Peculiar Practices of the Early Old Calendarists, Brought About by Persecution

Source: Ιστορική και Κανονική Θεώρησις του Παλαιοημερολογιτικού Ζητήματος κατά τε την Γένεσιν και την Εξέλιξιν αυτού εν Ελλάδι [Historical and Canonical Examination of the Old Calendarist Question, From its Origin to its Development in Greece], by Archbishop Christodoulos K. Paraskevaidis of Athens.

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At the same time… these same leading figures among the Old Calendarists were recommending to their followers to avoid every relationship and communion with the clergy of the Church of Greece, extending even to the prohibition of kissing their right hand, [205] and even to the rebaptism of children already canonically baptized, [206] and even, further still, to the refusal to accept Holy Communion celebrated in the canonical churches of the Church. [207]

NOTES

205. Chrysostomos (I), Archbishop of Athens..., On Calendar Matters, II, 1929, pp. 4–5. 

206. Ibid., p. 5. Cf. concerning the rebaptisms of children on Tinos, in: Anaplasis, 1932, p. 300.

207. Chrysostomos (A), Archbishop of Athens, On Calendar Matters, II, 1929, pp. 4–5. Likewise, Ath. Daniilides, The Correction of the Calendar or the Change of the Festal Cycle. Athens, 1926, pp. 11–13, 71. It was also reported that the Old Calendarists in Thessaloniki, loathing the holy churches of the Church of Greece, would go to the local Serbian church there, which served according to the old calendar, and that the Serbian priests photographed the numerous congregation in order to strengthen their aims toward creating an issue of the Serbian minority in Thessaloniki. Concerning Matthew Karpathakis, it was reported that he was seen sending from Mount Athos by post to Athens, inside an envelope, genuine Holy Eucharist for the communion of the Old Calendarists. Other Old Calendarists advised their followers to place, starting from the evening, a piece of bread on an icon and on the following day to partake of it as Holy Communion, while others advised separation from the marriage bed for married couples, when each member was following a different calendar. In the journal Ecclesia, there was likewise published the report that the Old Calendarists “celebrate the liturgy without commemorating [their local Hierarch], [and] rebaptize children baptized in the Orthodox Church because, supposedly, they were baptized under the New Calendar” (Ecclesia, 1933, p. 113).

 

Greek source online: https://www.myriobiblos.gr/books/book1/kef5_fas1_meros2.htm