[Concerning the breakaway bishops, Matthew of Vresthene, and Germanos of the Cyclades]
Dated January 18,
1945
[A]
“Now I
beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to
the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such
serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair
speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” [1]
In our considerable
solicitude for the Church, we recently published a pastoral encyclical, in
which we advised the Christian flock of our Churches, who follow the
traditional Orthodox Calendar, that, on account of the gravity of the times and
the difficulty of the war situation, they should remain loyal guardians of our
ancestral Faith and live a Christian life that is irreproachable in every way,
walking, “not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are
evil,” [2] as the Divine Apostle of the Nations declares to the Ephesians.
Through this printed pastoral
encyclical, as is our duty, we drew to the attention of Christians
belonging to our Orthodox faction the fact that they should not give any
credence or listen to all of the false and un-Orthodox teachings that are being
disseminated by the apostate Bishops of the Cyclades and of Vresthene, under
the guise of a supposedly pure Orthodoxy. These Bishops are causing divisions
and offenses among the Faithful, because such people, according to the Apostle
of the Nations, serve not Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and
fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Faithful.
In the same encyclical, we
called the aforementioned Bishops both conventiclers and Protestantizers, judging
them as such from their beliefs and their official actions.
For after these men had been
Consecrated Bishops by us, in order that our sacred struggle might be better
served, instead of contributing to its service and success, coöperating with
us in complete harmony and concord, in accordance with the sacred Canons, and,
in particular, the Thirty-fourth Apostolic Canon,3 they, on the contrary, used
the Episcopal office in order to split and divide the Orthodox Christian
flock. To this end, without ecclesiastical or canonical reasons, and without
first coming to some common understanding and clarifying matters, they
disavowed us on the grounds that we had, allegedly, apostatized from our
erstwhile Orthodox confession, and they set up their own altars for reasons of
ambition and self-interest.
We called them Protestantizers,
because the conventicler Bishops in question were not content merely
to disavow us, from whom, by the judgments which the Lord alone knows, they
received the Episcopal rank, but they also, like Eastern Popes, appropriating
the rights of an OEcumenical Synod, declared the Autocephalous Church of Greece
and the entire Greek Hierarchy to be actually schismatic, without any
trial or defense, for dishonoring the Divine and Sacred Canons and
ecclesiastical Canon Law, according to which no clergyman, and certainly no
Hierarch, is to be deposed for wrong belief and excised from the universal body
of the Eastern Orthodox Church without a prior trial and defense.
Consequently, the aforementioned conventicler
Bishops, through their renunciation of us as putative heretics and their
breaking of ecclesiastical communion with us, on the one hand, and, on the
other hand, through their declaration that, on account of the calendar innovation,
the Autocephalous Church of Greece is schismatic, not only potentially, but
also in actuality, have divested themselves of Orthodoxy and the
Apostolic Tradition, which they derived through us from the Autocephalous
Church of Greece, and they have taken on a Protestant complexion, representing
only their own individual persons and not the notion of the one Orthodox
Church, from which the authority for the Divine Mysteries and their
ecclesiastical actions is to be drawn.
And this is so, because only
according to the Protestant understanding and interpretation is a faction of
clergy and laity justified in high-handedly establishing a Church distinct from
that from which they have broken away out of self-will, even for reasons of
religious disagreement with the presiding ecclesiastical authority; whereas,
according to the Orthodox understanding and belief, the regulations of the
Apostles and the Synods reserved the right to establish a Church, and to endow
her with Grace and the Divine Mysteries, for the entire Church, when she comes
together in a Synod and states her opinions, with the aid of the Holy Spirit,
and not for a faction of clergy and laity who have broken away, even for
religious reasons.
In view of this, the
aforementioned Bishops of the Cyclades and of Vresthene, having lost all
dogmatic contact and having broken off all ecclesiastical communion with us and
the recognized Orthodox Church of Greece, and not being recognized as Orthodox
Bishops by any other local Orthodox Church, have ceased to represent any sense
of Orthodoxy, in the name of which they are entitled to celebrate the sacred
Mysteries in an Orthodox manner and validly. And having thus cast off the royal
robe of Orthodoxy, the wretches have donned the rough sackcloth of
Protestantism.
[B]
First to reply to this pastoral
encyclical were the followers of the conventicler Bishops,
Archimandrites Akakios (Pappas), Artemios of Xenophontos, and Kosmas
(Karambelas), to whom we did not deign to respond, since what they wrote, aside
from the fact that it constitutes a conglomeration of shameless lies and
untenable arguments, is composed in language that is irreverent and wholly
improper.
There is only one truth that
these men utter, and this is their admission that they derive the authority
for their actions from the Orthodox character of the Greek Church, which shows
that they refute themselves; for, on the one hand, they assert and proclaim
that the Greek Church is actually schismatic, yet, on the other hand,
they admit that she is Orthodox in essence. Behold how they have freed us from
any need to respond with a refutation.
Second to reply was the Bishop of
Vresthene; but we did not respond to him, because he renders it impossible in
what he writes, aside from the fact that it constitutes a farrago of incoherent
and disjointed words and phrases, to answer his perverse arguments, weaving together,
as he does, what is incompatible and combining what cannot be combined.
Third to reply were two laymen,
A. Demetriades and A. Panagiotopoulos, to whom, since they expressed
themselves piously and sought, in the form of a memorandum, a solution
to certain difficulties, not only to allay their scandalized consciences, as
they said, but also to clarify and demonstrate the Orthodox spirit of our
sacred struggle, we respond as follows.
We received your lengthy memorandum
and read it attentively. From the whole style of what you have written and
the arguments set forth therein, we ascertained the person who inspired and
composed this memorandum, who, for reasons that are easy to understand, did not
want to make himself known by his own protest and signature.
We originally thought of not
responding in writing, but of orally enlightening those who signed this
memorandum, on the ground that they do not possess requisite theological and
canonical education, lack the competence to criticize pastoral encyclicals, and
are people who ought to have greater confidence in the leader of our Orthodox
faction, and all the more because the latter has given clear proof of his Orthodox
way of thinking and of the holy zeal by which he is motivated in conducting our
sacred struggle.
Subsequently, however, suspecting
that our silence might be characterized as an acceptance, on our part, of the
erroneous judgments and opinions contained in the memorandum, or as an
inability to rebut them, and taking into consideration, besides, the Apostolic
saying, “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians, both to the
wise, and to the unwise,”[4] we deemed it reasonable to respond and
enlighten both the one who inspired, as well as those who signed, the memorandum
addressed to us.
There are five main points, on
which the entire edifice of the memorandum rests, that require
clarification; indeed, when we have demonstrated that these points are shaky
and canonically groundless, the entire heap of arguments which the authors of
the memorandum put forward, in support and defense of their mistaken ideas,
logically collapses.
We ask our readers to pay close
attention to these matters, which are as follows:
1) the confusion
of the persons of the Hierarchs with the character of the Church to which they
belong;
2) a failure to
discriminate between and grasp the technical and canonical terms “potentially”
and “actually”;
3) ignorance,
or, rather, an erroneous understanding of the primary elements of an Orthodox
Church;
4) ignorance of
when a change of mind can be called a self- contradiction and a discrepancy,
and when it is to be called an explanation and a clarification;
5) and finally,
the mistaken perception of the authors of the memorandum, who ascribe their
Bishops’ ecclesiastical disagreement with, and separation from, us to personal
issues.
* * *
1) With regard to the
first point, that is, the confusion of the persons of the Hierarchs with
the character and the dogmatic significance of the Church, we put forth the
following, to the best of our ability:
According to the fundamental
principle of Orthodox ecclesiastical Canon Law, and according to the spirit of
the dogmatic theology and the age-old practice of the Orthodox Church, the
character of the Church, as a Divine and self-subsistent institution, is in
principle different from, and independent of, that of the persons of the
Bishops who represent and administer her. For this reason, any ideas and opinions
of the Bishops that may be erroneous from an Orthodox standpoint, insofar as
they are not judged or condemned by a canonical and valid Synod as un-Orthodox
and false, do not affect the Orthodox character of the Church to which these
Bishops belong.
For example, when one or more of
the Bishops who belong to a ruling Church introduce into her an innovation that
is at odds with the healthy and pure spirit of the Orthodox character of the
Church, the sinful and anti-Orthodox character of this innovation weighs on the
innovating Bishops, as individuals, and renders them culpable before God and
the entire Church; but it does not affect or diminish the Orthodox authority of
the Church which they govern.
The Orthodox character of the
Church is affected and her Divine authority is diminished only when the Bishops
who govern her, and who have introduced the innovation, are tried by a valid
Synod—either a major local Synod or an OEcumenical Synod—for wrong belief and an
anti-Orthodox innovation, and, after being sufficiently enlightened, are
unwilling to conform to the recommendations of the Synod or to reject their
wrong belief, adhering obstinately and unyieldingly thereto, in which case
they are deposed by the Synod and excised from the universal body of the
Orthodox Church.
We then read in Church the decree
of deposition and excision whereby, together with the heretics, both the
innovating Bishops and all of the clergy in communion with them, as well as all
of the laity who accept prayers and blessings from them, are anathematized and
excommunicated.
All of these people, who are
under the anathema of a Synod, then constitute, not an Orthodox, but a
schismatic, Church.
Hence, we draw the conclusion
that a recognized Orthodox Church only loses her Orthodox character and the
validity of her Divine Mysteries when she is recognized as heretical or
schismatic by a Pan-Orthodox Synod, which alone has the right to withhold from
her the Grace and the Divine validity of her Mysteries, since it alone has the
right to impart these to her.
In view of this, since the
sanctifying Grace and validity of the Divine Mysteries are not bestowed by the
Bishop or the Priest who celebrates them—he being simply a means or an
instrument for imparting Grace—, but by the Orthodox character of the Church,
in whose name these Mysteries are celebrated, what may be an un-Orthodox
understanding of certain ecclesiastical questions that are, in the expression
of Saint Basil the Great, capable of solution cannot diminish, much less
remove, the Orthodox character of a Church or the validity of the Mysteries
that are celebrated in her name, as long as this understanding is not judged
or condemned by a valid Synod.
This is precisely what happens in
the case of moral lapses on the part of the Church’s ministers. For example, it
may be that certain clergy are truly unworthy to approach the holy Altar on
account of their moral character; but nonetheless, their bad morals cannot
affect the Divine Mysteries celebrated by them, which retain their validity
undiminished, provided that these unworthy clergy have not been tried or
deposed by the Church, and provided they perform their sacred duties and
celebrate the Divine Mysteries in the name of the Orthodox Church.
* * *
2) We now come to the second point
of the memorandum, concerning the definition of the technical and
canonical terms “potentially” and “actually,” which the authors
of the memorandum confuse.
Regarding the distinction and the
meaning of these two technical and canonical terms, so much was clearly and
convincingly written in our recent pastoral encyclical, and so clearly
and articulately does the wise Hagiorite Nicodemos write in a footnote in the
sacred Pedalion of the Orthodox Church about the distinction and the
meaning of these two terms, that we consider it superfluous to explain and elucidate
these matters, and we refer our readers to the aforementioned encyclical (see
Pedalion, pp. 4-5, n. 2).
* * *
3) In response to the
third point, concerning the primary elements of an Orthodox Church and
who has the right to establish and excise her, we have this to say:
Every local Orthodox Church is
established and endowed with sanctifying Grace and the Divine Mysteries by the
universal Eastern Orthodox Church, as the Treasurer of Divine Grace.
She is comprised of the Bishops
in their entirety, as those who govern her, and of the plenitude of faithful
and Orthodox Christians, as those who are governed, and, as such, she is simple
and undivided.
If differences of opinion appear
in a local Orthodox Church between the governing clergy and the laity whom they
govern, and, as a result of these differences, a rupture of ecclesiastical
communion between them comes about, the question naturally arises: Who among
those who disagree and have broken off ecclesiastical communion with each other
represents the one and undivided, recognized Church, given that both of the
discordant parties that have separated from one another derive from her and
draw from her the sanctifying Grace and the ecclesiastical validity of their
Mysteries?
To this question, which is as
important as it is hard to resolve, we reply as follows.
According to the spirit of the
Divine and Sacred Canons and the administrative polity of the Eastern Orthodox
Church, in the event that a segment of clergy and laity, breaking
ecclesiastical communion with the presiding authority for ecclesiastical and canonical
reasons and separating itself, for reasons of religious conscience, from the
ruling Hierarchy, sets up its own altar, however much it may seem, from its
separate worship, its own houses of prayer, and its own ministers, that it
constitutes a Church distinct from that from which it is separated, this
segment nonetheless does not cease belonging canonically to the same one and
undivided Church, as an unsullied and integral part of her, drawing its
spiritual life and power from the organism of the Mother Church, whose history
it continues under the pure and uncorrupted mien of an unadulterated Orthodox
identity, by keeping the Canons intact and the reliable Traditions of the
Church undiminished.
And this is so until the
difference and the discord between this segment and the ecclesiastical
authority and ruling Hierarchy that is deviating from the boundaries of
Orthodoxy is adjudicated by a major Synod that represents all of the local
Orthodox Churches.
And when this major Synod has
tried and condemned the majority of the ruling Hierarchy as thinking and acting
contrary to the nature of Orthodoxy, and has vindicated the minority segment
that stands on the ground of Orthodoxy, it then deposes and excises the former
from the universal body of Orthodoxy if, after being enlightened by the major
Synod, they refuse to renounce their error, while it recognizes the latter, who
preserve the institutions of Orthodoxy inviolate, as the only canonical
representatives of this one and undivided local Orthodox Church, from which
the former are estranged, being proclaimed schismatics, not only potentially,
but also in actuality.
However, until such a thing comes
to pass, this minority segment, insofar as a major Synod does not grant it the
right to represent the Church or anoint it with sovereignty over the Church, is
justified in breaking ecclesiastical communion and ceasing to commemorate the First
Hierarch; but it cannot, although it is in all respects right-believing,
arbitrarily withdraw the right of sovereignty from the majority of the
Hierarchy, even if the latter are innovators, or assert that it alone
constitutes the one and undivided local Orthodox Church.
The high-handed claim by such a
minority faction to the right to exercise sovereignty over the Church, and its
pretension to constitute and represent the autocephalous Church on its own,
without being recognized by the universal Church, reeks of Protestantism, which
professes that one segment of the clergy and laity can constitute a distinct
and self-proclaimed Church independently of the central Church, from which, for
one or another reason, it has arbitrarily split off and seceded.
For, according to the Protestant
understanding and interpretation, just as the Holy Spirit enlightens the
ruling Hierarchy when it comes together in a Synod and states its opinions with
the aid of the Holy Spirit, He also enlightens the subordinate clergy and laity
in such a way that they, too, are able to establish Churches and endow them
with sanctifying Grace and the Mysteries, appropriating, out of self-will, the
prerogatives of the universal Church, as the Treasurer of Grace.
This, you see, is why, in our
recent pastoral encyclical, we called the Bishops of the Cyclades and of
Vresthene conventiclers and Protestantizers, because, although
they were elected and Consecrated by us as titular Bishops, through the
invocation of the All- holy and consecrating Spirit, they did not hesitate,
the wretches, not only to disavow us in encyclicals which they signed
themselves, without any ecclesiastical right, without first coming to some
understanding with us, and incontrovertibly for reasons of ambition and
self-interest, and to set up their own altars, but also to declare the New
Calendar Hierarchy and Church schismatic, without any trial or defense, as the
Canons provide, and arbitrarily to seize from the ruling Hierarchy the rights
of sovereignty that belong to the Autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church.
The Bishops in question, who are conventiclers
and Protestantizers, according to the Canons and according to our
opinion, become, through such high-handed actions as these, accountable before
the universal Orthodox Church, whose Canon Law and Divine and Sacred Canons
they have freely violated. For the age- old history of the Orthodox Church
teaches us that no wrong-believing person who is liable to deposition and
excision has ever been declared heretical or schismatic by Hierarchs acting in
isolation, without any trial or defense, but by a valid and canonical Synod,
coming together and taking counsel with the aid of the Holy Spirit and putting
forth its vote of condemnation only after the defendant has stood trial and
defended himself, and after all means of enlightenment and admonition have
been exhausted.
This canonical path was recently
followed by the Synod of the OEcumenical Patriarchate in the Bulgarian Schism
and by the Synod of the Autocephalous Church of Greece in the condemnation of
Theophilos Kaïris for the heresy of Pietism [5] and of Apostolos Makrakis for
his heretical teaching concerning the threefold composition of the human
person. [6]
* * *
4) Deeming this enough to
refute the third point of the memorandum, we now come to an
examination and elucidation of the fourth point, which concerns the self-contradiction
and discrepancy to which the author of the recent pastoral
encyclical allegedly succumbed.
Allow us, in this section, to
teach a lesson to the authors of the memorandum, who weave together what is
incompatible and combine what cannot be combined.
One contradicts and gainsays
himself when he expresses one opinion about a question today and utterly
rejects it the next day, thereby falling into blatant contradiction.
But when, after deeper study of
the issue and more serious reflection and judgment, he modifies his previous
opinion for the better, giving it a broader interpretation and formulating it
more clearly and distinctly, such a modification, broader explanation, and
more detailed formulation of an opinion about one and the same issue cannot be
called either contradiction or discrepancy, but should rather be
called an explanation and a more complete clarification of a compact
and condensed idea, so that it may more easily be understood by another person.
This can truly be said about that
man who begins by stating an opinion about an issue in a rough-and-ready way
and at first sight, formulating it dimly and imperfectly, but later, delving
more deeply into the meaning of the issue and, challenged either by those who
do not understand or by those who hold the opposite opinion, proceeds to shape
his opinion more completely and to formulate it more clearly and in greater
detail, so that it may be more easily understood and its truth more
convincingly demonstrated.
The author of the pastoral
encyclical can be accused of this, for at the outset, he called the New
Calendarist Hierarchs schismatics and the New Calendar Church schismatic,
failing to add, owing to an oversight, that they are schismatic potentially,
and not in actuality, which means that they will only suffer the
consequences of their excision from the body of the universal Orthodox Church,
being deprived of the right to celebrate valid Mysteries and to impart Divine
Grace and sanctification to the Faithful, when they are tried by a valid major
Synod and condemned to deposition for wrong belief, as adhering obstinately
thereto.
And this is because it is
possible that they are erring out of ignorance and misunderstanding, in which
case, when they are tried and enlightened by a Synod, it is not inconceivable
for them to change their minds and reject their error, their deposition and
excision being thereby averted.
To this point of view the authors
of the memorandum pose the objection that it should not be said, and much
less written, that the Hierarchs who innovated regarding the calendar will only
be deprived of Grace and the right to impart it to the Faithful when they are
declared to be actual schismatics and deposed by a major Synod, because this
not only does not benefit, but even harms, our sacred struggle through the
defection of followers from our Orthodox segment, since they are kept in it by
the idea that the New Calendarist clergy, even before they are proclaimed
schismatic by a Synod, are deprived of the capacity to perform any sacred
functions validly.
But this objection, aside from
the fact that it is mistaken, carries with it a certain dose of demagogy and
the deception of the Faithful, which are antithetical to the Divine mission of
the Church, which ought to teach aright the word of truth, in all places and at
all times, as well as uphold the uprightness and principles7 of our sacred
struggle.
The error of this objection rests
on the misapprehension that the Old Calendarists adhered to the ancestral
traditions because the New Calendar Church was deprived of Divine Grace from
the outset, as the conventicler Bishops say.
This perhaps can happen to
those who follow a conventicle. But the Old Calendarists who knowledgeably
belong to our Orthodox segment are well aware that following the Old Calendar
is not a corollary of the validity or invalidity of the Mysteries of the New
Calendarists, a question on which a valid Synod alone has the right to
pronounce. It is, rather, an inevitable necessity if one is to avoid sharing in
the New Calendarists’ responsibility for the innovation, and a shining example
of the boundless reverence and the sacred and godly zeal by which the followers
of our Orthodox segment are animated with regard to the venerable traditions of
the Church.
The demagogy and the opportunism
of the contrary opinion lie, on the one hand, in the hope of attracting other
converts to the Old Calendar, brandishing the invalidity of the Mysteries of
the New Calendarists as a bugbear, and, on the other hand, in keeping these
followers, and especially the gullible and the lukewarm, in our sacred
struggle.
But the use of such demagogic and
illegitimate means in order to hunt after followers for our Orthodox faction,
while it may be permitted by the Latin Church, which has as an ethical maxim
the Jesuit dictum, “The end sanctifies the means,” is not permitted by
the Eastern Orthodox Church, which always teaches aright the word of truth.
With regard to the criticism of
us, which the authors of the memorandum hurl at us so naïvely and with such an
easy conscience, that in our pastoral encyclical we called the Bishops
of the Cyclades and of Vresthene conventiclers, we must give them a
second lesson, since they are, it seems, unfamiliar with ecclesiastical terms.
The word “conventicler” is
applied literally to those clergy who, bereft of ecclesiastical or canonical
justification with regard to the Faith or Canon Law, disavow the canonical
presiding ecclesiastical authority and set up their own altars, acting in a
partisan spirit for personal reasons and serving their own lust for power and
self-interest.
The Synods endorsed this term for
factionalists and those who lift their heels against the Church without any
canonical justification, and all of the Fathers of the Church used it for those
who rebel against the presiding ecclesiastical authority in order to replace it
with their own unlawful and uncanonical rule.
And just as the word “heretic”
was established for those who have wrong beliefs about the dogmas of the
Church, and the word “schismatic” for those who have wrong beliefs
about traditions and Divine worship, so the name “conventicler” was
established for those who act in a partisan spirit and rebel against the Church
for reasons of ambition and personal advantage.
Consequently, we have used this
ecclesiastical term for the Bishops of the Cyclades and of Vresthene, because
these wretches, too, for reasons of ambition and self-interest, dared to split
our Orthodox segment and thereby to cause, aside from spiritual damage to
themselves and their followers, incalculable harm to our sacred struggle, which
is made to appear, in the general conscience of the New Calendarists, as
opportunistic and reckless.
This being so, those who wrote
and signed the memorandum ought to have addressed their criticism, not
to us, who rightly and in accordance with the canons called those in question conventiclers
and Protestantizers, but to the conventicler Bishops, if, as
they say in their memorandum, they were seeking to allay their scandalized
consciences and to serve the sacred goal of our struggle.
* * *
5) Finally, with regard to the
fifth and last point of the memorandum, in which the differences
and dissonance that exist between us and the conventicler Bishops are
mistakenly characterized as deriving from personal issues, we have this to say.
You do an injustice, gentlemen
and authors of this memorandum, to your intelligence and sound judgment, if you
suppose that the disagreement between us and the conventicler Bishops
derives from personal issues. At the same time, you do us an injustice, when
you portray us as capable of sacrificing on the altar of human passions, not
only the precious and lofty interests of our sacred struggle, but also the
salvation of our soul and the salvation of the souls of those belonging to our
segment, which constitutes the primary spark and the effective fulcrum of our
thoughts and activities.
For we, and let this not be
construed as boasting, but as a reflection of the truth and as a defense of the
honor and reputation that I enjoy—we say that, for the idea of Orthodoxy and
its restoration, we have sacrificed, as you also are aware, the material and
social capital that we acquired through the honorable and conscientious
services that we rendered on behalf of the Church and the nation during our
thirty-five years as a Hierarch. Struggling faithfully and steadfastly with the
aid of Divine and all-strengthening Grace on the adamantine battlements of
Church and nation, we neither hesitated nor shrank from unmurmuringly accepting
even this exile, and in old age, at that.
We are truly perplexed at how,
despite knowing all of these things, you have succeeded in imagining and
persuading yourselves that we, who have sacrificed everything for the ideal of
our struggle, would show ourselves to be so lacking in self-respect and so
malevolent as to divide our Orthodox segment for reasons of pride and ambition,
and to deprive ourselves of the manifest reward which future historians and
Jesus Christ, the Giver of rewards, reserve for those who fight the good
fight.8
Do not say that you are not
attaching this unjust reproach and censure to us, but are encouraging us in our
sacred struggle out of love and in order to allay your scandalized consciences,
so that we may seize the initiative and take the lead, as first in rank, in the
struggle for reconciliation and union, pursuing, as you write, a more moderate
policy towards these Bishops, as if they were seeking union from us without
conditions and as if we rejected union for personal reasons that degrade our
position and offend our dignity.
For you write all of these
things, even though you know, on the one hand, under what conditions—conditions
which infringe upon the inviolate and Divine authority of the Canons and
essentially wound our sense of honor—these men have sought to have communion
with us and to coöperate with us, and, on the other hand, are familiar with the
reply that we gave, through the mediation of Mr. Kinias the attorney, in which,
to facilitate a union for the good of the struggle and for the joy of
Christians, we set aside to some degree our personal honor and dignity,
attending only to the honor and dignity of the Canons, as it was our sacred and
inviolable duty to do.
Hence, we asked them to express
their regret for all that they had said and written in the past by way of
misinterpretation or misunderstanding, in such way as to bring the authority
of the Canons into disrepute, and to give their promise that they would
henceforth work with us in full harmony and concord and on the basis of our
struggle against the New Calendar Church as it is set forth in our recent pastoral
encyclical to the Christian flock.
In accordance with this, if those
who composed and signed the memorandum were inspired by the incentive of
allaying their scandalized consciences and were motivated by the interests of
the struggle, they ought to have sent their instructive memorandum, which
urges us to seek after unity, not to us, who are not responsible for the
division and have no need of instruction or encouragement from individuals
whose rôle it is not to enlighten us or urge us on to what is good, but to the conventicler
Bishops who created the division and are in greater need of being
enlightened and encouraged to look to the good of the struggle, which they
have, unfortunately, made the object of ambition and exploitation.
That these Bishops aimed, from
the outset, at dividing the struggle with a completely easy conscience is
evident from all that the Bishop of the Cyclades, who is of the same mind as
the Bishop of Vresthene, wrote to us when we were in Jerusalem during the first
year of our exodus into the struggle; he encouraged us to depose the
ever-memorable president and leader of the struggle [9] and to replace him with
our humble self. And because we rejected this malicious proposal and responded
to them they should submit to our leader, since we did not throw ourselves into
the struggle in order to lay claim to leadership, but to serve Orthodoxy, these
men then proceeded to disavow both of us, so that they might themselves be
leaders of the struggle and be independent in their opinions and activities,
dividing the benefits of leadership equally. But they ended up disavowing each
other and excommunicating each other as heretics or schismatics.
[C]
This being the case, we
advise the authors of this memorandum, in a fatherly way, to have more
confidence in the leader of our struggle, who is aware of his great
responsibilities before God and the Church and who deploys his good will, with
strength of soul and by Divine Grace, for the success of the struggle, in which
he unswervingly hopes.
We urge them, if they are truly
aiming at union for the good of the struggle, to devote their efforts and
activities in this regard to the apostate Bishops, pointing out to them the
great responsibility which they bear before God and the Church for having, with
a complete ease of conscience, split the Orthodox flock into two opposing
factions, which inflicted mortal damage on the struggle and made them, as the
saying goes, “a spectacle to Angels and to men.” [10]
In order to bring to an end our
verbal rowing and weigh anchor in the harbor of our rejoinder, we deem it
advisable and exceedingly beneficial, for the dignity and the ideals of our
sacred struggle, to draw to the attention of all those who are seeking after
union between us and the conventicler Bishops at any cost to the
extremely tenuous and precarious future position to which the moral and
theoretical aspect of our struggle will be reduced, in the general Christian
conscience, by way of union and coöperation with the apostates, who are neither
repentant nor wish to come to any understanding, but obstinately cling to their
erroneous beliefs.
Indeed, we should not overlook
this extremely delicate and sensitive point, that if we were to unite and
coöperate with the apostate Bishops, who have no intention of putting off the
old man of erroneous beliefs and antiquated ideas—as a consequence of which,
they committed uncanonical and altogether outrageous acts, which provoked
disgust and revulsion in the general conscience of Christians—or of putting on
the new man, who is renewed in the spirit of traditional faith and piety, [11]
our sacred struggle would, in all probability, be very seriously damaged in
thereby adopting the mistaken ideas and arbitrary actions which have beset
these apostate Bishops in the recent past, such that the final error would be
worse than the first. [12]
Let the authors of the memorandum
and all who aspire to such a union at all costs be aware that they become
answerable and jointly responsible for the canonical and moral harm that our
sacred struggle will suffer in the general conscience of Christians, if our
principled and Orthodox segment, which up to now has commanded the respect of
those who adhere steadfastly to Orthodox institutions and ethnic traditions, is
joined by corrupt elements and administrative figures whose coöperation will
not only not lend glory and honor to the struggle, but will even impute
ludicrousness and defectiveness to what has hitherto been its pure and
far-gleaming countenance, which radiates in our conservative Orthodox faction.
Let this be the last word on this subject, and may the God of peace grant the
desired union of all Christian Churches within the bounds of Orthodoxy, that
with one mouth and one heart we may all glorify Him at one and the same time.
Athens, 18th January 1945
† Metropolitan Chrysostomos
(formerly) of Florina
Notes
1. Romans 16:17-18.
2. Ephesians 5:15-16.
3. This Canon which His Eminence
cites reads as follows: “The Bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who
is first among them and account him as their head, and do nothing of
consequence without his consent; but each may do those things only which
concern his own parish, and the country places which belong to it. But neither
let him (who is the first) do anything without the consent of all; for so there
will be unanimity, and God will be glorified through the Lord in the Holy
Spirit” (A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers [Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978], 2nd ser., Vol. XIV p. 596).
4. Romans 1:14.
5. Theophilos Kaïris (1784-1853),
an apostate Greek intellectual who founded a new religion called Θεοσεβισμός
(“Reverence for God”). Born on Andros, he was Tonsured a monk in 1801 with the
name “Theophilos.” He studied philosophy in Paris, where he met Adamantios
Koraïs and came under the influence of European rationalism. Later in life, he
was accused of advocating novel ideas that conflicted with Orthodoxy, and, when
ordered to submit a confession of faith, refused; for this, he was deposed, exiled
to a monastery, and finally imprisoned in 1852. The philosophico-religious
system that he promoted was Deistic in nature and was an amalgam of rationalism
and mysticism. Kaïris “gave up the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation
on the ground that they were incomprehensible” and “denied the reality of
supernatural revelation” (Constantine Cavarnos, Modern Greek Thought [Belmont,
MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1986], p. 24); he even
went so far as to replace Orthodox worship with new rites and prayers of his
own. (For additional information, see Θρησκευτικὴ καὶ ᾿Ηθικὴ ᾿Εγκυκλοπαιδεία
[Athens: 1965], Vol. VII, s.v. “Καΐρης,” by Basil Sphyroeras, cols.
177-179.)
6. Apostolos Makrakis
(1831-1905), a prominent philosopher and theologian. Although, like Kaïris, he
had studied Western philosophy in Paris, “he was in general faithful to the
Orthodox tradition in his theology.” However, he “placed philosophy—in particular
his own philosophy—above religion,” maintaining that religion “by nature
precedes philosophy; because infancy precedes manhood, and faith precedes true
knowledge” (Cavarnos, Modern Greek Thought, p. 24). Makrakis earned the
displeasure of the Church of Greece for teaching that man is tricomposite, that
is, that he consists of body, soul, and spirit, rather than simply of body and
soul. (For additional information, see Θρησκευτικὴ καὶ ᾿Ηθικὴ ᾿Εγκυκλοπαιδεία
[Athens: 1966], Vol. VIII, s.v. “Μακράκης,” by John Karmiris, cols.
514-517.)
7. Metropolitan Chrysostomos uses
the word ἰδεολογία and the adjective formed from it, ἰδεολογικός, several times
in this text. We have chosen not to render it literally as “ideology” and
“ideological,” on account of the political overtones the word has acquired in
this century, and particularly in Marxist and other left-wing circles. Metropolitan
Chrysostomos certainly did not intend to present himself as an ideologue or a
theoretician in the party-political sense, but as a man of principle and the
leader of a movement governed by solid theological and intellectual criteria,
rather than by merely pragmatic considerations.
8. Cf. i St. Timothy 6:12.
9. This is a reference to
Metropolitan Germanos of Demetrias.
10. I Corinthians 4:9.
11. Cf. Colossians 3:9-10.
12. Cf. St. Matthew 27:64.
Source: Resistance or
Exclusion?: The Alternative Ecclesiological Approaches of Metropolitan
Chrysostomos of Florina and Bishop Matthew of Vresthene (Etna, CA:
C.T.O.S., 2000), pp. 117-135.
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