In Defense of Metropolitan Cyprian (+2013): Historical Documents (Part 2)

Letter to His Eminence, Metropolitan Kallistos of Corinth

 

 

Prot. No. 64
May 30, 1983
Feast of the Venerable Isaacius

To His Eminence
G.O.C. Metropolitan Kallistos of Corinth
President of the Holy Synod

 

“Woe to those who prophesy from their own heart”
(Ezekiel 13:3)

 

Your Eminence, Most Reverend President,

CHRIST IS RISEN!

Offering Your Eminence our profoundest respects, we humbly pray that the joy of the Resurrection may always fill you and all those with you!

We are compelled to address the present letter to Your Eminence after receiving and studying, a few days ago, both your booklet entitled Apologia (Athens, 1983, 31 pp.) and your Letter of Confession (Athikia, Corinthia, May 24, 1983).

Through these texts of yours, you proclaim what, in our judgment, is the untenable teaching that Divine Grace has been lost from every Orthodox Church that adopted the calendar innovation of 1924. In support of this assertion, you have spoken and “prophesied from your own heart”—that is, not as the Holy Tradition of our Orthodox Church requires and bears witness. You have not employed a single testimony from Holy Scripture, the Ecumenical Councils, or the Holy Fathers when addressing so serious a matter.

In our judgment, your view is unsupported by testimony, unproven, anti-patristic, and consequently anti-Orthodox. The Holy Ecumenical Councils first investigated matters under divine inspiration and demonstrated the truth in accordance with Tradition; only then did they render judgment. You have done the opposite. Contrary to Tradition and without prior consultation with the other members of our Holy Synod, you composed texts that are wholly unacceptable from an ecclesiastical, theological, and even logical standpoint—especially at a critical moment in the effort to draw together and unite Orthodox forces.

* * *

After a careful study of synodal and patristic testimonies, we humbly believe that:

1) The Local Orthodox Churches that follow the calendar innovation, as well as the other Churches in communion with them, have never lost Divine Grace.

2) These Churches are nevertheless subject to a Pan-Orthodox or Ecumenical Council, which will render the final judgment and define their status accordingly, provided that they remain unrepentant until that time.

3) Our God-pleasing work consists in walling ourselves off from those who persist in the innovation; denouncing the error; protecting and serving the non-innovating pleroma of the Church; and striving to enlighten those competent in such matters, so that, by the grace of God, the heterodox teaching being proclaimed may be refuted and, in due time, a Holy Synod of Orthodox hierarchs may be convened to render a synodal judgment.

4) Our walling-off from the innovators prior to a synodal determination constitutes the correct resistance to error handed down by the Fathers, and in no way signifies that we alone constitute the Church.

5) Through the obligatory and praiseworthy walling-off, we endeavor to deliver the Church from schisms. Had the correct resistance set forth above been maintained consistently since 1924, we are certain that the turmoil among the Orthodox would long ago have subsided through a return to the age-old Orthodox calendar order, with the cooperation of God.

6) The untenable teaching that the innovators have lost Divine Grace, since it is neither pleasing to God nor in accordance with the Holy Tradition of our Fathers, does not constitute the correct, praiseworthy, and consequently effective resistance of the Orthodox. For this reason, instead of averting divisions and schisms, it continually creates schisms upon schisms within the ranks of those in resistance, brings the worthy endeavor of resistance handed down by the Fathers into disrepute, and thus nullifies both the letter and the spirit of the relevant canonical injunctions concerning walling-off from innovators and heretics. It therefore constitutes a paradoxical innovation in the struggle against innovation.

After all the foregoing, we again humbly believe that, for our cooperation to continue, we must convene in Synod, examine the matter with prayer and humility, and proclaim together what Orthodox Holy Tradition teaches us, following the teaching of the Fathers and not yielding to personal opinions arising from our hearts that are unsupported by testimony or proof. According to the Apostolic saying, no one is crowned unless he competes lawfully—that is, unless he contends in the arena of the good confession with discerning Orthodox zeal.

Asking forgiveness for the sorrow that we may have caused Your Eminence, we shall prayerfully await discussion in Synod of the issue raised by your aforementioned texts—and not through letters addressed to the… Ecumenical Patriarchate and to all Orthodox Christians. This Synod should be canonically convened by Your Eminence, and not by the… “Bishop of Oinoe,” as you strangely write in your Letter of Confession.

With profoundest respect,

The least among hierarchs,
† Cyprian of Oropos and Phyle

Copies to:
All the hierarchs of our Holy Synod

(To be continued.)