OCA Cathedral in NYC hosts ecumenical event with pagans

[JamesR]

Well this is a bit saddening. If it were at a neutral place where everyone was invited, I could see the Orthodox participating in a controlled way. But hosting this event within the hallowed ground of an Orthodox Church seems sacreligious. I am questioning my own jurisdiction (OCA) after this, but I like my priest and am afraid that if I were to leave World Orthodoxy, God would punish me for leaving His established Church. There's an Indian Orthodox Church very close to my house. Are the Oriental Orthodox any better off than the Eastern?

[Isaakos]

What if World Orthodoxy was the Apostasy, and it has embraced schism by continuing in those things which were condemned by Patriarchal Councils and various canons? What if the Majority is NOT the Church because they constantly disobey the Church? Is this impossible? Look at our times. Why is it impossible? What about the all the Old Calendarists slaughtered by the State Church of Greece, for merely choosing to DO what our Patriarchs said in 1583?

I want to call your attention to the Pan-Orthodox Synod of 1583, particularly paragraphs seven and eight:

VII) Whosoever does not follow the customs of the Church which the seven Holy Ecumenical Councils have decreed, and the Holy Pascha and calendar which they enacted well for us to follow, but wants to follow the newly-invented Paschalion [method of fixing the date of Pascha] and the new calendar of the atheist astronomers of the Pope; and opposing them, wishes to overthrow and destroy the doctrines and customs of the Church which we have inherited from our Fathers, let any such have the anathema and let him be outside of the Church and the Assembly of the Faithful.

VIII) We exhort all pious and Orthodox Christians: remain in those things which you learned and in which you were born and bred, and when the times and circumstances call for it, shed your very blood in order both to keep the Faith given us by our Fathers and to keep your confession. Beware of such people and take care, that our Lord Jesus Christ help you. May the blessing of our humility be with you all. Amen.

The 1583rd year from the birth of the God-man, Indiction 12, November 20th.

Jeremias, of Constantinople Sylvester, of Alexandria Sophronios, of Jerusalem (and the rest of the Bishops of the Synod who were present)

Look at paragraph 8 which I have Highlighted:

Did the New Calendarists and Ecumenists obey or disobey this council? Who shed their blood? Who was imprisoned? Who was taken to the basements of the Archepiscopal palace and beaten and forcibly stripped of priestly and monastic garments and shaved of their beards? Us, or them? Who was assaulted by the police? Who had their chalices emptied during their divine liturgies? Which of us were beaten to a pulp by the Metropolitans of the New Calendar Church?!

Hear the story of Father Theonas:

http://www.svetosavskasrbija.com/sites/ ... ce_goc.pdf

in 1936:

"The New Calendarist Bishop of Boston, Joachim, returns to Greece and is appointed by
the State Church as the Metropolitan of Fokis. While visiting the village of Desfini in
Fokis, he enters the Old Calendarist church during the time of the Divine Liturgy while
Hieromonk Theonas is celebrating. Metropolitan Joachim grabs the holy chalice out of
the hands of Father Theonas, throws it to the ground, and tramples it with his feet until it
is completely flattened. Then, he seizes Father Theonas, tears out his beard with his bare
hands, pushis him to the ground and begins kicking him mercilessly. A short time later,
Father ih.on* dies from his wounds. Despite this homicidal act, Metropolitan Joachim
of Fokis is later rewarded with advancement to a larger diocese, the Metropolis of
Demetrias, to replace Metropolitan Germanos who had left the New Calendarist State
Church in 1935 to lead the True Orthodox Christians."

Who has patiently suffered these things and exist until the present time? They, who concelebrate with the gods of this world and offer the pinches of incense to the great gods of modernism and convenience? OR us, who often don't have proper churches, are isolated, who have to fly priests out to various parts of the country and are generally ridiculed as schismatics for BELIEVING AND DOING what has been commanded of us?

I would add what St. Matthew the New Confessor wrote in 1934:

“St. Basil the Great once wrote: ‘The one crime that is severely avenged is the strict keeping of the patristic traditions… No white hair is venerable to the judges of injustice, no pious asceticism, no state according to the Gospel from youth to old age… To our grief we see our feasts upturned, our houses of prayer closed, our altars of spiritual worship unused.’ All this has now come upon us. Many and clearly to be seen by all are the great evils that the anticanonical renovationists introduced into the menology and calendar of the Orthodox Church. Schisms, divisions, the overthrow of good order and complete confusion, violation of the most ancient laws of the Church, a great scandal for the conscience of the faithful were the consequences, though anathemas on those who violate ‘any ecclesiastical tradition, whether written or unwritten’ had been sounded by the Holy Ecumenical Councils. On the basis of the apostolic maxim, ‘Obey those who have the rule over you and submit to them’ (Hebrews. 13.7), the Shepherds of the Church who support this anticanonical innovation expect absolute obedience from the fullness of the Church. But how can the true children of the Church obey those who at the same moment disobey the holy Fathers, of whom the prophet says: ‘The Lord chose them to love them’, and do not venerate the Church’s established order that has been handed down and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, while the Lord says concerning them: ‘He who hears you hears Me, and he who despises you despises Me. And he who despises Me despises Him Who sent Me’? How can pious Christians shut their ears to the voices and work of such great Saints of God, and so be deprived of the praise and blessing of the Holy Trinity, which we hear in the mouth of the Apostle Paul himself: ‘I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you’ (I Corinthians 11.2); thereby receiving diverse and strange teachings ‘according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ’ (Colossians 2:8), inventions of men in which there lurks a special danger for the soul? The faithful children of the Church, with fear of God in regard to the commandment of the Holy Spirit: ‘Stand firm and hold to the traditions’ (II Thessalonians 2.15), and in conformity with the other commandment: ‘Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it’ (II Timothy. 3.14), have a reverent and God-pleasing answer to give to the unproved claims of today’s innovating shepherds with regard to obedience: ‘We must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29)."

By their fruits you will know them.

[Barbara]

That is APPALLING what happened to Fr Theonas ! I had NEVER heard of that tragedy, or others, too.
It's good that the truth of the persecution of Old Calendarists has started to squeak out, past what must be formidable walls of secrecy.

[Barbara]

Who are the 2 pictures at the end of your post, Philaret ? Met Joachim on the left and Fr Theonas on the right ?
Or some others ?

[Lydia]

I heard that story from (then) Father Anastasios. He said that very chalice is in the synodal headquarters of Archbishop Kallinikos.

[Isaakos]

The picture is a before and after. The same hieromonk. I am not sure which one, but it was clear from the website I found it on that it was an old Calendarist hieromonk who was disfigured by the Archbishop.

[Jean-Serge]

Well this is a bit saddening. If it were at a neutral place where everyone was invited, I could see the Orthodox participating in a controlled way. But hosting this event within the hallowed ground of an Orthodox Church seems sacreligious. I am questioning my own jurisdiction (OCA) after this, but I like my priest and am afraid that if I were to leave World Orthodoxy, God would punish me for leaving His established Church. There's an Indian Orthodox Church very close to my house. Are the Oriental Orthodox any better off than the Eastern?

Personally, I would flee from the Great Babylon. Revelation 18:4

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.