Greetings friends,
This is my first post. I am a convert to Orthodoxy, and currently a catechumen in the GOAA. Yes, I know. I am examining my options and checking my fire escape routes as we speak. However, in trying to understand the GOC approach to the New Calendarists, I believe I hit upon the central issue, or at least a key issue:
When does the private heretical opinion of a hierarch that is held either through simplicity or ignorance, place him in the condition of being formally a heretic? My answer is that when he is reproached by others and is called to give an account for his faith, and he remains stubborn in his opinions, he is then formally a heretic, and ought to be resisted. Before that, he may be materially heretical, but not culpable for his error.
If this is indeed the case, how are we to understand those New Calendar Hierarchs who, through either simplicity or ignorance, maintain communion with ecumenist hierarchs? I cannot bring myself to admit that they all have the same level of culpability before God on an individual basis for adhering to this heresy, and could this explain perhaps pockets of Grace that exist even within the New Calendar church, similar to the condition St. Isaac of Syria found himself in in Saudi Arabia in the Persian Church?
Remember, St. Isaac was a Bishop of a Church whose hierarchy was gradually accepting the heresies of Nestorius and venerated Theodore of Mopsuestia. All the bishops, heretical and Orthodox in Persia were in communion with the Catholicos. How is it possible that they could gradually assimilate a heresy and maintain saints within their church well into the 7th century, but the same cannot be said for the ecumenists? This seems sort of like a double standard? This is the number one issue that keep me from attending the GOC mission parish in my area.
So: When does a privately held heretical opinion become formal heresy? When it is defended after reproval?