Maria wrote:Lydia, do purchase and read Father Stephen's book with all the footnotes. He quotes various sources including HOCNA's research, correspondence, and news sources and periodicals of that time.
Yes, it is a complicated history.
Below is an excerpt from Fr. Stephen's book concerning the demise of the Florinites.
On November 6 [1952], out of frustration, the three Florinite Hierarchs, Met. Chrysostom of Florina, and Bishops Polycarp and Christopher, resign from their Archpastoral duties, "until a final resolution of the calendar question by a Pan-Orthodox Synod." Protests force Met. Chrysostom to immediately retract his resignation, but Polycarp and Christopher remain as simple monks within the Florinite Synod.
*1954: In February, the simple monks who were once Florinite bishops, i.e., the former Bishops Polycarp and Christopher, return to, and are received as bishops by, the new calendar State Church of Greece.
*1955: On September 8/21, Metropolitan Chrysostom of Florina, the last remaining Florinite Bishop, dies, leaving no successor-bishops for his Synod. ... The widowed Florinites seek, by every means possible, to re-establish their Hierarchy. This led to the uncanonical consecration of Akakios Papas, [who was defrocked by the GOC together with Auxentios for schism] and the establishment of the Akakian Hierarchy....(p.17, Fraser)
I read Father Stephen's book online. It is much less well sourced than you indicate.
To me, it is Matthewite polemic and has to be read as such.
I agree that it is a very complicated history, to a large extent because both the Matthewites and the Florinites were inconsitent themselves.
Father Stephen cites Karamitsos' book and his conclusion that Archbishop Chrysostomos colluded with Archbishop Spyridon to steal the monasteries at Kouvara and Keratea and then destroy the Old Calendarists. But where does he show that this was Archbishop Chrysostomos' position? Karamitsos simply makes an inference from something Archbishop Spyridon said.If this is true, why was Archbishop Chrysostomos arrested and exiled? It doesn't make sense.
In that same book, Karamitsos relates that Archbishop Chrysostomos twice went to the dying Bishop Matthew seeking reconciliation. Shall I write that again? Archbishop Chrysotomos went to Bishop Matthew, twice. Bishop Matthew recognized him and adressed him in a brotherly way, but Abbess Maryam demanded that Archbishop Chrysostomos leave. What conclusions can be drawn from this?
Father Stephen cites an encyclical of the GOC from 1988. This encyclical, written in a childish, mocking tone was reviewed by Father John Romanides. I agree with Father John's conclusion that this official GOC document basically ends up condemning the GOC itself. This is not the only time the Matthewite bishops have essntially condemned themselves. Metropolitan Kyrikos left after he concluded that a 2007 encyclical
denied the Apostolic succesion of the GOC.
From Vladimir Moss' "New Zion in Babylon":
“It was strange that Bishop Matthew should withdraw his signature from all previous decisions of the Synod… Another disturbing feature of this encyclical was the way in which it was addressed to “the former Metropolitan of Demetrias Germanus, until now president of the Sacred Synod”(later he would address him as a mere monk), as if the latter were already defrocked. Presumably he felt that the reference to “false bishops” in the 15th canon he quoted (both here and in his second “excommunication” of September 19 / October 2) was sufficient justification. And yet he nowhere demonstrates that the two metropolitans had uttered heresy. Did he mean the heresy of newcalendarism? But the metropolitans rejected it. In any case, if they were being accused of heresy, they should have been summoned to a trial. Canonical due process requires that a bishop must be tried by at least twelve bishops, that he must be summoned to present his case, and that he can be defrocked in absentia only if he has refused to appear after three summonses by two bishops. If canonical procedure could not be exactly fulfilled in such a small Synod, at any rate some reference to it was surely obligatory. And yet Matthew did not speak of a trial…The most that the two metropolitans could be accused of was inconsistency with regard to the exact status of the new calendarists. To say that they were in the same category as the new calendarists themselves, or that they had accepted communion with them, was demagogical nonsense – neither metropolitan communed with the new calendarists from 1935 until their deaths. And here Bishop Germanos adopts the same uncanonical tactic as Bishop Matthew in calling Metropolitan Germanos “the former metropolitan”, as if he had already been defrocked. Fortunately, Bishop Germanos, unlike Bishop Matthew, was to repent of his hastiness and return into communion with Metropolitan Chrysostom…”
The problem with strict interpretations is that we all condemn ourselves sooner or later. This is not the point of the canons or The Councils. The book of canons has also been called "The Rudder." What does a rudder do? It guides a ship on its course. But the rudder is not the captain. After all, to all converts who attended The Divine Liturgy and were thus converted, if the Church strictly followed the sixth canon of the Council of Laodicea, none of you would have been permitted inside the Church at that time.
