The G.O.C. Response to a Proposed Solution of the New Calendarist Church (1949)

Source: Ἡ Φωνὴ τῆς Ὀρθοδοξίας [The Voice of Orthodoxy], No. 72, September 26, 1949, p. 8.

 

 

Protocol No 236

Athens, 5/16 September 1949

To the Most Pious Priests, the honorable Churchwardens, and the rest of the Christ-loving pleroma of our Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians.

We paternally recommend to all of you that you give no heed to what the newspapers have recently been publishing as a decision of the Synod of the New Calendarist Church, with reference to the settlement of the calendar question and to the followers of our traditional body [παρατάξεως, paratáxeos], and also to those of the unlawful, uncanonical faction of Bishop Matthew.

The solution which the Synod of the New Calendarist Hierarchs indicates, according to which, as they say, they will forgive us and will include us in their Church on the condition that we recognize the Governing [i.e., Official] Synod as the Ecclesiastical Authority of our body, is altogether foreign and contrary to the spirit and our Orthodox conscience, and constitutes the burning desire of the New Calendarists.

We shall accept such a thing only when the State Church returns to the traditional festal Calendar order, which alone will bring the Church of Greece into union with us and with the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Orthodox Church.

In the event that the Governing Synod of the New Calendarist Church should refuse to restore the Orthodox festal tradition, we, for no reason and under no circumstances, even if it should come to pass, shall accept recognizing the New Calendarist Synod as an Ecclesiastical Authority, because this is contrary to our Orthodox conscience.

That which we can accept is to conclude temporarily a truce with the State Church, and to be free in the fulfillment of our religious duties, without having any dependence whatsoever upon the Governing Synod, until the definitive and valid resolution of the calendar question by a Pan-Orthodox Synod.

The Holy Synod

…

The President thereof
The Former Metropolitan of Florina, CHRYSOSTOMOS