The Unity of the Church: To the Venerable (Official) Synod of the Church of Greece

Ensure the external unity of the Holy Church!

By “A Hierarch”

Greek source: The Voice of Orthodoxy, No. 301, December 8, 1958 (O.S.), pp. 2-3.

 

It is indisputable that with our Old Calendarist brethren, we have “One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism,” the Faith in the Lord and in the baptism of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Apostle Paul, however, the Lawgiver of the Church, requires “that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 15:6). And he sought, when he was in this present life, and seeks even now, from his heavenly dwellings, “that he may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving together for the faith of the Gospel” (Phil. 1:27). “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ” (Rom. 15:5). “For He is our Peace, Who hath made both one...” (Eph. 2:15). “Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one soul, of one mind” (Phil. 2:2).

More than thirty years have passed since, by decision of the Holy Synod of the Hierarchy of the Church of Greece, the corrected Calendar was established in Greece, and still the Church of Greece is unable to regain her external and paternal peace, because of various disturbances and violent measures which are being taken, at the recommendation of the Church, by the State, against the so-called Old Calendarists, whose consciences are unable to be at rest, because of the thought that that decision was unilateral and did not proceed from the common decision of a Pan-Orthodox Synod, as the Evangelical Spirit and the spirit of the Holy Canons of our Church require.

Furthermore, a committee of jurists and professors of theology of the illustrious University [of Athens], appointed by the then Revolutionary Government for the study of the Calendar question, in which His Beatitude Chrysostomos, then a professor, also took part, declared that “One particular Orthodox Church cannot separate itself from the others and accept the New Calendar without thereby becoming schismatic in relation to the others. And this is because, however much the Orthodox Churches, as Autocephalous, are independent in their internal administration, they are nevertheless united with one another through the same Faith and divine worship, as also through the Ecclesiastical Traditions and the Divine and Holy Canons of the whole Orthodox Church, so that one particular Church cannot, without the consent of the others, alter an ecclesiastical institution of general ecclesiastical nature.”

For the above reasons the conscience of a portion of the Orthodox among the Greek people was troubled, which refused to accept that decision as valid and of Pan-Orthodox authority, and consequently since then an Ecclesiastical Schism has been smoldering between those who accepted the decision of the Hierarchy and those who did not accept it, who declare that they have on their side the mass of the Orthodox peoples: of the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Russia, Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria, and at the same time also the Holy Mountain.

And indeed, matters are so, and the schism is raging, to the incalculable harm of the Church of Greece and of our nation, whose unity is being broken apart by the divisions which are created from such religious matters.

In the face of such a tragic situation, what must the Venerable Holy Synod do?

Be indifferent? That is not permissible; for it is not right and seemly that the Orthodox Greek People should be confronted now with the disgraceful [Matthewite] events of Keratea, and now with the mass, uncanonical, and unattached ordinations of pseudo-bishops and pseudo-priests, as defined by Canon VI of the Fourth Ecumenical Council: “that no one is to be ordained unattached... and those ordained without a charge, the Holy Synod has decreed that such ordination is to be invalid, and that they can nowhere function, to the reproach of him who ordained them,” ordinations which make a mockery of the Mysteries of the Church and ridicule them before the faithful People and the unbelievers, and drag through the mud the sanctity of the Holy Church.

To impose again condemnatory decisions against the schism, it cannot, because this is not a matter of a disciplinary offense, but of a question concerning the whole Orthodox Church, of which the Church in Greece constitutes a part, which cannot decide against the whole.

Consequently, there exists one canonical way out: the convocation of a Local Synod, to be composed of the primates of the Orthodox Churches, authorized for this purpose by their Churches, so that through their decision the much-discussed question of the so-called Old Calendarist brethren and children of ours in Greece may come to an end, and so that there may cease, on the one hand, their persecution by the police organs of the State, and, on the other hand, the uncanonical derailment of the men of Keratea into uncanonical and comic ordinations of unattached pseudo-bishops, who continuously make a mockery of the seriousness and holiness of the highest Mystery of the Priesthood, and create situations subject to canonical penalties because of the scandalizing of the consciences of the faithful, and to national contempt because of the internal division of the nation being cultivated.

Or is the fact unknown, that these senseless men [i.e., the Matthewites] have reached such a point of madness as to send such pseudo-bishops even to struggling Cyprus itself, and to the expatriate Greeks in America, to the greatest national harm? Or is the fact likewise unknown, that groups and, sporadically, certain clergymen, considering themselves wronged by the official Church, resort to the pseudo-episcopal factory of Keratea, in order to be ordained as pseudo-bishops, for the satisfaction of their vanity, indifferent to the harm caused to the Church by their betrayal?

Or is it also unknown that ignorant and foolish Clergymen, burdened with accusations against the Church, flee to Keratea as to an asylum, protective of their foolishness and of their guilt?

Therefore, a drastic solution of the question is expedient, by decision of a Local Council, as we have also suggested above. And if this Council decides on the preservation of the old calendar, then the Church of Greece also must submit to this Decision; but if it decides on the prevalence of the corrected Calendar, then all the other Orthodox Churches also must submit to it, so that there may be “the same mind among one another according to Christ,” in order that with one accord, with one mouth, as divine Paul says, one may glorify “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6), always remembering the basic and fundamental teaching of the divine Apostle: “Only conduct yourselves worthily of the Gospel of Christ, that... he may hear the things concerning you, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving together for the faith of the Gospel...”

We beseech the venerable Holy Synod, in the name of divine Love and of the Unity of the Church, to take a Decision for the satisfaction, not of men, some of whom have indeed reached the point, in the excess of their zeal, of irreverently accusing the Official Church as having been led astray from the Truth, but for the satisfaction of divine Truth itself, which wills both the internal and the external unity of the Church, both in Dogma and in Worship, of which so many liturgical exclamations pray for “the unity of the Faith and the Communion of the Holy Spirit,” “That, with one mouth and one heart, we may glorify and hymn the all-honorable and majestic Name of our Lord Jesus Christ...”

This is the issue, and not, strictly speaking, the 13 days. If, however, for the sake of this issue the 13 days are also needed, we think that, for the sake of the 13 days, the Unity of our Holy Church in Greece should not be sacrificed, within her own bosom and in relation to the other Holy Orthodox Churches. Let, therefore, a Local Council be called as soon as possible, and let it decide! And we are hopeful that, to this Decision, both the Old Calendarist brethren will submit, and the Peace of God will triumph once again in the Holy Church in Greece.

Ever obedient to the Decisions of the Venerable Holy Synod of the Church of Greece.