The Romanian Old Calendar church and St. Glicherie

[Justice]

In the 1950s, the Romanian Old Calendar church continued its apostolic succession from a New Calendarist bishop whose ordination was after the calendar schism. St. Glicherie reposed in 1985, wouldn't this make his sainthood, and the entire Romanian Old Calendar church invalid?

[Agios_Irineos]

Polemics

[Maria]

Yes, indeed.

Thanks, Bishop Irineos, for moving this thread into Intra-TOC Polemics.

[Maria]

In the 1950s, the Romanian Old Calendar church continued its apostolic succession from a New Calendarist bishop whose ordination was after the calendar schism. St. Glicherie reposed in 1985, wouldn't this make his sainthood, and the entire Romanian Old Calendar church invalid?

Think about this.

If St. Glicherie met this good bishop who was willing to consecrate St. Glicherie, would it be possible that this bishop had repented, and that since God's grace does not switch off like a light-switch, that his consecration of St. Glicherie was most likely valid? So many miracles had happened in the life of St. Glicherie, that I do not believe that God would have abandoned him when he desired to minister to souls and to provide new priests for the underground. Even the New Calendarist priests and bishops started experiencing persecution from the Freemasons who were determined not only to infiltrate the Orthodox Church, but also to destroy every vestige of Orthodox Christianity, whether New Calendar or Old Calendar.

[Justice]

In the 1950s, the Romanian Old Calendar church continued its apostolic succession from a New Calendarist bishop whose ordination was after the calendar schism. St. Glicherie reposed in 1985, wouldn't this make his sainthood, and the entire Romanian Old Calendar church invalid?

Think about this.

If St. Glicherie met this good bishop who was willing to consecrate St. Glicherie, would it be possible that this bishop had repented, and that since God's grace does not switch off like a light-switch, that his consecration of St. Glicherie was most likely valid?

I have no doubt that the bishop repented, though it's still thought provoking.

[Isaakos]

In the 1950s, the Romanian Old Calendar church continued its apostolic succession from a New Calendarist bishop whose ordination was after the calendar schism. St. Glicherie reposed in 1985, wouldn't this make his sainthood, and the entire Romanian Old Calendar church invalid?

If the form of the sacrament is valid, externally speaking, the person received it from a bishop lawfully consecrated, and there is no standing synodical condemnation against the New Calendarists in Romania as of yet (For what has Greece to do with Romania?), then a simple argument is made:

1. When Bishop Galaction repented, he returned to the traditions of his Church. Having done so, and being recognized by the members of the TOC in Romania, whatever was lacking in his episcopacy would have been filled up by his repentance. Therefore his ordinations would be real.

2. There is an essential point St. Nikodemos makes in his commentary on the canons every single Old Calendarist needs to burn into their memory:

Penalties do not apply to individuals until a synod enforces them.

"We must know that the penalties provided by the Canons, such as deposition,
excommunication, and anathematization, are imposed in the third person
according, to grammatical usage, there being no imperative available. In such
cases in order to express a command, the second person would be necessary. I
am going to explain the matter better. The Canons command the synod of living
bishops to depose the priests, or to excommunicate them, or to anathematize
laymen who violate the canons.

Yet, if the synod does not actually effect the deposition of the priests, or the
excommunication, or the anathematization of laymen, these priests and laymen,
are neither actually deposed, nor excommunicated, nor anathematized. However
they are liable to stand trial judicially here regarding deposition,
excommunication, or anathematization, but there regarding divine judgment.
Just as when a king commands his slave to whip another who did something that
offended him, if the slave in question fails to execute the king’s command, that
slave will nevertheless be liable to a trial for the whipping.

So those mindless men commit a great error who say that at the present time
all those in Holy Orders who have been ordained contrary to canons are actually
deposed. It is a priest-accusing tongue that mindlessly speaks foolishness, not
understanding that the command of the canons, without the practical activity of
the second person that is of the synod, remains without any effect. The Apostles
themselves unmistakably explain what they mean in their Canon XLVI. Since
they do not say that any bishop or priest who accepts a baptism performed by
heretics is already and actually in a state of having been deposed, but that they
command that he be deposed, or that he stand trial, and if it be proved that he
did so, then they say, “we command that he be stripped of Holy Orders by your
decision” .

St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain.

View it in GOogle drive if you like, and after downloading it search for any of these phrases.

Now, the question is this-Which synod inside Romania and in relation to the Romanian New Calendarists with any semblance of canonical authority before 1955 declared against the Romanian New Calendarists? None, there were only hieromonks and laity. Therefore, they applied economia.

[Maria]

In the 1950s, the Romanian Old Calendar church continued its apostolic succession from a New Calendarist bishop whose ordination was after the calendar schism. St. Glicherie reposed in 1985, wouldn't this make his sainthood, and the entire Romanian Old Calendar church invalid?

If the form of the sacrament is valid, externally speaking, the person received it from a bishop lawfully consecrated, and there is no standing synodical condemnation against the New Calendarists in Romania as of yet (For what has Greece to do with Romania?), then a simple argument is made:

1. When Bishop Galaction repented, he returned to the traditions of his Church. Having done so, and being recognized by the members of the TOC in Romania, whatever was lacking in his episcopacy would have been filled up by his repentance. Therefore his ordinations would be real.

2. There is an essential point St. Nikodemos makes in his commentary on the canons every single Old Calendarist needs to burn into their memory:

Penalties do not apply to individuals until a synod enforces them.

"We must know that the penalties provided by the Canons, such as deposition,
excommunication, and anathematization, are imposed in the third person
according, to grammatical usage, there being no imperative available. In such
cases in order to express a command, the second person would be necessary. I
am going to explain the matter better. The Canons command the synod of living
bishops to depose the priests, or to excommunicate them, or to anathematize
laymen who violate the canons.

Yet, if the synod does not actually effect the deposition of the priests, or the
excommunication, or the anathematization of laymen, these priests and laymen,
are neither actually deposed, nor excommunicated, nor anathematized. However
they are liable to stand trial judicially here regarding deposition,
excommunication, or anathematization, but there regarding divine judgment.
Just as when a king commands his slave to whip another who did something that
offended him, if the slave in question fails to execute the king’s command, that
slave will nevertheless be liable to a trial for the whipping.

So those mindless men commit a great error who say that at the present time
all those in Holy Orders who have been ordained contrary to canons are actually
deposed. It is a priest-accusing tongue that mindlessly speaks foolishness, not
understanding that the command of the canons, without the practical activity of
the second person that is of the synod, remains without any effect. The Apostles
themselves unmistakably explain what they mean in their Canon XLVI. Since
they do not say that any bishop or priest who accepts a baptism performed by
heretics is already and actually in a state of having been deposed, but that they
command that he be deposed, or that he stand trial, and if it be proved that he
did so, then they say, “we command that he be stripped of Holy Orders by your
decision” .

St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain.

View it in GOogle drive if you like, and after downloading it search for any of these phrases.

Now, the question is this-Which synod inside Romania and in relation to the Romanian New Calendarists with any semblance of canonical authority before 1955 declared against the Romanian New Calendarists? None, there were only hieromonks and laity. Therefore, they applied economia.

Nevertheless, the New Calendarist Romanian Orthodox Church cooperating with the brutal atheistic Freemasons in the Romanian government condemned the Old Calendarists persecuting, betraying them, and even executing them.

Thus, there were no bishops left in the Old Calendar church of Romania, as all the bishops had either capitulated to the communist government or had been killed. Indeed, there were only a handful of true priests who had not capitulated to the atheistic blood-thirsty freemasons. Remember that the persecution in Romania was the worst in all the Soviet block nations. The few remaining Old Calendarist priests were hunted like a pack of animals. They lived in rags in caves. People would sneak into the forests to bring them food and clothing, but there was always the danger that these good Samaritans were being followed.

So, Isaakos, your argument here is vacuous and meaningless as the Romanian Old Calendarists had no synod of bishops who could meet as did the GOC in Greece. Thus there was no way to issue any Encyclical condemning freemasonry , ecumenism, and/or the New Calendar.

Instead, the true priests and hieromonks bravely held onto the Holy Faith because they knew without a doubt that this pernicious heresy was rapidly advancing and was destroying souls. They preached against this heresy at every opportunity and encouraged people to repent and to return to the true faith. Some people did repent only to face an almost immediate and cruel martyrdom by communists who were worse than wild animals. Often too, it was the New Calendarist clergy who were reporting the Old Calendarists to the political authorities as the people stopped paying tithes to the New Calendarist priests and stopped coming to church services, so there were elements of jealousy, anger, hatred, and wounded pride.