Analysis of the 1938 Compromise Proposal of Metropolitans Germanos of Demetrias and Chrysostomos of Florina

Outline, summary, and historical–ecclesiological analysis of the Greek memorandum transmitted to the Holy Synod of the official Church of Greece on January 15, 1938.

 

 

I. General summary

The memorandum is an exceptionally important document for understanding the original ecclesiology and objectives of the Greek Old Calendarist movement, particularly after its internal division in 1937.

Metropolitans Germanos of Demetrias, President of the Old Calendarist Synod, and Chrysostomos of Florina propose a negotiated settlement with the official Church of Greece that would restore the traditional calendar, recognize the Old Calendarist clergy, end persecution, and reintegrate the divided faithful into a unified ecclesiastical administration.

Their proposal was not an unconditional submission to the official hierarchy. It demanded substantial concessions from the State Church, especially concerning the traditional calendar and the canonical standing of the Old Calendarist clergy.

Nevertheless, the document reveals that both hierarchs continued to recognize the possibility of legitimate ecclesiastical authority within the official Church of Greece. They were prepared to cooperate with its Holy Synod, accept its participation in the adjudication of the calendar controversy, and eventually resolve the division through a common ecclesiastical structure.

Most significantly, they proposed that Bishops Matthew of Bresthena and Germanos of the Cyclades—the leaders of the 1937 separation—be brought before the official Holy Synod for disciplinary proceedings.

This last provision illustrates how severely the internal Old Calendarist division had affected the outlook of the two senior hierarchs.

The proposal demonstrates that, even after the 1935 declaration concerning the gracelessness of the New Calendarists, Germanos and Chrysostomos did not consider the ecclesiastical separation irreversible or necessarily dependent upon the creation of a permanently independent Old Calendarist Church.

The memorandum was ultimately rejected, and the anticipated reconciliation never occurred.

II. Historical background

The document was forwarded by Constantine Georgakopoulos, Minister of Religious Affairs and National Education, under Protocol No. 1615, dated January 15, 1938.

The memorandum itself had apparently been submitted during December 1937, when efforts were underway to resolve the calendar controversy through negotiations involving the government and representatives of both ecclesiastical parties.

The introductory proposal envisaged a mixed committee comprising two bishops appointed by the official Holy Synod, Germanos and Chrysostomos, and two government representatives.

This is significant: the Old Calendarist bishops were proposing a negotiated settlement within the broader framework of the Church of Greece, with the government acting as a facilitator.

The proposed conditions follow.

III. Outline of the ten proposed conditions

 

No.	Proposal	Principal significance
1	Annul every deposition imposed because of the calendar controversy, restore clergy to their ranks immediately, and eventually restore their ecclesiastical positions	Complete canonical rehabilitation of the Old Calendarist clergy
2	Recognize the episcopal consecrations and certain priestly ordinations performed by the Old Calendarist bishops; submit Matthew and Germanos of the Cyclades to the official Synod for disciplinary examination	Recognition of Old Calendarist Holy Orders, combined with action against the separatist bishops
3	Recognize that the adoption of the new calendar was provisional rather than final, pending Pan-Orthodox consideration	The reform remained open to ecclesiastical review
4	Guarantee freedom from persecution for clergy and faithful following the traditional calendar	Protection of Old Calendarist worship during negotiations
5	Convene a Pre-Synodal Conference during Great Lent 1938, preferably by the Sunday of Orthodoxy, with the aim of unity by Pascha	Establishment of an urgent timetable for reconciliation
6	Include one of the two Old Calendarist metropolitan bishops in the Church's delegation to the Conference	Recognition of their right to participate in resolving the controversy
7	Make a unanimous decision of the Pre-Synodal Conference binding upon both parties	Acceptance of a common, authoritative ecclesiastical judgment
8	Dissolve the independent Greek Religious Community of Genuine Orthodox Christians and place its churches under Germanos and Chrysostomos	Removal of a rival institutional structure associated with the internal division
9	Take appropriate ecclesiastical measures against clergy and laity exploiting the calendar struggle and perpetuating division	Suppression of factionalism and alleged abuses
10	If the Conference did not meet by Pascha, require the official Holy Synod to restore the traditional calendar for all feasts	A concrete fallback mechanism favoring restoration of the Julian calendar

 

Two features deserve particular attention.

First, the proposal expressly states that a Pre-Synodal Conference could issue immediately binding decisions only through unanimous agreement among its representatives.

Second, in the final paragraph, Germanos and Chrysostomos promise that, once the official Synod accepts the conditions, they will maintain the existing ecclesiastical arrangement until Pascha and refrain from further episcopal or priestly ordinations and other actions that might prejudice the negotiations.

This is a substantial concession in ecclesiastical administration.

IV. Analysis of the most important provisions

1. The bishops recognized a continuing ecclesiastical reality within the official Church

This is perhaps the most important ecclesiological implication of the document.

Germanos and Chrysostomos did not approach the State Church as an entirely graceless and ecclesiastically nonexistent institution.

They asked its Synod to rescind depositions, recognize ordinations, appoint a representative to the Pan-Orthodox gathering, and eventually restore the traditional calendar.

They were even willing to accept its disciplinary authority over members of the Old Calendarist hierarchy.

These actions presuppose that the official Synod retained a recognizable institutional and canonical capacity to act.

This does not necessarily mean that Germanos and Chrysostomos regarded all its actions as legitimate. They clearly repudiated the calendar innovation and the penalties imposed upon the Old Calendarists.

However, they did not treat the State Church as incapable of participating in a valid ecclesiastical reconciliation.

That is extremely difficult to harmonize with an uncompromising interpretation of the June 1935 Encyclical according to which the entire New Calendarist hierarchy had definitively ceased to possess ecclesiastical authority and sacramental grace in 1924.

The memorandum is therefore strong evidence of the distinction between their earlier polemical declarations and their operative ecclesiology.

2. The restoration of the traditional calendar remained their principal objective

The proposed agreement did not require the Old Calendarists to accept the new calendar.

On the contrary, its provisions were carefully designed to secure the eventual restoration of the Julian calendar throughout the Church of Greece.

The bishops proposed a two-stage process.

First, the disputed reform would be submitted to a Pan-Orthodox Pre-Synodal Conference, with both sides bound by a unanimous decision.

Second, if the Conference failed to convene before Pascha, the official Holy Synod would be required to restore the traditional calendar.

This demonstrates that Germanos and Chrysostomos still regarded the original objective of the struggle as attainable through the existing ecclesiastical institutions.

Nevertheless, Condition 7 is particularly revealing. It provides for acceptance of the Pre-Synodal Conference's decision concerning the calendar, whatever that decision might be.

That language strongly suggests that the bishops did not consider the precise juridical consequences of the 1924 reform to have been definitively settled.

They maintained that the reform was unlawful, but they were prepared to accept an authoritative Pan-Orthodox adjudication.

This is much closer to Chrysostomos's understanding of potential schism than to the Matthewite theory of an already completed and irreversible ecclesiastical separation.

3. Condition 2 reveals the profound hostility produced by the Matthewite division

Condition 2 contains one of the most striking provisions.

The two senior bishops proposed that Germanos Varykopoulos of the Cyclades and Matthew the Athonite be brought before the official Holy Synod for their allegedly uncanonical and unlawful actions and publications.

They also sought recognition of the episcopal consecrations performed in 1935 and of priestly ordinations undertaken for the pastoral needs of the Old Calendarists.

The significance is twofold.

First, Germanos and Chrysostomos evidently did not accept that the two separatist bishops had legitimately displaced them as representatives of the Orthodox Old Calendarist movement.

Second, they were prepared to involve the official hierarchy in resolving what had become an internal Old Calendarist conflict.

This is both historically revealing and canonically troubling.

If the official hierarchy had persecuted and unjustly deposed the Old Calendarist bishops in 1935, inviting that same hierarchy to judge their former colleagues could expose those colleagues to further disciplinary abuse.

Their anger and frustration may explain this provision, but they do not necessarily justify it.

Indeed, this is the strongest element of the memorandum for a critic wishing to argue that Germanos and Chrysostomos had allowed their conflict with Matthew to influence their ecclesiastical judgment.

The document does not merely propose reconciliation with the official Church. It also seeks to eliminate the competing institutional authority of the Matthewite faction.

That introduces an undeniable jurisdictional and disciplinary dimension into what is presented as a settlement of the calendar controversy.

4. The proposed dissolution of the independent religious community is especially important

Condition 8 demands the abolition of the independent Religious Community of Genuine Orthodox Christians and the transfer of certain churches, including St. Marina of Piraeus, into the jurisdiction of Germanos and Chrysostomos.

This is not simply a technical proposal concerning church property.

It implies that the two hierarchs considered the independent administrative organization of the Old Calendarist movement unnecessary if a satisfactory ecclesiastical settlement could be reached.

Their preferred arrangement would preserve the traditional calendar within a restored ecclesiastical unity.

This directly contradicts the later assumption that the Old Calendarist movement was necessarily intended to establish and perpetuate an autonomous ecclesiastical body separate from the Church of Greece.

It also illustrates how the 1937 division had altered the immediate priorities of the leadership.

The struggle was no longer directed exclusively against the calendar innovation. It had also become a contest concerning who legitimately represented the Old Calendarist faithful.

5. Condition 9 exposes the internal divisions within the movement

The bishops propose disciplinary measures against individuals who had transformed the struggle for the traditional calendar into a means of exploitation and who had undertaken actions perpetuating ecclesiastical division.

The wording is severe.

Although it does not name Matthew and his supporters in this particular condition, its placement immediately after the proposal to abolish the independent religious community strongly suggests that the bishops had the separatist faction principally in mind.

The memorandum therefore provides evidence that the schism was understood by Germanos and Chrysostomos as involving not merely theological disagreement, but also personal ambition, institutional rivalry, and the exploitation of religious loyalties.

This is consistent with Chrysostomos's correspondence of 1937, in which he expressed deep concern that radical ecclesiological claims and factional conduct were compromising the entire Old Calendarist cause.

However, the memorandum alone does not establish that all the individuals criticized were actually motivated by personal gain. It establishes what the two metropolitan bishops alleged and sought to remedy.

V. The proposal in relation to the ecclesiology of 1935 and 1937

The document creates a significant interpretive difficulty for those who insist that the June 1935 declaration expressed the definitive and unchanging ecclesiology of the three hierarchs.

Consider the historical sequence.

Date	Position or action
May 1935	The innovating hierarchy is described as potentially schismatic in relation to the wider Orthodox Church
June 1935	Following their condemnation and deposition, the bishops issue a declaration concerning the absence of grace among the New Calendarists
1937	Germanos and Chrysostomos explicitly reject automatic deprivation of sacramental grace before competent conciliar judgment
January 1938	They propose recognition, reconciliation, joint ecclesiastical adjudication, and possible restoration of unity with the official Church

This chronology suggests a substantial continuity between the initial May 1935 position, the clarification of 1937, and the practical proposals of January 1938.

The June 1935 statement, although unquestionably part of the historical record, appears less representative of their sustained ecclesiastical practice.

The 1938 memorandum is particularly valuable because it is not a theoretical theological treatise.

It is a practical proposal describing the arrangement under which the bishops believed legitimate ecclesiastical unity could actually be restored.

Their actions and intended arrangements therefore illuminate the ecclesiological assumptions underlying their conduct.

VI. The proposal's weaknesses and contradictions

Despite its considerable historical significance, the memorandum is not without difficulties.

A. It risks relying upon the very hierarchy whose canonical actions it condemns

The proposal seeks rehabilitation from an ecclesiastical authority that had previously deposed the Old Calendarist bishops.

There is no necessary contradiction in seeking the reversal of an unjust decision by the authority responsible for issuing it.

But the request for disciplinary proceedings against Matthew and Germanos introduces a more serious problem.

The two metropolitan bishops were prepared to recognize a degree of judicial competence in a hierarchy whose previous judgment against them they regarded as invalid.

This required careful canonical justification, which the memorandum does not provide.

B. It allows considerable governmental participation

The proposed mixed commission would include two representatives of the Greek government.

Governmental mediation might have helped resolve a dispute intertwined with Greek ecclesiastical law and public administration.

Nevertheless, reliance upon state authority carries obvious risks, particularly given the persecution that Old Calendarist clergy had already experienced.

The proposal reflects the Greek Church's historical entanglement with the State and the bishops' expectation that governmental intervention could facilitate ecclesiastical reconciliation.

It also demonstrates that their preferred solution was not a purely internal arrangement between two independent ecclesiastical bodies.

C. The terms combine genuine reconciliation with factional suppression

The bishops seek peace, rehabilitation, recognition, and reunion.

Yet they simultaneously demand the abolition of a competing religious association and disciplinary proceedings against opponents.

These objectives are not necessarily incompatible, but their combination is revealing.

It suggests that the bishops considered the removal of the Matthewite opposition an important condition for the restoration of unity.

The proposal therefore cannot be interpreted simply as a disinterested expression of ecclesiastical reconciliation.

It was also an attempt to restore the authority of the senior Old Calendarist leadership after the division of 1937.

D. The proposed timetable was extraordinarily ambitious

The memorandum envisaged a Pan-Orthodox gathering during Great Lent 1938 and the possibility of achieving unity by Pascha.

Given the disputes among the Local Orthodox Churches and the unresolved divisions within the Old Calendarist movement itself, this was highly ambitious.

The fallback provision requiring the official Synod to restore the old calendar if the Conference failed to meet also imposed a significant obligation upon the State Church.

Consequently, the compromise may have been considerably less attractive to the official hierarchy than its conciliatory language initially suggested.

VII. What the memorandum establishes—and what it does not

It provides strong evidence for three conclusions.

First, Germanos and Chrysostomos did not regard permanent institutional separation as the necessary or desirable culmination of the Old Calendarist struggle. Their objective remained the restoration of the traditional calendar and ecclesiastical unity.

Second, they recognized a continuing capacity for legitimate ecclesiastical action within the official Church of Greece. Their willingness to submit the controversy to the official Synod and a future Pan-Orthodox gathering is difficult to reconcile with the assertion that the State Church had entirely ceased to exist ecclesiastically.

Third, the 1937 division had profoundly affected their practical priorities. They were willing to pursue reconciliation with the State Church while simultaneously seeking disciplinary action against the bishops who had separated from them.

The document does not, however, prove that Germanos and Chrysostomos were prepared to restore communion unconditionally, that they accepted the calendar innovation as legitimate, or that all their actions were canonically beyond criticism.

Nor does it prove that the official Church rejected the proposal specifically because it expected the Old Calendarist movement to collapse. That explanation is plausible but would require evidence from the official Synod's deliberations.

VIII. Overall assessment

I consider the 1938 memorandum one of the more revealing primary documents concerning the original ecclesiology of the Greek Old Calendarist movement.

It demonstrates that the two senior hierarchs understood their separation from the official Church as a corrective and potentially temporary ecclesiastical action, not necessarily as the establishment of an exclusively authentic Church replacing the existing Autocephalous Church of Greece.

Their ultimate objective remained the restoration of the traditional calendar, the recognition of their clergy, and the reunification of the divided faithful.

The memorandum consequently reinforces the argument that Chrysostomos's potential–actual distinction was not merely a convenient theoretical device. It had concrete implications for his understanding of ecclesiastical authority, sacramental recognition, and the possibility of reconciliation.

At the same time, its proposed treatment of Matthew and Germanos of the Cyclades reveals how factional bitterness could compromise the canonical restraint the two senior hierarchs otherwise defended.

In that respect, the document is not an uncomplicated vindication of Germanos and Chrysostomos. It simultaneously illuminates their ecclesiological moderation and their willingness to employ the official ecclesiastical machinery against their internal opponents.

My principal conclusion is that the memorandum provides powerful evidence against the retrospective portrayal of Chrysostomos of Florina as an unwavering advocate of the automatic extinction of sacramental grace in 1924. His practical ecclesiastical policy in January 1938 is much more intelligible within his understanding of the potential–actual distinction and his conviction that the calendar dispute required an authoritative, conciliar resolution.

One further observation is particularly important: the bishops' proposal did not fail because they were unwilling to contemplate reconciliation. They were demonstrably prepared to negotiate an extensive settlement, including their own future ecclesiastical status.

The failure of that settlement helped leave the Old Calendarist movement in the condition of prolonged separation that Chrysostomos had originally hoped to prevent.

This also supplies an important historical context for understanding his subsequent statements in 1948 and 1950. By then, the prospects for a comprehensive settlement had deteriorated considerably, and the movement had become deeply fragmented by competing ecclesiologies and jurisdictions.

Thus, when evaluating the successive declarations of 1935, 1950, and 1974, the operative ecclesiology revealed in the 1938 memorandum deserves at least as much attention as their more severe theological formulations.

Original Greek proposal: 

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