"The Calendar Reform was not Effected by a Decision an Ecumenical Council"

In Commemoration of Saint Chrysostomos, Former Metropolitan of Florina

 

 

(The following article was published 90 years ago in the newspaper Η Εθνική, June 11, 1936.)

 

Before proceeding to indicate the canonical and valid solution to the calendar question, we deem it absolutely necessary to state beforehand that the unilateral alteration of the calendar by the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Autocephalous Church of Greece lacks not only pan-Orthodox ecclesiastical authority, because it was not effected by a decision of an Ecumenical Council, but also the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and of the Church of Greece themselves, for the reasons which we shall immediately set forth.

This innovation does not possess the authority of the Ecumenical Throne, because it was not effected by all the Hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate assembled in Synod and pronouncing judgment in the Holy Spirit, but by the twelve-member Synod, which exists only for the conduct of current administrative affairs and has no competence whatsoever to alter an institution established by the Seven Ecumenical Councils and ratified by the age-old practice of the Church.

Likewise, this innovation also lacks the authority of the Autocephalous Church of Greece, because, apart from the fact that at the historic Session of the Hierarchy on December 27, 1923, the hierarchs Germanos of Demetrias, Antonios of Patras, Gregorios of Chalkis, and Agathangelos of Thera voted against the relevant decision, the majority of the Hierarchy did indeed authorize His Beatitude [Archbishop Chrysostomos Papadopoulos] to proceed with the implementation of the new calendar, but on the condition that all the Orthodox Churches should agree, and necessarily the Ecumenical Patriarchate, both because of its primatial authority and because the dioceses of the New Lands of Greece were dependent upon it.

But His Beatitude, although challenged by the Metropolitan of Demetrias, concealed from the Synod the negative replies of the other Orthodox Churches, and especially that of the ever-memorable Patriarch Photios of Alexandria, who, on both dogmatic and canonical grounds, characterized the innovation as something to be rejected and cast aside. And he did this deliberately, in order to obtain by deception the assent of the majority of the Hierarchy, which, had it known beforehand of the negative response of the other Orthodox Churches, and especially of the three Eastern Patriarchates, would under no circumstances have authorized His Beatitude to implement the new calendar solely on the basis of the assent of the Ecumenical Patriarchate—an assent which was itself incomplete and invalid, since it was not the expression of the entire Hierarchy of the Throne.

I deemed it absolutely necessary to set forth these points first, on the one hand in order to free the hierarchs who courageously repudiated this anti-Orthodox innovation of His Beatitude from the charge of rebellion against the Mother Church, and on the other hand to dispel from the outset the Archbishop’s notion that the canonical standing of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and of the Church of Greece would be impaired by restoring the traditional and Orthodox festal calendar to force.

The Rights of the Patriarchate

The Ecumenical Patriarchate derives its prestige and its primatial position in the spiritual sphere from the divine and sacred Canons and from the venerable ecclesiastical traditions; consequently, its prestige and authority are impaired only when it departs from the Seven Ecumenical Councils and from the decisions of Pan-Orthodox Synods (1583, 1587, and 1593), and not when it returns to the framework of Orthodox institutions and traditions, as in the present case.

Having dispelled this erroneous notion of His Beatitude, we now proceed to indicate the course which we ought to follow, so that Church and State may arrive at the desired solution of this anti-Orthodox question, which has opened a deep rift in the Orthodox conscience and the national consciousness of the Greeks.

A) By means of a legislative decree, the personal liberty guaranteed to them by the Greek Constitution should be restored to clergy of every rank who have been unjustly and unlawfully condemned to exile and confinement.

B) A Great Synod [as opposed to the Standing Holy Synod. – Blog Admin.] should be convened in order to restore them to their proper ecclesiastical ranks, from which they were uncanonically deposed, since they had committed no personal moral offense, nor had they erred in matters of faith, but had held firmly to the ecclesiastical traditions and to the divine and sacred Canons.

C) The Synod of the entire Hierarchy should be convened, which, taking into consideration the uncanonical regulation of the ecclesiastical calendar and the disastrous consequences which it has had from both the ecclesiastical and national standpoint, should reconsider its relevant decision, bringing it into canonical order and adapting it to the sacred Canons and the venerable ecclesiastical traditions.

D) In the event that it persists in its previous decision, a Pan-Orthodox Synod should be convened, which would invest that decision with the requisite pan-Orthodox sanction, so that disagreements and divisions may thereby disappear from within the fold of Orthodoxy, and all Orthodox Christians may celebrate their feasts and perform their religious services and rites simultaneously and uniformly, to the glory of Christ.

E) Until such time as the Pan-Orthodox Synod pronounces upon this question, clergy of every rank and the laity should be left free to follow whichever calendar they consider, in conscience, to be correct and canonical.

And this is because a person’s religious conscience does not admit of coercion and pressure, which produce martyrs and apologists, but rather of enlightenment and instruction, which foster religious concord and ecclesiastical discipline.

If the Church and the State follow this course, we hope that we shall arrive at the pacification of the Church and the union of all Christians under one and the same ecclesiastical authority. Otherwise, the Schism which this accursed innovation has created within the bosom of the Church will be perpetuated, and we shall be unable to avert either the ecclesiastical or the national dangers which this division over the festal calendar among the Churches and Orthodox Christians will entail in the future.

Unity

Let us not deceive ourselves: the unity of the Orthodox conscience plays an important role in the national ideal, which for centuries has been inseparably bound up with Orthodoxy. If our national consciousness was preserved amid national upheavals and the sufferings of dreadful bondage, and remained afloat like a wineskin upon a storm-tossed national sea, this is due to the power and cohesion which Orthodoxy exercised throughout the centuries upon the Greek soul, constituting the soul and breath of Hellenic-Christian civilization. From this, as from a Trojan Horse, sprang forth the great Greek Byzantine Empire and modern free Greece, having broken the bonds of centuries-long Turkish bondage.

For this reason, both the Church of Greece and the Greek State have great and solemn obligations toward Orthodoxy: the latter, because to Orthodoxy it owes the national uprising and regeneration; and the former, because to Orthodoxy it owes the historical grandeur and ecclesiastical prestige which the Eastern Church has exercised, and continues to exercise, upon the pan-Christian consciousness of the civilized world.

But apart from these considerations of history and gratitude, there are even today compelling reasons, both ecclesiastical and national, which oblige the Church and State of Greece not to depart in the least from the ecclesiastical traditions and from Orthodoxy.

Let them not lull themselves into complacency because of the silence which, for reasons of political expediency, is presently maintained by the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, both of the same nation and of other nations, which steadfastly adhere to the old Orthodox calendar. The time will come, however—and it is not far off—when, once the reasons of political expediency and the abnormal political circumstances have been removed, these Churches will seek to regulate validly and canonically this grave division in the celebration of the Christian feasts by convening an Ecumenical Council.

And what then will the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Autocephalous Church of Greece do, when they are called to account for having arbitrarily moved the age-old boundaries which our Fathers established, and for having set aside certain divine and sacred Canons of Ecumenical and Local Councils (Canons 52 and 56 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council; 19 and 20 of the Council of Gangra; 37 and 51 of the Council of Laodicea), which subject to anathema anyone who separates himself from the Orthodox in the celebration of the feasts and celebrates them together with those of false belief and with heretics?

Certainly, one of two things will happen: either the innovating Churches will repudiate their calendrical error, or they will be declared schismatic. Behold, then, the dilemma from which we propose to deliver the Autocephalous Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, this supreme seat and bulwark of all Orthodoxy.

But national considerations of no less importance also demand our return to the course marked out by the ecclesiastical traditions and Orthodox institutions; for, apart from the national harm which Old Greece will suffer from the religious animosities that have taken root among its inhabitants because of this calendrical innovation, Northern Greece—and especially Western Macedonia—is also in danger of becoming a theater of civil strife and a prey to foreign propaganda, which uses the Gregorian calendar as its principal weapon for leading astray the villagers of Macedonia, who cannot conceive of Hellenism apart from Orthodoxy.

Against these ecclesiastical and national harms, what benefit can this accursed ecclesiastical innovation point to as a counterbalance, apart from the personal ambition of His Beatitude, the inspirer and chief architect of this evil?

† Chrysostomos of Florina

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2026/09/blog-post_20.html