Orthodox Christian Witness

We regard paradise as our country -- we already begin to consider the patriarchs as our parents: why do we not hasten and run, that we may behold our country, that we may greet our parents? There a great number of our dear ones is awaiting us, and a dense crowd of parents, brothers, children, is longing for us, already assured of their own safety, and still solicitous for our salvation. To attain to their presence and their embrace, what a gladness both for them and for us in common! What a pleasure is there in the heavenly kingdom, without fear of death; and how lofty and perpetual a happiness with eternity of living!

1. LETTER TO MICHAEL CHRISTOPULOS, A MEMBER OF THE NEW CALENDAR GREEK ARCHDIOCESE AND EDITOR OF THE PERIODICAL THE SWORD

Holy Prophets Moses and Aaron
September 4/17, 2002

In response to your request, I feel obliged to raise the following questions about the “Agreement” between the non-Chalcedoneans and the Orthodox, concerning which you wrote in the last issue of The Sword:

1) If it is only a matter of semantics and a misunderstanding between the two parties, as some maintain, then, I assume, there is no problem for the non-Chalcedoneans to accept the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils. Am I correct? Have they done this? I saw no mention of this in your report.

2) Likewise, if it is only a matter of semantics, have the non-Chalcedoneans accepted all the Orthodox Saints that have been glorified in the Church subsequent to the division that occurred between the two parties? Again, your report makes no mention of this.

3) If the non-Chalcedoneans finally acknowledge that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had two natures—the divine and human—that is wonderful. However, Pope Shenouda, whom you quote extensively, insists with great emphasis that Christ has but one will. This is the heresy of Monothelitism, which was condemned at the 6th Ecumenical Council. St. Maximus the Confessor had his hand cut off, his tongue ripped out by the Byzantine emperor, and he died in exile in Georgia because he would not agree to this heresy. Does the Agreement which you reported have anything to say about this issue?

4) If, as reported, both parties condemn Eutyches as a heretic, then there is another problem that has to be addressed. At a Council which took place in Ephesus in August of 449 (this is known as the “Robber Council of Ephesus” among the Orthodox Christians) Dioscorus—who is considered a saint by the non-Chalcedoneans—presided. This false Council affirmed the Orthodoxy and sanctity of Eutyches! It also deposed and excommunicated Theodoret, St. Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople and Pope St. Leo of Rome. In addition, the above-mentioned St. Flavian was murdered at that Council. The 4th Ecumenical Council which gathered in Chalcedon in 451, on the other hand, deposed Dioscorus because he would not denounce the doctrine or the person of Eutyches. In a document to the Emperors Valentinian III and Marcian, the Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council sent a copy of the minutes of the 3rd session (Oct. 13, 451) with a letter, in which the reasons for the deposition of Dioscuros were briefly given: that he had suppressed the letter of St. Leo, the Pope of Rome; that he had received Eutyches into communion; that he had ill-treated Eusebius of Dorylaeum; that he had excommunicated Pope St. Leo; and that he had not obeyed the Council (See History of the Councils of the Church, Vol. 3, by Charles Joseph Hefele, Edinburgh, 1883, p. 329). Again, what does the Agreement have to say about this? Is all this, too, simply a matter of semantics?

If the “Agreement” does not deal with all these issues, then it appears to me, Michael, that, sad to say, your bishops have betrayed you once again. As the ecumenistic bishops have demonstrated time and again in their official declarations, they simply are not Orthodox any longer.

I think it is important to point out that many Coptic and Ethiopian bishops, clergy and people have visited our monastery over the years, and they have been warmly welcomed. I must say, in many ways, they have a piety and simplicity and reverence that, I fear, is missing in many visitors who belong to the various SCOBA jurisdictions. In addition, we are on extremely good terms and have a very warm friendship with the local Coptic priest, Father Musa and his presbytera. They are wonderful and warm people, and I certainly wish that we were in communion with them, because we see so much in them that is good. But, alas, because of the points I raised above, there can be no joint prayers or intercommunion with them until the doctrinal matters are resolved.

2. CONCERNING THE CALENDAR CONTROVERSY

by Father Michael Azkoul

A friend commented that the "Calendar controversy" in the Orthodox Church was hardly worth the excessive attention given to it, especially when it has led to the breaking of communion between episcopates ("jurisdictions"). In addition, there is no justification for the interruption. The history of the early Church, he said, exhibits a variety of calendars (more precisely, several Paschalia) --- in Asia Minor, Constantinople, Alexandria, Rome, Ireland, etc. --- without schism or the loss of intercommunion. For example, St. Polycarp of Smyrna, a personal disciple of St. John the Theologian, visited Pope Anicetus in Rome. The former was a Quatrodecimen who celebrated the Crucifixion, the Lord's Rest and Resurrection (Pascha) on the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth of Nisan (whatever days of the week they fell), the very dates, according to the Jewish Calendar, of the Lord's Redemption. The Orthodox Calendar allowed for the celebration only after the Jewish Passover, after the vernal equinox of the moon. Polycarp could not be persuaded to alter his Paschalion; nevertheless, they liturgized with Polycarp as the chief celebrant "out of reverence" (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. V, 23)

In other words, diverse Calendars were then, as they should be now, no impediment to intercommunion, inasmuch as the Calendar is not a dogma, but a "custom," as Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople conceded. Clinging to one Calendar, no matter how venerable, --- which is losing time, 13 days so far --- is a false appreciation of Tradition. Moreover, those ancient Orthodox Churches which followed a number of different Calendars produced Saints --- St. Polycarp, of course, St. Patrick, St. Columban, St. Aidan, etc. --- even as the New Calendar has sanctified many --- St. Nicholas Planas, St. Irene Myrtidiotissa, etc. Finally, my friend said, the New Calendar has a life of its own, and the role of the Patriarch Meletios II, Metaxakis in its adoption is highly overrated. Lest we forget his "Pan-Orthodox Congress" of 1923 made recommendations, but adopted no resolutions concerning the New Calendar. Any reasonable person must conclude that this "controversy" is "much to do about nothing."

This contention needs to be examined. We need not concern ourselves with the mathematics of "the Calendar issue" --- a science with which I have little competence and even less interest. I leave that for such brilliant essayists as Ludmila Perpiolkina ("The Julian Calendar: A Thousand-Year Icon of Time in Russia" [trans. by D. Olson], Orthodox Life XVL 5 [1995], 7-37). These mathematics, as important as they may be, are not essential to the purposes of this paper which seeks to answer some questions about the cause and implications of the New Calendar to the life of the Church. Contrary to many critics of the so-called "Old Calendar,’ it is far more conducive to a uniform Christian year and the Church’s liturgical worship and spirituality than is the Gregorian chronometery --- a reform which, incidentally, did not pass unchallenged in the West (Perepiolkina, p. 25). One could easily write a book on this matter, so many contours has its history. Here the intent is to touch on only a few, albeit crucial, aspects of the controversy.

In truth, the ancient Church was not divided by "the Calendar issue." The specific difference between them was over the time of Pascha --- "the Easter debate," as historians call it. None denied that it should be celebrated in the Spring ─ the season in which God created and recreated the world in Christ. Dispute arose over the limits within which the Christian Pascha was to be celebrated. Several Calendars were the result of several astronomical computations relative to the time and the day of the feast (Paschalion). The Church finally decided that it should never fall prior to 22 March nor after 25 April. Furthermore, the Sunday of the Resurrection (hence, Good Friday and Holy Saturday) was determined by the vernal ("of the Spring") equinox (as much night as day), after the first full moon, a time not always easy to set. Also, before and after the Nicene Church there was general agreement that Pascha should fall after the Passover of the Jews. The type or figure (Passover) must always precede the reality (Pascha). For some churches their astronomical calculations made the coincidence of Pascha and the Jewish Passover unavoidable. In any case, Nicea did not take as its primary aim astronomical accuracy, but rather linking salvation in Christ with historical events which accomplished it.

It is this truth which encouraged the churches of Asia Minor to celebrate the Crucifixion of the Lord on the 14th of Nisan, whatever day of the week it fell, whatever the coincidence with the Jewish Passover. Surely their recalcitrance was based on fidelity to a tradition which they insisted originated with St. John the Theologian --- a claim open to quarrel inasmuch as he referred to Sunday as the "Lord’s Day," kyriake (Rev. 1:10), the Day of the Resurrection, "the eighth Day." Nevertheless, the valuable lesson here is that the Asiatic Quartodecimens argued from tradition (paradosis), whatever Calendar the churches followed. It was everywhere believed that he who violates holy Tradition separates himself from the Church, for the Holy Spirit is the Author of Tradition (and unity); and "where the Spirit is there is the Church, and where the Church, there is the Spirit" (St. Irenaeus). With a certain irony, the division between these churches over the Paschalion was the result of their adherence to a set of beliefs and values which each described as "the true tradition."

Among all the churches, there was always an impulse toward unity with regard to the day of Pascha, as there was toward all faith and discipline. The Synod of Arles (314) in Gaul resolved to call upon all the Orthodox churches of the world to celebrate Pascha on one day at one time ─ uno die et uno tempore per omnem orbem (J.P. Mansi, Conciliar II, 471). It was to that end that Pope Victor a century before "endeavored to cut off the churches of all Asia (the Quartodecimens), together with neighboring churches, as heterodox, alienated from the common unity" (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. V, 24). St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, sought to dissuade him, saying, that although not in agreement with the Asiatics, he believed that the Bishop of Rome "should not cut off whole churches of God, who observed the tradition of an ancient custom" (l.c.).

Unlike the Asiatics which emphasized the day of the month, the rest of the Church looked to the day of the week to determine the time of Pascha. The church of Alexandria was the leader in this matter, that is, fixing the Sunday for the celebration of Pascha according to a 19 year cycle of the moon, after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, after the Jewish or "legal Passover," principles expressly enjoined by the seventhApostolic Canon, "If any bishop, presbyter or deacon celebrate the holy day of Pascha before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be deposed"; and the Apostolic Constitutions (V, 7), "Observe the days of the Pascha with all care after the vernal equinox, that you keep not the memorial of the one Passion twice in a year. Keep it once in a year for Him Who died but once."*

Eventually, the Emperor Constantine, disconcerted by the lack of "uniformity in judgment and practice of the Paschalion," exhorted the Council of Nicea (325) to take up the question, to the end that "nothing might be henceforth left for dissension or controversy on matters of the Faith," including "the question relative to the most holy day of Pascha" that it should "by common consent be celebrated at one and the same day" (Socrates, Hist. Eccl. I, 9). "For our Savior," he said, "left us but one day to be observed in commemoration of our deliverance, that is, the day of the most precious Pascha. He also wished His Catholic Church to be one, however much her members are scattered in various places, notwithstanding being nourished by the one Spirit…Consider, then, how grievous and indecorous it is that on one and the same day some should be fasting, others feasting; and after the days of Pascha, some should be indulging in festivities and enjoyments while others submit to appointed fasting. On this account therefore divine Providence directs that an appropriate correction should be effected, and uniformity of practice established…" (ib., IV, 28).

We have no record of the proceedings concerning the Nicean treatment of the Paschalion beyond that found in a Synodical Letter to the church of Alexandria. "We give you the good news of the unity which has been established respecting the holy Pascha. In fact, according to your desire, we have happily concluded this business. All the brethren in the East who formerly celebrated the Pascha with the Jews, will henceforth keep it at the same time as the Romans, with us, and with all those who from ancient times have celebrated the feast at the same time with us" (Socrates, Hist. Eccl. I, 9). The absence of a canon concerning the Paschalion is significant. The fear of provoking a schism may have dictated the Council’s action, especially when the bishops were aware that the Julian Calendar was not without fault, and needed to be adjusted to fit the Church’s system of feasts and fasts. Nonetheless, Nicea reconfirmed the tradition of celebrating Pascha after the Jewish Passover, after the vernal equinox, implicit therein being the full moon. The Quartodecimen practice was rejected, but lingered on for awhile among heretical sects.

Sixteen years after Nicea, the Synod of Antioch published a canon, proclaiming that "all persons who dare to violate the definition of the holy and great Council convened in Nicea…concerning the holy festival of the saving Pascha, we decree that they be excluded from communion and be outcasts from the Church if they persist captiously in their objection to the decisions that have been made as most fitting in regard thereto..(and) should dare to insist upon having their own way in the perversion of the laity, and to the disturbance of the Church, and upon celebrating Pascha with the Jews, this holy synod has hence judged that person alien to the Church, on the ground that he has not only become guilty of sin, but has become the cause of corruption and perversion among the multitude. Accordingly, it not only excludes such persons from the Liturgy, but also those who dare to commune with them…" (canon 1).

The Antiochian canon was not as severe as it might appear. To be sure, it demanded no common prayer and no intercommunion with dissidents; and it called for the punishment of clergy who dared to celebrate with those who followed another Paschalion, but these penalties were applied to those who "persist captiously" in their opposition, that is, knowing of it, yet are contentious, given to argument, seizing on minor and weak points. Perhaps, like Nicea, this Synod was not unaware that churches in distant lands might have not heard of Nicea’s accomplishments and the Antiochian canon. Churches in northern Europe which welcomed the Nicean decision may also have been confused by the disparity between it and the local practice. The Synod of Orleans (541) directed them to consult Rome (which ratified Nicea) and to follow its instructions. Also, judging from the Synod of Toledo (633), the Spanish Orthodox Church was not yet acquainted with the Nicean Paschalion. She clung to her own "tradition" until the will of the Ecumenical Council finally reached her.

In principle, the Church was now united on the day and time of Pascha: after the Jewish Passover, after the vernal equinox, after the first full moon, not before 22 March, not after 25 April, calculations which Nicea mandated even if the details were Alexandrian. Nevertheless, there remained a single source of extraordinary resistance: the Celtic Orthodox Churches of Britain and Ireland. In general agreement with Nicea, they clung to a persistent custom which reached, they claimed, to St. Anatolius of Laodicea (3rd) c.), modified slightly by St. Patrick and St. Columban. Therefore, they rejected the Roman Paschalion which St. Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury, brought with him from the continent (601). The Celts allowed that Pascha fell on a Sunday between the 14th and 20th days of the full moon, that is, between 25 March and 21 April. On some occasions, then, Pascha fell on the same day as the Jewish Passover. Finally, as Cummian tells us in De controversia paschale (632), after a prolonged study, including consultations with bishops and sages of great reputation, the Archbishop was able to persuade his fellow-clergy to assemble in a Synod on the Plain of Lene. There they agreed that in the following year, "holy Pascha should be celebrated simultaneously with the universal Church" (L. Gougaud, Christianity in the Celtic Land. Trans. by N. Joynt. London, 1932, p. 192).

Still not everyone was satisfied. Not even St. Aidan of Lindisfarne, lately a convert to the Roman/Nicean Paschalion (Bede, Hist. Eng. Church II, 3), was able to persuade those loyal to the "tradition of Patrick and Columban" to embrace the Nicean solution. King Oswy convoked a Synod at Whitby (664). He asked the bishops the question: was it the Roman or Celtic paschal tradition that was correct? Colman, the bishop of Lindisfarne, spoke for those who held to the custom received from St. Columban which was supported by "men of holiness and miracles." He also invoked the name of Anatolius of Laodicea, a holy man, who had fixed the limits of the Paschal Feast to the 14th and 20th days of the moon. He defied anyone to find in the divine Law or the Gospels opposed to their position. Indeed, he argued, the Celtic tradition went back to St. John the Theologian himself.

Wilfrid, the bishop of York, replied that he was defending the Pascha celebrated everywhere, whether on the continent, Africa, Asia, Greece and Egypt. Only the Irish, the Britons, and some of the Picts had the hardihood to oppose "the true and Catholic Pascha" of the Christian world. He, too, recognized the authority of Anatolius, but what similarity did the Celtic practice have with his practice? He was speaking according "in the manner of the Egyptians" to whom the astronomical numbers cited by Colman had another meaning. No doubt St. Columban was a pious man, but sanctity is not always protection from error. In any case, Rome and the Catholic Church had spoken and, therefore, Colman and his partisans were sinning by resisting them. King Oswy and the majority of the Synod ranged themselves with Bishop Wilfrid (Bede, Hist. Eng. Ch. III, 25).

Despite the results of Whitby, not all the Celts adopted the universal Paschalion. More than three hundred years were to pass before they eventually adopted the Nicean Paschalion; or, as some scholars argue, its Roman adjustment at the hands of Dionysius Exigus, that is, 24 April as the latest day for the celebration of Pascha. In any case, as Gougaud (p. 198) states, the Celts must be praised for their tenacity. "We can readily forgive both Colman and Columban for cleaving faithfully to an archaism. No doubt they both believed up to the end that they possessed the true tradition." This observation is worth making. It punctuates the importance and the connection between unity and tradition.

The Nicean paschal tradition persisted after the apostasy of the Western Patriarchate. External unity was achieved. In 1583, however, Pope Gregory XIII undertook to "reform" the traditional Paschalion in defiance of the Nicean tradition. He, not unlike the modern New Calendarists, argued that the history of the Church provided him with sufficient precedent to make these necessary corrections in a calendar that was steadily loosing time. Gregory invited Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople to join him in the adoption of his "new style Julian Calendar." His Beatitude convoked the Synod of Constantinople in the same year in order to make a response to the papal innovation. Patriarch Sylvester of Alexandria was in attendance. This Synod condemned the Gregorian reform. Jeremias dispatched an encyclical to Orthodox Christians in every land, commanding them under penalty of punishment not to accept the new Paschalion or the new calendar. The decree was also signed by Patriarch Sylvester and Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem.

Four years later (1587), another Synod was held in Constantinople in the presence of the same Jeremias, along with the new Patriarch of Alexandria, Meletios Pegas, and Sophronius of Jerusalem. Again, they rejected the papal revision as "perilous and unnecessary, being the cause of many dangers." The third condemnation of the new Paschalion/calendar occurred at the Synod of Constantinople in 1593. In its 8th canon, the Synod proclaimed "the Latin innovation regarding the celebration of Pascha" to have violated the holy Tradition of the Church. Anyone, it solemnly declared, who presumes to overthrow the definition of "the holy Fathers concerning the holy Feast of the saving Pascha is excommunicated and repudiated by the Church of Christ." It was signed by the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and the plenipotentiary of the Russian Church. Jeremias added these terrible words, "He who does not follow the customs which were decreed by the seven holy Ecumenical Councils, which have ordained that we should observe the holy Pascha and Menologion, but prefers to follow the Paschalion and Menologion of the Pope’s astronomers, and opposing himself to all these things, wishes to overturn and destroy them, let him be anathema, and outside the Church of Christ and the assembly of the Faithful…" (quoted in Fr Basil Sakkas, "The Calendar Question," Orthodox Life. XXII, 5 [1972], 20-21). The decision of this Synod was affirmed subsequently by Patriarchs Dositheus of Jerusalem (17th c.) and Cyril V of Constantinople (18th c.). The judgments of these post-Byzantine hierarchs have been universally accepted by the Church, along with the verdict of Patriarch Jeremias.

The Orthodox Church not only reaffirmed her paschal tradition in the 16th century but her calendar of moveable and immovable feasts and fasts dependent on it. The Patriarchs also reaffirmed that no one and no group may usurp the authority of the Church’s ecumenical councils. Their canons may not be revoked. They also demanded that this feast, more than any other sacred and universal custom, demands an external unity among all the local churches as the great sign of their internal unity. Pascha is the "feast of feasts" for which all others exist; it is not only the promise of deliverance from the devil, sin and death, but of deification (theosis). Therefore, to alter the day and season of its celebration, save by the Will of the Holy Spirit Who established it ("it seemed good to the Spirit and to us"), is to invite "many dangers." Finally, to replace the traditional Calendar with another for reasons not approved by the whole Church and by means which involve ends not consistent with the Orthodox understanding of Tradition is to change the Church herself. In a word, the Calendar has evident ecclesiological implications.

Such would seem to be precisely the purpose of, as reflected in, the infamous 1920 Patriarchal Encyclical, "Unto All The Churches of Christ Wheresoever They May Be" (January, 1920). The title betrays Dorotheus, Metropolitan of Brussa, locum tenens, of the Constantinoplean throne, and his colleagues. They palpably did not believe the Orthodox Church to be "the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church." "Unity" is not defined as oneness with Orthodoxy, but the collection of many denominations of a restored Christianity, an idea inspired by the establishment of the League of Nations. It would be unseemly for the Church not to "fall behind the example of political authorities, who apply truly the spirit of the Gospel and of the justice of Christ." "It is the duty of the churches of Christ which adorn themselves with the sacred name of Christ, not to forget and neglect any longer His new and great commandment of love" The Encyclical opened the door not only for heresy, but welcomed the "social gospel" so prevalent during the war years. It was an invitation to the secularization of Orthodoxy.

How did the 1920 Synod expect to launch this new age? Its Encyclical offered numerous recommendations, beginning with its first two articles on the calendar: (a) "by the acceptance of a uniform calendar for the simultaneous celebration of all the great Christian feasts by all the Churches; (b) by the exchange of brotherly letters on the great feasts of the ecclesiastical year, according to custom…" Thereafter, the Encyclical calls for (c) more friendly contacts between the representatives of the various Churches; (d) contact between theological schools and the exchange of ecclesiastical journals and periodicals published by each Church; (e) the exchange of students from seminaries of the various Churches; (f) convening pan-Christian Conferences to examine questions of common interest to all the Churches, e.g., the impartial and more historically accurate examination of the doctrine differences both in teaching and in theological treatises; (g) through the dispassionate and more historical examination of the dogmatic differences from a scholarly point of view and by dissertations; (h) mutually respecting the customs and usages prevailing in each Church; (i) allowing each the use of places of prayer and of cemeteries for the funeral and burial of persons belonging to other confessions and dying in foreign lands; (j) settling the questions of mixed marriages …; (k) and, finally, the mutual support of the Churches in the work of strengthening religious belief, charity, and the like" (The Greek Orthodox TheologicalReview I, 1 (1954), 8).

These recommendations to "the other Churches" allow us to make several observations. The Encyclical implicitly teaches a divided Church; hence, the repetition of the phrases "by all Churches," "of the various Churches" or "by each Church." Again, that the quest for "reunion" starts with the alteration of the Calendar is no mere coincidence. The Calendar dictates the cycle of liturgical worship and worship is intrinsically related to the Faith ─ lex orandi et lex credendi. Altering the Calendar (especially the Paschalion) leads inevitably to the alteration of the Faith. The Orthodox Church worships what she believes; and it is precisely this which needs to be changed, for nothing stands in the way of "Christian unity" more than the rival doctrines of the "Churches" or, in the case of Orthodoxy, her Tradition. There is no better proof of this than the "church order" of the contemporary Orthodox churches where the absence or distortion of the external symbols and truncated rites diminishes the inward faith of the believer.

Lastly, one may ask why the Encyclical was issued in 1920, since the enthusiasm of some Orthodox for "reunion" with the Anglicans or, for that matter, the Old Catholics and various Protestants sects has a history which reaches back into the 19th century? The Encyclical suggests that the idea for "reunion" of Churches was inspired by the League of Nations whose goal was to end the hostility between nations; so it behooves Christians to find a way to negate the hostility between their churches. This ideal was only part of it. The Greeks dreamt of recovering Constantinople from the Turks whom they hated and feared. To that end, the Orthodox Church of Greece conspired with the Greek government to induce the Allies (which occupied Constantinople after the first world war) to help them realize both their religious and political aspirations; hence, the social and religious agenda of the Patriarchal Encyclical which was certain to appeal to the West, particularly British.

In point of fact, there is nothing new in the Encyclical's agenda. Such things as it recommended had been entertained before and during the war, especially between the Orthodox and the Anglicans under the auspices, for example, of the "The Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Union" whose aim it was to reconcile these two "branches" of the Christian Church or, as Anglican Bishop Gaul of Mashonland declared in its official Greek-English publication, "to restore peace and unity to God’s broken Body, the Church of Jesus Christ" (Eirene IV, 1 [1910]. 10). The Anglicans viewed Orthodoxy as "the mother of all Churches," to use the popular ecumenical cliché of the period. It was very much in their interest to gain the favor of the Orthodox, if only to induce them to recognize "the validity of Anglican Orders." The Orthodox, on the other hand, were indebted to the Anglicans for their material support and assistance.

The Union had no greater advocate than the new Greek Orthodox bishop of Kition, Melitios Metaxakis, who in 1910 was initiated into the Freemasonry Harmony Lodge of Constantinople. It was probably here that he acquired the ideas of religious and political reform. When he became Archbishop of Athens, "Meletios Metaxakis was an ardent Venizelist and enthusiast for Church reform," S.P. Mews tells us, "a process which he felt would be assisted by contact with the churches of the west" ("Anglican Intervention in the Election of an Orthodox Patriarch," in The Orthodox Churches and the West. ed. By D. Baker Oxford, 1976, p. 294). He was especially fond of the Anglicans with whom he had become intimate before the war. The British saw in him a leader in the modernization and mobilization of the Greek Orthodox who could then be "effectively deployed in the Christian conquest of Egypt and the Sudan" (ib., 298).

As Patriarch of Constantinople, Metaxakis, with the collaboration of the University of Athens Professor, Hamilkar Alivizatos, and the Greek Prime Minister, Eleutherios Venizelos, the convocation of the Pan-Orthodox Congress, its ideology and theology was already in place. It was to his credit, at least, that Metaxakis set up a commission to examine the feasibility of adopting the Gregorian Calendar. The Patriarch did not receive the answer he wanted. "It is the opinion of the commission," its report stated, "that a change in the Calendar is possible only if it does not violate canonical and dogmatic teachings, and is agreed upon by all the autocephalous churches…" (quoted, Bishop Triaditza’s "The 70th anniversary of the Pan-Orthodox Congress in Constantinople: A Major Step on the Path Towards Apostasy," Orthodox Life 1-2 [1994]).

At the same time, he was urging a "correction of the Julian Calendar" and calling for a fixed Sunday for Pascha, Meletios was also calling for the marriage of priests and deacons after ordination, a second marriage for widowed priests and deacons, cutting the hair and beards, eliminating the rassa, revision of monastic vows, removal of all impediments to mixed marriage, mitigating the severity of fasting, etc. Not without interest is the presence of several Anglican prelates, including the famous Bishop Gore. No wonder Metropolitan Eirinaios of Cassandria referred to the Metaxakis Synod as "the anti-Orthodox Council" of 1923.

Noteworthy, also, is the contribution of Chrysostom Papadopoulos to the Congress. While a professor at the University of Athens many years before, he wrote that actions taken by the Patriarch Jeremias "indicates in an excellent manner the position which the Orthodox Church took straightway against the Gregorian modification of the Calendar. The Church considered this to be yet another of the many innovations of Old Rome, a universal scandal and an arbitrary affront to the traditions of the Church. The change of the Calendar is not only a matter of astronomy, but also one which pertains to the Church, because it is related to the celebration of the Feast of Pascha. Hence, the Pope had no right to change the Calendar; thus, proving that he esteems himself superior to the Ecumenical Councils. In a word, the Orthodox Church has never favored the alteration of the Calendar" (Ecclesiastical Herald CXL, 1918). Five years later, Papodopoulos asserted that the anathemas of the Synods of 1583, 1587, 1593, were all forgeries. He backed the Patriarch and, as Archbishop of Athens, was the first Orthodox hierarch to adopt the New Calendar for his church.

Both Patriarch Meletios and Archbishop Chrysostom might have expected resistance to their innovation. They underestimated the reaction from the Orthodox faithful of Greece, especially after Venizelos threatened to expel the monks from Mt Athos if the monasteries failed to comply with the decree of their Archbishop. The attempt to change the other sacred customs made the Metaxakis reform even less popular. It was clear to virtually everyone that New Calendarism implied an attack on the Church and her Traditions ─ not for the sake of the Orthodox Church but for the realization of their ecumenical and political ambitions. Many Orthodox bishops and faithful withdrew from "the State Church of Greece" and, to be sure, in every Orthodox country where the New Calendar was introduced. There should be no confusion on this point: it was the Old Calendarists that represented holy Tradition --- a stand for which they sometimes paid with blood and persecution;** but it was the Old Calendarists who were consoled by the miraculous appearance in the evening sky of the sign of the Cross near Athens, on the traditional feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross on 14 September, 1925.

The calendar unity that took the Orthodox Church more than a millennium to achieve, New Calendarism wiped out in a decade. Its advocates worked out the astronomical mathematics to justify their innovation and they rummaged in church history to find evidence to "spin" their schism, to make it appear that the "fanatical" Old Calendarists were responsible for the social and ecclesiastical confusion that followed the implementation of "the Metaxakian reform." History disclosed numerous Paschalia which suggested to them that no single tradition of the ecclesiastical calendar ever existed. In a word, since the past, with its diversity of calendars, did not lead to the disruption of the sacramental life of the Church, there is no reason that the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar today should lead to a breach in communion between those who follow it and those who do not. The New Calendar theoreticians might also have observed that in the early Church liturgies, feasts and fasts were not everywhere the same.

Until the 4th century, for example, the Feast of the Nativity was celebrated on different days in the East and West. Until the 10th century, the feast of the Lord’s Transfiguration was celebrated 5 weeks before Palm Sunday. We do not argue here that the Church has not the authority to make such changes, nor indeed that none could be made in the future; but any change, whenever executed, may not contradict the holy Tradition which is the presupposition not only to the Calendar but to the totality of Christian life and thought. Therefore, we are not free, no matter how noble the purpose, to willy-nilly alter the Christian year as seems convenient or pleasing to us, to fast and feast and worship wherever, whenever and with whomever we choose. One bishop or group of bishops may not act for the whole Church.

In any case, none should wish to inflict upon modern Orthodoxy the troublesome non-conformity of the past. There is no reason to retreat into a state of things which the Church has transcended; and we should not like to abandon the external unity that it took her a millennium to achieve. But what else does the New Calendar intimate?

The retreat from unity has already begun with a New Calendar revision of the Christian year. For example, the Gregorian Calendar often pushes Pascha into May, and the fast of Sts Peter and Paul --- so important to the Fathers (Perepiolkina, p. 27-28) --- is often curtailed if not sometimes eliminated. And more significantly, the Gregorian calendar often causes Pascha to fall before the Jewish Passover, and "occasionally makes the Christian Easter to coincide in the Jewish Passover, as for instance in 1825," C. J. Hefele observes. "The coincidence is entirely contrary to the spirit of the Nicene Council, but it is impossible to avoid, without the rule for finding Easter…" (A History of theChristian Councils (vol. 1): To the Close of the Council of Nicea, A.D. 325. Trans. By W.R. Clark. Edinburgh, 1894, p. 332).

But Orthodoxy has not the same scruples about astronomical accuracy, not at Nicea and not now. Crucial to her thinking is the preservation of Tradition; and a powerful sense that what was won by the past cannot be lost in the present or future. What was once tolerated by the Church in a period of formal development, she cannot now permit. It is a truth to which most New Calendarists are insensitive; but also to some Old Calendarists, who like them, pander to their prejudices at the expense of teachings of the Fathers and contrary to the instruction of the canons. Both have mutinied against Tradition, the one by dogmatizing the Julian Calendar, the other by indifference to it. As a result of these attitudes, what must Orthodox think? what must they do? In particular, what must be the reaction to the latter who have compounded their error by subscribing to the heresy of ecumenism?*** Are they in possession of saving and sacramental Grace? Can such churches continue to sanctify their members and produce holy men and women? Are traditional Orthodox justified in refusing to share the Common Cup with brethren "who walk disorderly"?

Such questions in fact did not have the same value eighty years ago as they do now. The issues were not so clear then as they are now; for the controversy was not in every respect the same as it is in our post-Athenagorean world. The only incontestable fact throughout this tragic affair is that the Gregorian Calendar had no place in the Nicean tradition. There was little talk initially, whether among the Old or New Calendarists, about the disappearance of Grace. For the most part, also, intercommunion was not broken between them; and not all the bishops of the so-called "State Church of Greece" were in sympathy with the policies of Archbishop Chrysostomos; nor did everyone who adopted the New Calendar follow it with any enthusiasm.

The turning point in the history of the Orthodox Church of Greece did not occur until the "lifting of the anathema" against papism by the Patriarch Athenagoras (1965). Only then was a critical reexamination of the status of New Calendar churches by traditionalists undertaken, with results which could not help but develop a consistent attitude towards the New Calendarists. A faction of Old Calendarists went so far as to deny Grace in the Mysteries of the "heretical" New Calendarists. In point of fact, the accusation bears a certain truth. It would seem to describe the sorry state of the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Antioch; and suggest, that since the virus of ecumenism is metastasizing within the body of contemporary Orthodox churches, wisdom dictates that the devout, uncertain where Grace may be found, seek the Mysteries among those Orthodox churches which continue to openly and confidently confess and teach "the Faith once delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).

Many have refused this advice, arguing that a church is "canonical" only when it is in communion with one of the ancient Patriarchates. Judging from the history of the Church (e.g., Canon 15 of 1st & 2nd Constantinople [861]) and the lives of the Fathers (e.g., St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Theodore the Studite), such an opinion carries no weight. Exclusive dependence on some Patriarchate is not the criterion for "canonicity." But rather organic continuity with the Faith and life of the historical Church, that is to say, a schism violates that continuity from the Apostles while a heresy abandons it. The first applies to the New Calendarists, the second to ecumenists.

*The reference is to the Jewish practice of celebrating two Passovers. They did not think it necessary to keep the Passover after the vernal equinox which was taken as the beginning of the solar year; and it happened from time to time that the full moon of the Nisan fell in one year after the vernal equinox, and in the following civil year before the equinox, which would give two Passovers in the same solar year. I am reminded of Patriarch Athenagoras who, one year celebrated two Christmases, one in Constantinople, the other in Jerusalem.

**At first, the persecution of the Old Calendarists was infrequent and localized, usually in Athens and Attica. But in the 50’s the religious pogroms became widespread.

***There are also Old Calendarists (Moscow Patriarchate and the Church of Serbia) who are ecumenist, but this paper treats them only incidentally. I am primarily concerned with the New Calendar schism.

Readers of this article should read also the position paper entitled Statement, signed by Metropolitans Makarios of Toronto, Ephraim of Boston, and Moses of Seattle.

Contact Victoria Fleser ─ vikkif@homb.org ─ for a copy of the Statement.

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