By Bishop Klemes of
Gardikion
Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece
~ Introductory Note ~
Recently, certain New Calendarists posted material which is aimed directly against the Old Calendar Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece on the website of a well-known ecclesiastical news agency. Since the innovating ecumenists are currently occupied with the problems in Ukraine, it seems likely that there is an ulterior motive to this attack: namely, to discredit our Church in order to avoid any sympathy toward us on the part of those who understand the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s actions in Ukraine to be uncanonical.[1] We do not detect any love or concern in our critics, who in their ignorance, delusion, or effrontery deal with us either disdainfully, to the point of insulting us, or at any rate with prejudice, one-sidedness, and willful confusion.
In one of these postings, a recorded homily by the New Calendarist Metropolitan of a border city, among other inaccuracies and errors in relation to the calendar issue and the Genuine Orthodox, reference is made to assertions, taken out of context, contained in a letter of Elder Joseph the Hesychast (1898—1959) [2] found in a recent publication by a well-known Athonite monastery. Realizing that its meaning has been distorted, we felt it would be a good opportunity to set matters straight by publishing a special article which we had composed a while back. In the letter of Elder Joseph to which our accuser refers, no mention is made of any Divine exhortation to transfer his allegiance from the “Old Calendarists” to the Church of Constantinople, as the speaker erroneously asserts. The Elder was exhorted, rather, to move from the extremist Zealot faction of the so-called Matthewites to the moderate Zealots [3] sympathetic to Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina (1870-1955). [4]
Here is our article.
+++
Some years ago, several
books were published by certain Athonite monasteries, as well as by a monastery
in the United States of America, that touch on the issue of the relationship
primarily of the highly-reputed and well-known Elder Joseph the Cave-Dweller,
but also of Elder Ephraim of Katounakia (1912—1998) [5] and other Zealot
Fathers of the Holy Mountain, to the Old Calendarists, to the end of
establishing these monasteries’ overall position vis-a-vis the calendar issue. However, the manner in which this is
done is in many ways confusing and deceptive, with the result that one draws
the mistaken conclusion that the True Church of Christ is represented today by
the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the ringleader in the heresy of ecumenism,
and that those who follow the Old Calendar constitute a deviation!
This conclusion appears
especially reassuring for that majority of Orthodox who have no desire to enter
into a struggle for the Faith, even though the True Faith is what is in
jeopardy. They prefer to acquiesce in error, with the excuse that since Elders
of such eminence ended up in communion with the Patriarchate, all is well and
we can happily relax, while rebuking all who struggle for the sacredness and
holiness of the Faith, which is so openly and shamelessly being betrayed.
Contemporary Athonite “Neo-Hesychasts” [6] are complicit in this most
deplorable collusion.
Now, how do matters
stand?
+++
Elder Joseph the
Hesychast (né Frangiskos Kotes), who
was from Levkes on the island of Paros, lived the monastic life, as is well
known, from an early age in the desert of the Holy Mountain at the beginning of
the third decade of the twentieth century and dedicated himself with great
yearning to seeking the Divine mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ by way of ascetic
labors, constant effort, vigilance, and noetic prayer. He was soon blessed by
our Lord and the Panagia and received
Divine gifts in the inexorable struggle for the purification and illumination
of his heart. With regard to the Faith, he was very strict, as he was,
moreover, in all aspects of his life. He chose the path of the Zealots as
against the innovators and modernists in the Church and vehemently opposed the
calendar reform based on the New Calendar of the Roman Catholics, which was
illicitly, arbitrarily, and uncanonically adopted in 1924 by the Church of
Greece and the Patriarchate of Constantinople. [7] The young ascetic was an
implacable adversary of this innovation, for which he could find no
justification and which he condemned unreservedly. Indeed, he adopted the
strict Zealot view regarding all those who had accepted it. In a letter dated
February 1, 1929, addressed to his relatives according to the flesh, he urges them
to eschew all ecclesiastical communion with the New Calendarists, since “they
no longer possess any Grace.” He appears to have maintained this view in the
ensuing years, although he gradually began to moderate it.
In 1936, Father Ephraim
of Katounakia was ordained a Hieromonk by the Old Calendarist Bishop Germanos
of the Cyclades (1864-1951), who had allegedly been deposed the previous year
by the innovationist New Calendar Church of Greece for “Old Calendarism.” However,
Father Ephraim was the serving Priest of the Kalyve of Elder Joseph, who was, as is well known, his spiritual
guide and counselor, initially at the Skete of Saint Basil and, after 1938, in
the caves of the Small Skete of Saint Anna. At the Divine Liturgies that he
celebrated, as those dwelling in these sketes affirm, there was a manifest
presence of Grace, succor, and consolation. Therefore, Father Ephraim Elder
Ephraim of was a canonical Priest of God, in spite of the “penalties” imposed
by those in the New Calendar Church who were responsible for the schism and
were themselves liable to canonical penalties.
After Bishop Matthaios
of Bresthena (1861-1950) and Bishop Germanos of the Cyclades seceded from the
Confessor-Hierarchs Bishop Germanos of Demetrias (1872-1944) and Metropolitan
Chrysostomos of Phlorina in 1937, Elders Joseph and Ephraim initially followed
the extremist Zealots, participating in their written denunciation of the
Confessor-Hierarchs.
When certain good Zealot
Fathers of a moderate outlook attempted to convince Elder Joseph of their
standpoint, he chased them away with some commotion. However, that night,
during his customary vigil of prayer, he was unable to pray with purity. When
sleep overtook him, he saw that he was on a small rock in the raging sea, and
the shore, a large hill, appeared to be at a distance. He was then overcome
with great anguish and endeavored to find a way to approach the shore and jump
onto it in order to escape from manifest peril. He was eventually able to reach
the shore, to his great relief. But he regarded this dream as a “sign” that he
was not walking on the right path. While praying about the same subject, Elder
Ephraim—as he himself affirms—heard a voice which said to him, “In the person
of the Metropolitan of Phlorina you have denounced the entire Church.” They
concluded that they were following an erroneous course and that the
confessional stand and viewpoint of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina was
ecclesiastical and God-pleasing, and certainly not schismatic or outside the
Church.
For this reason, in a
subsequent letter dated August 29, 1945, Elder Joseph writes that he was
concerned about a large Old Calendarist convent in Attica, because
… they have seceded from
the Bishop [sc., Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina], whereas I am sure that they
are all in delusion, as the Lord revealed to me. Aside from this, they are
creating a schism to their own detriment, and for this reason I repented,
having been led astray out of ignorance by the spiritual Fathers there, and yet
sweet Jesus did not abandon me. Matthaios and co., [Germanos] Barykopoulos,
unfortunately, and all of them have fallen away, but may the Lord help them....
Therefore, albeit after
the passage of several years (at least eight), Elder Joseph distanced himself
from the extremist Zealots of the Matthewite stripe and followed, not the
Commemorators, [8] but the moderate Zealots under Metropolitan Chrysostomos of
Phlorina Emeritus.
He confirms this a
little earlier in a letter dated July 2, 1945, that is, that he “returned” to
“our blessed Hierarch,” Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina, after having
previously believed, “out of ignorance” and under the influence of other
Fathers, that the Confessor-Hierarch had supposedly betrayed the struggle for
the Old Calendar. He says, however, that God indicated to him that he had made
a mistake and that the secessionists under Bishop Matthaios were in error and
had created “a senseless schism to the detriment of their arrogant souls, since
there is no other cause than their egotism. ...” He accepts, indeed, that it is
possible for a man to fall into delusion out of ignorance about some subject.
The statements in this
context, therefore—we emphasize once more—pertain to the Elder’s shift from an
extremist form of zealotry to the God-pleasing form thereof, but in no way to a
shift from one extreme to another, that is, to reprehensible communion with the
ecumenist Patriarchate of Constantinople.
+++
In several letters of
his from the years 1948, 1949, and 1950, Elder Joseph touches, albeit
occasionally and parenthetically, on the subject of the deviations of the
Zealot Fathers, without making clear to whom he is referring, and at times,
indeed, in a very vivid manner. With few exceptions, the majority of the
Zealots were distinguished by fanaticism and by a lack of love and a want of
fundamental concern for spiritual things. They made a dogma out of the thirteen
days entailed by the calendar change and lost sight of the goal of genuine
monastic life, namely, the struggle for purification and enlightenment through
the virtues, obedience, humility, prayer, and also the Holy Mysteries.
For example, in a letter
dated May 16, 1949, to a person of his acquaintance he writes:
I will send you the
items [sc., some goods] by mail. I am not sending them to you by
hand, because I have obligations and I don’t want them to stop by and impede my
stillness, for the monks of today do not have a refined spirit or noetic labor.
They merely go through the motions. For this reason, they do not know what the
soul is or how it ought to be purified and illumined and reach a more perfect
state. They have learned a calendar and think that all of religion amounts just
to this, while inside them the passions are seething: egotism, pride,
self-satisfaction, vainglory, anger, condemnation, envy, backbiting, hatred,
gluttony, greed, needling, carnal passions, and other things that I don’t need
to enumerate. About all of these matters they have nothing to say and no
concern—all they care about are the thirteen days of the calendar. That is why
the Lord came down to us! Blindness and palpable darkness!... And so I have
shut myself in and don’t wish to see or speak to anyone, but just weep over my
sins....
It is clear that even a
serious issue of Tradition or the Faith, if isolated and absolutized, cut off
from the natural context of its function within the experience of a living
faith in Christ, becomes a snare which leads to a variety of deviations. It is
this that the Elder is criticizing as a most glaring deviation on the part of
spiritually immature Fathers, and certainly not the calendar issue in and of
itself.
For this reason, Elder
Joseph and his Synodeia remained a
most “cloistered,” in order to maintain their hesychastic program, insofar as
they were not of the same spirit as many of the Zealot Fathers, and that is why
they endured misery and harassment from them: they reproached the Elder as one
deluded, slandered him, opened the letters that he sent and received(!), inter alia, spied on him, and policed
him oppressively.
The Elder writes in
another letter, dated April 17, 1951:
Because I do not receive
anyone, with no exceptions, and do not even want to hear how people or the
monks here are living or what they are up to, I am the target of gossip and
condemnation, and I do not cease day and night blessing the Fathers and saying
that they are entirely in the right, that I alone am in the wrong whenever I
scandalize them, for they see with the eyes that God gave them.
In another letter,
undated (probably from 1949), he lists roughly ten problematic views of many
Zealots, which constantly divided them, and concludes:
They are all separated,
and they are all Zealots. Therefore, if we wish to lament them, we will need
tears from the River Jordan. But I do not despair of anyone. The Lord will have
mercy on them all, for such are our times, such is our era. Let us all be
fools! Let Christ find the best of them. They all beseech Christ, they all call
upon the Panagia. Their minds are suffering. So, to whatever degree, the Lord
will have mercy on them.
In spite of this
discerning and loving attitude of the Elder, it is clear that he suffered a
rupture in his relations with the majority of the other Zealots, something
which gave him no respite at all. This should be taken into serious
consideration if one is to understand what ensued. There already existed
spiritual dissension and a great gap in spiritual communication, consultation,
and cooperation, etc. Nevertheless,
the Elders still remained Zealots.
In a letter dated
February 2, 1951, to a person known to him, Elder Joseph writes that he had a
disciple ready for Ordination whom he wanted to send to Athens. However, he
refrained from making a decision on the matter as long as the terrible
persecution of the Old Calendarists by the New Calendarists under Archbishop
Spyridon of Athens (1873-1956) [9] continued and as long as Metropolitan
Chrysostomos of Phlorina remained in exile and the other Hierarchs of the Old
Calendar Church remained in isolation. It is, of course, well known that the
Old Calendarist Hierarchs were free to be together in the offices of the Holy
Synod in Athens only in the summer of the following year, 1952!
In another letter, dated
April 9, 1951, to the Sisterhood of an Old Calendarist convent, he delves very
skillfully into the spiritual meaning of the persecution and into his recourse
to prayer for consolation and assurance. He offers the following noteworthy
admissions:
I was overcome by severe
pain, pain and distress of soul above all for you, because I grieve for you,
but we have all taken refuge in the consolation of prayer and found relief, and
I am at peace. I saw that the Lord wills to save us through afflictions and
torments. It is something hidden and unknown to us, but it is the Lord’s will.
That we don’t like it is neither here nor there. Through warfare comes peace;
through a storm comes tranquility. Without tribulation pure souls are not
recognized, virtue does not become manifest, and patience is not discerned.
Perhaps our own people [sc., the Old Calendarists] have faults, and through
tribulation they are forgiven. In the end, without temptations it is impossible
for health of soul to become evident. This is the purifying fire that renders
the soul pure and bright. Therefore, we need patience, and then the radiant sun
will appear once more. Whoever wishes, let her pray earnestly, and she will
find much peace and will know that this is the will of the Lord. When and in
what way He will bring about the outcome is unclear. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps
after another conflict, perhaps earlier, perhaps later—in any case, we need
patience. I have ceased to feel distress. I am praying and awaiting the
outcome. So, have patience.
In the end, however,
Elder Joseph and his Synodeia
returned to their monasteries and parted company with the Zealots in the autumn
of that year, 1951, since in October the Elder’s disciple, Elder Charalambos
(1908-2001), who was from Drama and who had followed the Old Calendar from the
time he was a layman, received Ordination from Bishop Hierotheos of
Miletoupolis (1874-1956), who was sojourning on the Holy Mountain. Elder
Charalambos subsequently became Abbot of the Monastery of Dionysiou and reposed
in deep old age in 2001.
It is also written
concerning Elder Ephraim of Katounakia that he yet again heard a voice while at
prayer, telling him that he should go to the Patriarchate and not to the
Metropolitan Emeritus of Phlorina. For this reason, at the beginning of 1952,
Elder Ephraim began to follow the Commemorators, though on account of a
disagreement with his Elder, Elder Nikephoros, he openly followed the
Commemorators only after the latter’s repose in 1973. Precisely when he
received this “new assurance” is not clear. Perhaps it was during that period
(the end of 1951).
However, what is
perplexing is this: during an era of intense, unjust, anti-Christian, and, from
every perspective, unacceptable persecution against the Genuine Orthodox
adherents of the Old Calendar—when Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina was in
exile in the Monastery of Hypselou (Saint John the Theologian) on Lesbos; when
by means of miracles God was strengthening His heroic, persecuted faithful,
including true Holy Elders who followed the Old Calendar while living in the
world, including Elder Ieronymos of Aegina (1883—1966), [10] Elder John of
Amphiale (1899—1966), [11] Archimandrite Eugenios of Pirgeus (1875—1961), [12]
and others, to withstand the fearful obloquies against them; and when Elder
Joseph himself had received assurance in prayer a few months earlier, as we
have mentioned, concerning the spiritual meaning of that persecution—how was it
possible that certain ascetics and strugglers, who were so scrupulous in other
respects, should have forsaken the struggle to confess the Faith and gone over
to the side of the persecutors by commemorating them? How can this
contradiction be accepted as supposedly coming from God? Was the need to obtain
a Priest for the Synodeia of Elder
Joseph so serious a reason for such a move? Did the grievances and bitterness
arising from what was the largely and truly distressing attitude of many of the
Zealot Fathers against them lead them to an inexplicable and compromising
choice?
Moreover, there exists
testimony that when this turn to commemorating the Patriarch occurred, Elder
Ieronymos of Aegina and Eldress Eupraxia of Aegina (1890-1990), his
cell-attendant and the biological sister of Elder Arsenios the Cave-Dweller
(1886-1983), a disciple of Elder Joseph’s, sent them protests with critical
questions regarding this unacceptable action of theirs.
In some sources deriving
from close or distant disciples of Elder Joseph’s it is mentioned that the
change in the attitude of the Elders toward Metropolitan Chrysostomos of
Phlorina and the Old Calendar Church came about because in May 1950 he and the
other Hierarchs signed the notorious encyclical concerning the invalidity of
the Mysteries of the New Calendarists and their Chrismation in cases of
alignment with the Old Calendar Church. Yet this took place at least one and a
half years previously, and the reasons which impelled Metropolitan Chrysostomos
to take this action, following the repose of Bishop Matthaios of Bresthena and
in the context of his overall viewpoint and outlook, were in fact well known,
as was the fact that encyclicals of such a kind had repeatedly been published
by Bishop Matthaios in the then recent past (1937, 1945, 1946, and 1948). [13]
We reckon that this incoherent and self-serving logic does not constitute a
convincing explanation.
Whatever the truth might
be, the fact is that what to us is a reprehensible “turn,” if it had been a
matter of salvation, would have been the occasion for Elder Joseph the
Cave-Dweller to hasten to persuade those nearest and dearest to him in the
world to do the same, lest they “perish.” Such a thing, however, seems not to
have happened. Several beloved relatives of his reposed while remaining
followers of the Old Calendar, the most striking example being Eldress Bryaine
of Amygdaleza (1924—1998), the Abbess of the Holy Convent of the Panagia
Myrtidiotissa in Attica, whom he loved very dearly, whom we knew personally and
the beauty of whose soul we admired, as well as her God-pleasing adherence to
the Old Calendar.
It is important to
emphasize that Elder Joseph was in that period expecting a great woe, some
major war, which he assigned to the year 1953 (though, of course, no such thing
occurred), on account of the apostasy that he observed in the world and also in
the Church. In support of this opinion he invoked in general the “prophecies of
the Saints,” from which we can understand that he studied the well-known
“oracular” texts, which, under the names of Saints, circulated on the Holy
Mountain during that period and also subsequently and assuredly influenced the
minds of simple monks who were, nonetheless, virtuous in other respects. [14]
The Elder writes in a
letter dated April 17, 1951: “I am expecting a great evil. Only a war will
bring peace and make the wrath of God to cease. I am expecting it.” In another
letter, dated May 29, 1951, that is, about a year after his “return” to commemorating
the Patriarch, he writes the following, inter
alia, to one of his relatives:
Let D. exercise patience
for another year, so that we may see what emerges in our midst. I do not
believe that the Church will be corrected unless war breaks out and burns up
all of humanity. At any rate, it will erupt swiftly. [15]
The Elder, then, was
awaiting Divine intervention for the “correction of the Church.” The matter was
not closed but remained open in his mind. It required correction from God,
because men were unable to resolve it.
As for his concession to
the Commemorators, we can basically affirm that it was not definitive, was
influenced by various factors, and naturally is not an example for imitation in
terms of entering into or remaining in communion with the pro-heretical innovators
or with the heretical ecumenists of Constantinople or Greece.
+++
The Elder reposed, as is
well known, on the day of the Dormition of the Theotokos in 1959—according to
the Old Calendar, of course [16]—without ever learning anything about
ecumenism. He continued to remain a fervent supporter of the Old Calendar until
his repose, since even when he settled with his Synodeia in New Skete in 1953, according to the testimony of a
clergyman who was a disciple of his, he forbade Priests under obedience to him
to liturgize on Sundays if a New Calendarist clergyman were present. His
disciples, as we know, were among the Athonites who, after 1964, were opposed
to the now blatant ecumenist ventures of the Ecumenical Patriarchate under
Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople (1886-1972), which formed the basis
for their subsequent ecumenical policy and course.
We are also familiar
with what happened in the case of Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, according to the
following testimony:
Today, on Pentecost
1989... [Elder Ephraim of Katounakia] said that Elder Joseph had visited him in
his sleep. After they had warmly embraced, Elder Joseph told him very joyfully:
“I wish to entrust you with an ecclesiology.” It was years since I had seen him
so joyous. What is astounding about this event is that the Elder knew nothing
of the word “ecclesiology.”
On another occasion
Elder Ephraim sought Divine assurance concerning ecumenism (according to one
source, at the request of a certain Hierarch): “A stench with an acrid,
brackish, and bitter savor.... There! That was the result,” said the Elder with
abhorrence, regarding malodorous ecumenism! The question that arises is how he
and those with him remained in communion with this malodorous entity.
It is roughly during
that period that while in the United States of America, Hegumen Ephraim of
Philotheou (1927—2019), [17] in response to an exhortation from the Mother of
God, as he related, joined the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, from which we
Genuine Orthodox have Apostolic Succession and with which we were in communion.
Unfortunately, after a short time he returned to the New Calendarist
ecumenists, yielding to pressure from them regarding possible punishment and
abandonment by his spiritual children." [18]
Nevertheless, prior to
becoming Abbot of Philotheou in 1973, Elder Ephraim did not commemorate the
Patriarch. In fact, during the years he was going out into the world from the
Holy Mountain, he would commemorate at Divine Services the then First Hierarch
of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, Archbishop
Auxentios of Athens (1912-1994). According to one account, Father Ephraim even
received a laying-on of hands (cheirothesia)
from Archbishop Auxentios for this purpose. To be sure, he maintained a
moderate ecclesiological viewpoint and practice, but this did not prevent him
from belonging to the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece. What
happened then? Did he “depart from the Church” and betray the principles of his
Elder, as the “Neo-Athonites” would have it? Anything but that! It was at that
time that he returned to the original path from which he had previously fallen.
However, the influence of Elder Epiphanios of Athens (1930-1989) (the
theoretician of the hardline New Calendarists) by way of his disciple
Archimandrite Nikodemos, and subsequently the contribution of the governing
body of Philotheou under the new ecumenist Patriarch Demetrios I of
Constantinople (1914-1991), led him anew into an erroneous acceptance of communion
with the ecumenists and New Calendarists.
+++
In light of all this, we
think that the unbiased reader can draw his own conclusions. We emphasize that
the correct and God-pleasing path lies between the extremes: on the one hand,
of reprehensible and malodorous ecumenism (and communion therewith) and, on the
other hand, of extremist and indiscriminate zealotry.
The aforementioned
Elders evidently attempted to walk this path but ultimately fell into
unacceptable compromise. Their disciples have, unfortunately, changed for the
worse in this regard. What is more, they are in no way justified in continuing
their reprehensible course. They are still less justified in considering these
Elders to be an example to imitate or in turning against those who maintain
with consistency and at the cost of their own blood the truly Orthodox course,
which is one of witness and confession amid unprecedented apostasy.
Would that all who have
the ears of their souls open might hasten to make themselves genuinely Orthodox
before it is too late!
The historical material mentioned in the text
(citations from letters, news, and communications) are from the author’s
archives.
ENDNOTES
[1] An allusion to the
formal recognition by the Church of Greece of the Tome of Autocephaly granted
to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on
January 5, 2019 (New Style).—TRANS.
[2] The Patriarchate of
Constantinople glorified him as a Saint on March 9, 2020 (New Style), and
commemorates him on August 16 (New Style). For an account of his life, see Elder Joseph the Hesychast:
Struggles—Experiences—Teachings (1898-1959) (Mount Athos: The Great and
Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi, 1999).—TRANS.
[3] The Zealots of the
Holy Mountain are those monks, and specifically Hieromonks, who since 1924 have
refused to commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch liturgically. As is made clear
in this article, there is a spectrum of viewpoints among the Zealots, ranging
from moderate to extreme.—TRANS.
[4] The Church of the
Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece glorified him as a Saint on May 15, 2016
(Old Style), and commemorates him on September 7 (Old Style). For an account of
his life, see B.C., “St. Chrysostomos the New Confessor and Hierarch,” Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XXX, No. 3
(2016), pp. 5—14.— TRANS.
[5] The Patriarchate of
Constantinople glorified him as a Saint on March 9, 2020 (New Style), and
commemorates him on February 27 (New Style). For an account of his life, see Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, trans.
Tessy Vassiliadou-Christodoulou (Mount Athos: H. Hesychasterion “‘Saint
Ephraim,’ 2003).—TRANS.
[6] The “Neo-Hesychasts”
or “Neo-Athonites” are modern Elders, such as Archimandrite Aimilianos of
Simonopetra (1934-2019) and Archimandrite Basileios of Iveron, who, while
commendably repopulating the Holy Mountain with their disciples in the 1970s
and thereby helping to ward off the danger of Mount Athos eventually dying out
for lack of younger monks, have nonetheless failed to emulate their illustrious
predecessors in taking a resolute stand against the ecumenist excesses of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate. Ironically enough, the “Neo-Athonite” movement sprang
precisely from the Athonite Hieromonks who left the Holy Mountain in the 1920s
in order to serve the liturgical and spiritual needs of the Old Calendarists.
These luminaries, who embodied in their lives the loftiest principles of the
Philokalic renaissance inaugurated by Saint Nicodemos the Hagiorite (1749-1809)
and his fellow Kollyvades,
emphasized, inter alia, the
importance of Confession and of the Jesus Prayer, both of which had largely
fallen by the wayside in contemporary Greek Orthodoxy.—TRANS.
[7] With the exception
of the Paschalion, the method for
reckoning the date of Pascha. The New Calendar in question is the Gregorian
Calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585), who mandated its use in
the Roman Catholic Church in 1582. The New Calendar was deceptively introduced
into the Orthodox Church as “the Revised Julian Calendar,” which is, in fact,
nothing other than the Gregorian Calendar incongruously combined with the
traditional Orthodox Paschalion
—TRANS.
[8] That is, those
Hieromonks who commemorated the Ecumenical Patriarch liturgically (as the
overwhelming majority still do), notwithstanding the doctrinal deviations of
the recent incumbents of the Patriarchate, from Patriarch Meletios IV
(1871-1935), the prime mover in the calendar reform, to the present incumbent,
Patriarch Bartholomew 1, in the context of the ecumenical movement.—TRANS.
[9] He was the Primate
of the Church of Greece from 1949 to 1956. Despite his administrative talents,
he ruthlessly, brutally, and shamefully mistreated the Greek Old
Calendarists.—TRANS.
[10] The Church of the
Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece glorified him as a Saint on October 3,
2014 (Old Style), and commemorates him on October 3 (Old Style). For an account
of his life, see PETER BOTSIS, The Elder
leronymos of Aegina (Boston, MA: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2007).—
TRANS.
[11] The Church of the
Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece glorified him as a Saint on April 15,
2018 (Old Style), and commemorates him on January 26 (Old Style). For an
account of his life, see “Homily on St. John the New Almsgiver and
Wonder-Worker, on the day of his Proclamation as a Saint, delivered by
Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Attica and Beeotia at the Holy Convent of St.
Demetrios, Amphiale, Greece” <imoph.org/p/fwy>.—TRANS.
[12] He left Mount Athos
to serve the spiritual and liturgical needs of the Old Calendarist faithful in
Athens and was an ascetic of the stature of the Desert Fathers, wearing heavy
iron chains around his body until his holy repose. He has not yet been formally
recognized as a Saint.—TRANS.
[13] And if, only in a
very particular instance—that of the notorious encyclical of 1950—there was an
apparent contradiction of these views [sc., the moderate ecclesiological views
of the Old Calendarist Orthodox under Metropolitan Chrysostomos], this was for
the good purpose of healing the rupture—a goal which was not only not
accomplished, but which indirectly gave rise to a distortion of Orthodox ecclesiology, not so much by reason
of the admittance of Matthewites into the Phlorinite faction… as through the
exploitation of the encyclical in question by those who distorted it,
presenting this ill-considered declaration as, allegedly, the authentic view of
Metropolitan Chrysostomos and blatantly ignoring his works as a whole, not to
mention his practice (he never rechrismated anyone during the twenty years of
his Episcopate in the Old Calendar movement)” (NIKOLAOS DASKALOS, “The
Distortion of the Ecclesiological Views of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of
Phlorina and Its Consequences: In Memory of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of
Phlorina, a Struggler Betrayed,” Orthodox
Tradition, Vol. XXX, No. 1 [2013], p. 39).— TRANS.
[14] These are
collections of prophecies and oracles ascribed, often dubiously, to various
Saints. Some of them date back to Byzantine times, but the majority are from
the period following the fall of Constantinople.
[15] Writing as he was
at the early stages of the Cold War (1947-1991), the Elder seems to have in
mind, here, some kind of nuclear conflict that would wipe out human life on
earth. - TRANS.
[16] This means that he
reposed on August 15/28. The New Calendarists, however, commemorate him on
August 3/16, transferring his commemoration one day after the celebration of
the Dormition of the Theotokos, not according to the Old Calendar, but according
to the New Calendar. This is a typical example of how confusing and
disingenuous the use of the New Calendar in the Orthodox Church is.—TRANS.
[17] He was a disciple
of Elder Joseph the Cave-Dweller’s, one of a number of renowned Athonite Elders
in recent times, and served as Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Philotheou from
1973 until his retirement in 1991. Beginning in the late 1980s, he established
in the United States of America and in Canada an extensive network of
monasteries and convents governed by an Athonite typikon, including most notably the Monastery of Saint Anthony the
Great, in Florence, Arizona, the “monastery in America” mentioned in the
opening paragraph of this article. These communities are, unfortunately, under
the Ecumenical Patriarchate and hence are required to follow the New Calendar.
[18] See “Father Ephraim
On The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad,” Orthodox
Tradition, Vol. IX, No. 1 (1992), pp. 17-18.—TRANS.
Original Greek source: https://www.imoph.org/pdfs/2019/10/13/20191013aGeron-Iofis-Hmerologiako.pdf and in Αρχειον του
ιερου Αγωνοσ [Archive of the Holy Struggle], Issue 10, 2020, pp. 7-23.
Published in English in Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1,
pp. 21-37. Translated by Archimandrite Patapios, Dean of St. Photios the Greak
Orthodox Theological Seminary, Etna, CA.
