The view of the G.O.C. on Possible Solutions to the Calendar Issue by the Official Church Committee

In View of October (1958)

 

 

We return once again to the matter of the convocation of the [Official] Hierarchy in October, and we shall return to it many times, touching upon various aspects of the Old Calendar question under discussion, so that the matter may be complete and thoroughly examined from every standpoint. In today’s article we shall examine the possible solutions which the venerable body of the Hierarchy will adopt, and the stance to be maintained by us toward them.

It is possible that the Hierarchy may accept a proposal and recommend judicial measures. Speaking from a position of strength, deliberately ignoring the reality of a movement with more than thirty years of activity, and hastening to rid itself of the tormenting compunction and the living reproach of its deviations, it will invoke once again the alliance of the state, will mobilize a few phalanxes of policemen, will seal a few churches, and will provoke, for yet another time, an uproar, but also comments most unfavorable to the Church and its representatives, in a liberal and democratic age which condemns violence and the gagging of conscience.

It is not impossible that, thinking more diplomatically and seeking to impress public opinion, it may benevolently propose an “offer of canonical priests” and the dependence of our flock upon the local bishops. Although this plan, in and of itself, has the appearance of theatricality and of a wretched mockery of ecclesiastical seriousness, with the priest celebrating the feasts twice, according to the new and the old calendars, nevertheless it is judged beforehand as aiming at the “absorption” of our movement, to use the term of the most distinguished canonist Mr. Panag. Panagiotakos, used for the rejection of a similar plan proposed in the past.

Finally, the Hierarchy, wrongly assessing certain usual but not dangerous phenomena, such as the lack of leadership (a bishop), and overlooking the vitality and fervent zeal of the pleroma, the people, may not be unlikely to leave things as they are, seeking, in its opinion, the gradual “decline.”

These, in our opinion, based on the past, are the three possible plans of decisions on the Old Calendar question.

That, however, none of these three solves the question is self-evident even to infants. Neither does persecution paralyze the struggles, nor is the people, which consciously follows this sacred movement of piety, swept away into deadly traps of death; but neither will time extinguish the sacred flame of the Orthodox faith, even if very many winds of adversities, of internal and external origin, are blowing.

And we hope that most of the most reverend Hierarchs of the Hierarchy being convoked will already have perceived the truth of the matter and will seek solutions imposed by the facts and not by the personal peculiarity of each one.

The ever-memorable Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Dorotheos, with that upright bearing, the gaze that stirred the depths of hearts, and above all with his crystal-clear judgment, declared before a committee of our own and his officials that “the question will be solved if we place it on the level of the interest of the Church, not of the local Church of Greece, but of the mystical body of Christ.” And speaking playfully in a familiar manner, that most spiritually gifted cleric concluded: “We shall find a way, my children, to satisfy both your sense of honor and our sense of honor, because the Romios dies for his sense of honor.” And certainly, if he had lived, he would have solved it, given that he had accepted the establishment of a mixed committee.

The Hierarchy must therefore take seriously into account that the Old Calendarists, as it ironically calls them, are conscious of their ideology and remain steadfast in it not by reason of fanaticism, but out of conscious devotion to the rightly understood conservative spirit, without which Orthodoxy tends to be submerged in the dark current of the suspect dogmatic syncretism of our age. It must likewise consider that the movement of the Old Calendarists is not ideologically isolated, but attracts around itself also all the healthy elements which are disgusted by the servile bows before the idol of Protestantism and are indignant at the continuing betrayal of our blameless Orthodox faith.

Taking these things into account, it must accept the prudent recommendations of certain select members of its own, which aim at the settlement of this most serious question according to the spirit of the Holy Canons, for the good of the cohesion and fighting strength of the Orthodox Church of our homeland.

Let it leave the definitive settlement of the whole question to a Pan-Orthodox Synod, and let it undertake the holy courage of the Church’s return to the canonical liturgical rhythm which existed before 1923. Or let it constitute a mixed committee, as Dorotheos of Athens had also accepted, composed of its clerical specialists, our representatives, and the distinguished canonists Messrs. Pan. Panagiotakos and Mil. Volonakis, for the finding of a temporary solution.

Above all, let it not think and speak from a position of strength, but from abundant love and Orthodox expediency.

 

Greek source: The Voice of Orthodoxy, No. 291, July 28, 1958 (O.S.), pp. 1-2.