelled from Constantinople by both the clergy and laity), who convened this "important council" (presided over by five bishops), the "Pan-Orthodox" (Robber) Congress of Constantinople in 1923, for his own personal ends (taking advantage of the turmoil in the Russian Orthodox Church, due to the relentless persecution of the Bolsheviks, as well as the upheaval in the Hellenic world with the expulsion of the Greeks from Asia Minor), who recognized and entered into communion with the communist-sponsored "Living Church" in Russia while true Russian Orthodox Christians were being martyred, who wilfully destroyed the liturgical and visible unity of the Orthodox Church, who implemented his innovations by the use of merciless brute force against faithful Greek Orthodox Christians, who accepted the "validity" of Anglican orders, and who instituted countless other abominations and innovations?

Together with the above questions, we might also rightfully and seriously ask ourselves the following:

Why would an Orthodox priest write this article?

Why would an Orthodox priest attempt to undermine the respect of Orthodox Christians for our holy Traditions?

Why would an Orthodox priest so blatantly injure the sensibilities of the faithful, and humiliate us in the face of the enemies of our Church?

Why would such a well-known publication of the Antiochian Orthodox Church in North America print such an article?

Is there a hidden agenda behind Fr. Nabil Hanna's article?

Is there something we do not know or something that we are not being told?

Are we being slowly prepared for capitulation?

Are we being slowly prepared for a union? or Uniatism?

Are we being slowly prepared to go down the same road as the Melkites (Greek Catholics)?

Is the continual propaganda of the Melkites regarding union in the near future really true?

Is it possible that those Orthodox Christians who faithfully continue to follow the traditional Julian Calendar have been right all along in resisting any change, and that we Orthodox who have been following the Revised Julian Calendar and who have, according to the old adage, already given an arm, will be expected also to give a leg?

Or, is this just another of the many mindless and fleeting fashions (or better yet, fads) and fantasies that sweep America from time to time?

BUT now, can we possibly afford to be quiet in this matter, if it isn't just another mindless fad?

The Holy Scripture reminds us: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" [Rom 12:2].

We can only be transformed by the renewing of our minds (i.e., learning to live and think as Orthodox Christians) through participation in the full liturgical life of our holy Orthodox Church, through participation in the Holy Mysteries (especially frequent Confession and Holy Communion as recommended by our Father Confessors), and then through the reading of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. We must not lean "unto our own understanding" [cf. Prov 3:5], and we must not be "wise in our own opinion" [cf. Rom 12:16], nor is it permitted to us to follow the ways of the world, for "friendship with the world is enmity with God" [cf. Jas 4:4]; but rather, we must conform ourselves to the law of God as handed down by our Holy Fathers, and "contend earnestly for the Faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" [cf. Jude 3].

 

* It is probable that the false reasoning used to arrive at the preposterous conclusions in Fr. Nabil Hanna's article are based upon the writings of Archbishop Pierre (L'Huillier) of New York and New Jersey, a prelate of the "Orthodох Church in America." Archbishop Pierre is the author of the article The Date of Orthodox Easter which was published in the March 1994 issue of Solia, the official organ of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate in America, in which he argues against the traditional Orthodox formula for calculating the date of Pascha.

Prepared for St. Mary's Antiochian Orthodox Discussion Group by Fr. Zoran, Assistant Parish Priest of St. Mary's Antiochian Orthodox Church; 91 Hemphill Ave; Mount Pritchard, NSW 2170, Australia.

Source: Living Orthodoxy, Vol. XV, No. 4; July-August 1993 [actual release August 1994] (#88), pp. 6-7.