GREECE AND THE BALKANS:
THE PEOPLE’S TRUTH (1924-1939)
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He that is not with me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth.-Matthew 12.30.
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The adoption of the new calendar by the State Church of Greece came at a very vulnerable time for the Orthodox Church as a whole. The outward position of the Church had changed radically in the previous ten years. The Russian empire was gone, and the Ecumenical and (especially) the Moscow patriarchates, to which the vast majority of Orthodox Christians belonged, were fighting both external foes (the Bolsheviks and the Turks) and internal schism (“the Living Church” and “the Turkish Orthodox Church”). Neither the remaining Eastern patriarchates, on the one hand, nor the Serbian patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad, on the other, could take the place occupied by the Russian empire and the Ecumenical patriarchate in the preceding centuries. If, as was (temporarily) the case, none of the hierarchs of the Greek Church would refuse to accept the calendar change and break communion with the Archbishop of Athens, there was only one force remaining that could take up the banner of truth – the people.
The position of the laity in the Orthodox Church has often been misunderstood. In Orthodoxy, the laity are neither the inert, impotent, blindly obedient mass of the Roman Catholics, nor the all-powerful, revolutionary horde of the Protestants. There are two vital functions which can only be performed by canonically consecrated clergy: the administration of the sacraments, including the ordination of bishops and priests, and the definition of the faith, including the position of the Church in relation to heretics and schismatics. But while the laity cannot take the leading role in these two functions, they do have an important confirmatory role in them. Thus strictly speaking a bishop or priest cannot celebrate the Divine Liturgy without the presence of at least one layman. Likewise a bishop cannot ordain a priest without the consent of the people (expressed by shouting “axios!” or “he is worthy!”). And a definition of the faith that is rejected by the people will remain a dead letter.
Thus we read: “I shall judge the bishop and the layperson. The sheep are rational and not irrational, so that no layman may ever say: ‘I am a sheep, and not a shepherd, and I give no account of myself, but the shepherd shall see to it, and he alone shall pay the penalty for me.’ For even as the sheep that follows not the good shepherd shall fall to the wolves unto its own destruction, so too it is evident that the sheep that follows the evil shepherd shall acquire death; for he shall utterly devour it. Therefore it is required that we flee from destructive shepherds.”[1]
In the long, over 1000-year struggle with the western heresies, the Orthodox people had never found themselves so bereft of clerical leadership as in 1924. The signing of the uniate council of Lyons in 1274 and the deposition of the true patriarch Arsenius the next year had been largely the work of the emperor and his stooge, John Beccus; and there were many clergy who resisted the Unia, which in any case lasted only eight years (to 1282). The position after the council of Florence was more serious: St. Mark of Ephesus was the only Greek hierarch who refused to sign the Unia. And it lasted for a longer period of time (1438-80).
There followed a long period in which, although there were some latinizing (and protestantizing) patriarchs, the Church as a whole remained united against the western peril. Thus when the new calendar was introduced by the Pope in 1582 in order to create divisions among the Orthodox, it was synodically condemned no less than eight times: in 1583, 1587, 1593, 1722, 1827, 1848, 1895 and 1904. Towards the end of this period ecumenist tendencies began to increase in the Orthodox Churches, but opposition to the new calendar remained strong.
However, already in their encyclical of 1848, the Eastern Patriarchs had hinted at the role the people would have to play independently of the clergy: “With us neither Patriarchs nor Councils could ever introduce anything new, because the defender of religion is the very body of the Church, or the people itself, who wanted their religion to remain forever unchanged and in accord with the religion of their Fathers.”
The question that arose in 1924 was: did the people (and a handful of clergy) have the right to separate themselves from all the bishops and, in the absence of any hierarchs to support them in their struggle against innovation, declare themselves to be the truly Orthodox Church? The answer supplied by the Holy Tradition of the Church was a clear: yes. While certain functions that can only be performed by bishops, such as the ordination of priests, are temporarily suspended in such a situation, the Church does not cease to exist, and remains there, and only there, where the True Faith is confessed.
For “where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them”, said the Bishop of bishops, the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 18.20). And the 15th canon of the First-and-Second Council of Constantinople praises those who break with a heretical bishop even before the passing of a synodical decision against him. Indeed, there are several cases in the Church’s history of holy men either breaking immediately in this way with heretical bishops – St. Hypatius in the fourth century, for example; or dying out of communion with all the bishops of the Church and yet being praised and glorified by succeeding generations – St. Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century, for example, and St. Arsenius of Paros in the nineteenth.The Miracle of the Cross
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The calendar change in the State Church of Greece took place on March 10, 1924 (March 23, according to the new calendar, which we shall cite from now on). On that day, which was a Sunday, the future hierarch-confessor of the True Orthodox Church, Archimandrite Germanus (Varykopoulos) was serving the Divine Liturgy in his church of St. Alexander in Palaion Faliron. Having come to the end of the Liturgy, he commemorated “the holy 13 days whose memory we celebrate!”[2]
On March 25, 1924, two important events took place simultaneously in Athens. The great feast of the Annunciation was celebrated according to the new calendar by Archbishop Chrysostom (Papadopoulos). And the Greek monarchy was abrogated (without a vote) by the revolutionary government.
As the journalist Nicholas Kraniotakis wrote: “Under strict orders, and to the sound of trumpets, the soldiers detached the Crown from the Cross and threw it to the ground! And Greek democracy was born!..”[3]
This is another indication of the close spiritual link between events in Greece and in Russia in those years. In both, anti-monarchism in politics was joined to renovationism in religion.
In Greece since 1917 the anti-monarchists and renovationists had been led by Venizelos in the State and Metaxakis in the Church – Freemasons both.[4] Their leading opponents on both accounts were Metropolitans Germanos of Demetriades and Chrysostomos of Florina – the first metropolitans of the True Orthodox Church of Greece from 1935.
On April 6, the eve of the true feast of the Annunciation, a vast crowd gathered in the courtyard outside the Annunciation cathedral. The next day the newspaper Vradini reported: “The priests have been forbidden, under pain of defrocking, to liturgise or chant the troparia of the Annunciation today. Also forbidden is the ringing of the bells of the Russian cathedral (of the Philhellenes), and today’s celebration of the Liturgy at the metochion of the Holy Sepulchre, although the Patriarchate of Jerusalem has not accepted the new calendar.
“In spite of all the measures that had been taken, multitudes of the faithful inundated the metropolitan cathedral from the afternoon to late at night, and at their persistent entreaty one priest was found who chanted a paraklesis, being ‘obedient,’ as he said, ‘to the threats of the people’. The wardens wanted to close the church, but in view of the fanaticism of the worshippers the cathedral remained open into the night. Three miracles took place at the metropolitan cathedral.. Seven-year-old Stasinopoulos, a deaf-mute and paralytic since birth, was brought by his mother to the icon of the Mother of God, convulsed by spasms. A little while later he arose amidst general compunction, pronounced the words “mama-granny-papa” and began to walk.
“A little later a seventeen-year-old paralytic was healed, and.. a hard-working deaf-mute. The latter spoke yesterday for the first time in thirty years, declaring that he would not go to work today. Although the cathedral wardens know the names of these two, they refuse to publish them, affirming that no miracle has taken place, although the contrary is confessed by the whole congregation.”[5]
Another newspaper, Skrip, reported on the same day: “Movement inside the cathedral was impossible. The faithful listened to the vespers, and after the dismissal anxiously discussed the change in the worshipping calendar and the transfer of the feast of the Annunciation.
“Two thousand pious Christians, together with women and children, unanimously proclaimed their adherence to the holy dogmas of religion, which the democrats have come to change, and one voice was heard: ‘We will not become Franks! We are Orthodox Christians, and we will remain Orthodox Christians!’”[6]
Similar scenes, and similar miracles, took place in other regional centres, such as Nauplion, Tripolis, Thessalonica and Corinth. The secular authorities everywhere supported the new ecclesiastical regime.
The resistance of the people in this first phase of the struggle was greatly helped by the very pious and traditionalist refugees from Anatolia, such as the great wonderworking priest Arsenius of Cappadocia.[7]
The faithful Christians, obeying the teachings of the holy Fathers and imitating the Christians of old who in similar situations broke communion with the innovators, themselves broke off all ecclesiastical communion with the innovating Church of Greece. They prayed at home or in country chapels, served by a very small number of priests who were continually persecuted by the police at the instigation of Chrysostom Papadopoulos.
From the beginning the Lord showed by many signs and wonders that He was with the adherents of the Orthodox Calendar. Thus a miracle took place on January 6, 1925 – that is, the eve of the feast of the Nativity of Christ according to the Orthodox Calendar and the feast of the Theophany according to the new. The parishioners of the new calendar church of the Holy Apostles in Acropolis were following the Divine Liturgy. Suddenly they saw that tears were flowing from the eyes of the icon of the Mother of God, and blood from the heads of the Apostles.
The amazed parishioners were not slow to see in this a sign of God’s anger at “the change in religion”, that they were baptizing Christ when He had not yet been born. The church authorities sent an archimandrite to convince the people that it was no sign from God but “an effluence from the wood, which is fir and is acted upon by excessive heat or also by… cold”! The archimandrite was laughed off the ambon. Finally, the authorities closed the church, preventing worshippers from entering. Today the church is denuded of icons and visited only by… tourists![8]
A critical turning-point in the history of the Greek Old Calendarist Church was the appearance of the sign of the Cross in the sky over an old calendarist monastery near Athens, which greatly encouraged the people in their faith that God was with them in the struggle against the innovators.
Bishop Lazarus (Puhalo) writes: “In 1925, on the eve of the Exaltation of the All-Honourable and Life-giving Cross of our Saviour, September 14 according to the Orthodox Church calendar [27 according to the new], the all-night vigil was served in the church of St. John the Theologian in suburban Athens. By 9 o’clock that evening, more than 2000 true Orthodox faithful had gathered in and around the church for the service, since very few true Orthodox churches had been accidentally left open by the civil authorities. Such a large gathering of people could not, however, go unnoticed by the authorities. Around eleven p.m. the authorities despatched a battalion of police to the church ‘to prevent any disorders which might arise from such a large gathering.’ The gathering was too large for the police to take any direct action or to arrest the priest at that time and so they mingled with the crowd of worshippers in the already over-flowing courtyard of the church.
“Then, regardless of the true motives for their presence, against their own will, but according to the Will which exceeds all human power, they became participants in the miraculous experience of the crowd of believers.
“At 11.30 there began to appear in the heavens above the church, in the direction of the North-East, a bright, radiant Cross of light. The light not only illuminated the church and the faithful but, in its rays, the stars of the clear, cloudless sky became dim and the church-yard was filled with an almost tangible light. The form of the Cross itself was an especially dense light and it could be clearly seen as a Byzantine cross with an angular cross bar towards the bottom. This heavenly miracle lasted for half an hour, until midnight, and then the Cross began slowly to raise up vertically, as the cross in the hands of the priests does in the ceremony of the Exaltation of the Cross in church. Having come straight up, the Cross began gradually to fade away.
“Human language is not adequate to convey what took place during the apparition. The entire crowd fell prostrate upon the ground with tears and began to sing hymns, praising the Lord with one heart and one mouth. The police were among those who wept, suddenly discovering, in the depths of their hearts, a childlike faith. The crowd of believers and battalion of police were transformed into one, unified flock of faithful. All were seized with a holy ecstasy.
“The vigil continued until four a.m., when all this human torrent streamed back into the city, carrying the news of the miracle because of which they were still trembling and weeping.
“Many of the unbelievers, sophists and renovationists, realizing their sin and guilt, but unwilling to repent, tried by every means to explain away or deny this miracle. The fact that the form of the cross had been so sharply and clearly that of the Byzantine Cross (sometimes called the Russian Cross), with three cross-bars, the bottom one at an angle, completely negated any arguments of accidental physical phenomena.
“The fact that such an apparition of the cross also occurred during the height of the first great heresy [Arianism – the reference is to the appearance of the sign of the Cross over Jerusalem in 351] must strike the Orthodox with an especial sense of the magnitude of the calendar question and of all that is connected with it. No sensible person can discuss this question lightly, with secular reasoning or with worldly arguments. Renovationists, like the Arians in 351, are left without extenuation or mitigation.”[9]
On hearing of the miracle of the sign of the cross, the new calendarist bishops issued the following statement: “What appeared before the old calendarists, if it really appeared, was God’s testimony that they are in great prelest. The sign was telling them: ‘Oh, the unreasonable ones, do not you know that the Exaltation of the Holy Cross passed? So many hundreds of thousands of people agree on the fact that today is September 26, and you are still thinking it is Septembar 13 and the eve of Exaltation of the Holy Cross! Why, the unfaithful ones, do you celebrate Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the 27th, when it is to be done on September 14?’ So, that is what this could mean, if there was any appearance at all.”[10]The Romanian Old Calendarists
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In other countries, too, the introduction of the new calendar was encountering resistance – more often from the people than from the bishops. The Russian people had already rejected the sly attempts of the Bolsheviks to introduce the new calendar the previous year. And Russian monks continued for several decades to struggle against the new calendar in the monastery of Valaam, which until the Second World War was in Finland and therefore in the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
“On September 25, 1925,” writes Schema-Monk Nicholas of Valaam, “there was a division of people in Valaam as to the ‘old’ and ‘new’ style. Many of the brothers remained true to the old style. Legal proceedings began. The church administration arrived; there was a court with Abbot Paulinus in charge. They began to summon the brothers one by one, and many were expelled from the monastery. Then my turn also came. I went into the room, and there sat Abbot Paulinus with others from the church administration. Father Abbot said, ‘Here is a slave of God; ask him.’ One of them said that he would speak and that everything should be recorded. They asked, ‘Do you accept Fr. Paulinus as Abbot?’ ‘Will you go to church services according to the new calendar?’ I could not answer this question; it was as if my tongue had become paralysed. They hesitated and said, ‘Well, why aren’t you answering?’ I couldn’t say anything. Then they said: ‘Well, go on, slave of God, and think this over.’
“I began to pray to the Mother of God, my ‘Surety’, in my heart. ‘Tell me and indicate my life’s path: Which side should I go to, the new or old style? Should I go to the cathedral or somewhere else?’ And I, the sinful one, prayed to the Mother of God during my obedience in the kitchen. When I finished my evening obedience, I went to my cell and thought in the simplicity of my heart, ‘Why don’t you answer me, Mother of God?’ But the grace of God did not abandon me, a sinner. He wants salvation for all. Suddenly the cathedral appeared before me, the same as it is: the same height, length and width. I was amazed at this miraculous apparition – how could it enter my small cell? But my inner voice said to me: ‘Everything is possible with God. There is nothing impossible for Him.’ ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘one must go to church in the cathedral according to the new style.’ Then, as I was thinking thus, a blue curtain came down from above, in the middle of which was a golden cross. The cathedral became invisible to me, and the inner voice said to me: ‘Go to the old style and hold to it.’ And I heard a woman’s voice coming from above the corner: ‘If you want to be saved, hold fast to the traditions of the Holy Apostles and the Holy Fathers.’ And then the same thing was repeated a second time, and the third time the voice said: ‘If you want to be saved, keep fast to the tradition of the Holy Apostles and Holy Fathers, but not these “wise” men.’ After this miracle, everything disappeared and I remained alone in my cell. My heart began to rejoice that the Lord had indicated the path of salvation to me, according to the prayers of the Mother of God.”[11]
Especially heroic was the struggle of the Old Calendarists in Romania, where the new calendar was introduced in the same year as in Greece, October 1, 1924 becoming October 14. In reward for this, on February 4, 1925, the Romanian Church was proclaimed a patriarchate by Constantinople. And on November 1, Metropolitan Miron (Cristea), a former uniate, was enthroned as new calendar patriarch of Romania.
Resistance to the reform was particularly strong in Bessarabia, where, as we have seen, there had already been strong resistance to the union of Bessarabia with Romania and the removal of Church Slavonic from the churches. “The patriotically minded Bessarabian population,” writes Glazkov, “who took a very cautious attitude to any attempt by the Bessarabian authorities to liquidate the national particularities of the Moldavian people, met the reform with protests. ‘The Union of Orthodox Christians’ immediately condemned Metropolitan Gurias, who carried out the decision of the Synod, and began an active campaign against the new calendar style by publishing apologetic literature and conducting popular meetings and processions. Some of the Bessarabian priests who considered the reform of the calendar to be uncanonical supported the protests of the laity and rejected the Gregorian calendar. Around the churches where the Church Slavonic language and the Julian calendar were preserved (for example, the church of the Alexander Nevsky brotherhood), there gathered priests and laity. Thus in April, 1926 thousands of believers gathered at the church of St. Panteleimon in Kishinev for a pannikhida for Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II. Some priests openly celebrated all the feasts according to the old style in front of a large number of believers, which was defined by the authorities as rebellion, for many lay Old Calendarists were subjected to direct humiliations by the new style clergy. There was an attempt to build, in Kishinev, a church in direct submission to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who had remained faithful to the old style. According to the police, the majority of the population resisted the ecclesiastical reform, only individual parishes passed over to the Gregorian calendar. It is noteworthy that if, at the beginning, the civil authorities were quite conciliatory towards the Old Calendarists, allowing them to celebrate Pascha and other Church feasts according to the old and new styles, the official Romanian Church authorities took upon themselves police-fiscal functions in exposing and repressing them…”[12]
In Bessarabia, or former Russian Moldavia, the leadership of the movement against the new style had been taken up by the white clergy and the city intelligentsia. In inner Moldavia, however, the leadership was taken up by the monks. The only bishop to oppose the reform was Bishop Gerasimus. He was told that if could not accept the new style, he should leave the country. So he left and went to live in Paris.
Out of the 14,000 parish priests, almost none stood up against the calendar reform. The only exception to this, as Metropolitan Blaise, the present chief-hierarch of the True Orthodox Church of Romania, writes, was “Archimandrite Galacteon (Kordun), who at that time was serving as parish priest in the metropolitan cathedral in Bucharest and who used to preach there when there was no bishop.
“… Fr. Galacteon, who later became our first metropolitan, fought against the reform, but was unable to do anything, since he was only an archimandrite. He was very capable, and had studied in Petersburg with the future Patriarchs Alexis of Moscow and Cyril of Bulgaria, graduating with the degree of doctor of theology. Later, in 1935, he was consecrated to the episcopate – they thought he had changed his views. Three bishops who had been consecrated before the change of calendar participated in the consecration, so [apostolic] succession was not broken…
“This is what happened, for example, in Neamt monastery, where St. Paisius Velichkovsky was once the abbot. When the reform took place there were about 2000 monks in the monastery, 800 of whom were clergy. This was the biggest monastery in Romania. It was here that the strongest movement against the new style arose. Two months before the reform the abbot warned the brotherhood: be careful, reforms are coming, do not accept them. This was as it were a prophecy. But out of the 800 hieromonks only 30 (not counting the monks) were against the reform; and of these 30 only 6 stood out openly in opposition – the rest did not separate for material reasons. By a decree of the metropolitan of Moldavia all the clergy who did not accept the new style were threatened with deposition, exile from the monastery and confiscation of their property – the man would be outlawed. Then a small group of monks with the most devoted and zealous priests left the monastery, and it is from this group that our Church begins its history. Neamt monastery as a whole accepted the new style, later they also renounced St. Paisius’ rule, for the keeping of which the monastery was renowned. Our monastery of Slatioara, which is not far from Niamt, inherited this rule and tradition.
“Here are the names of the (clerical) inhabitants of the monastery who resisted all their lives: Hieromonk Fr. Glycerius (later metropolitan), Hierodeacon David (the first abbot of the monastery at Slatioara), Hieromonk Pambo, Fr. Baruch, Fr. Gimnasius, Fr. Zosima, Fr. Gamaliel, Fr. Damascene, who died in the woods near the monastery. We also know the names of other monks of Neamt who resisted the new style. There were also nuns: Mother Macaria, who was the helper of the abbess of the biggest women’s monastery in the country, St. Agapia’s, which became new calendarist (it now has 450 nuns), and who with her nuns founded the first women’s monastery in our Church.
“The small groups of clergy and monastics of these men’s and women’s monasteries – the purest, who had God in their hearts and not their property, rejected the reforms and were driven out of the monasteries – had to live in the world. The pious laity who supported them became like bees constructing hives, the churches, while these clerics were like queen-bees. That was how our Church came into being.”[13]
“Two months before the calendar change,” writes Metropolitan Blaise in another place, “something very momentous happened in the great Church of the Neamt Monastery. It was on the Eve of the Dormition of the Mother of God. The Ecclesiarch went to the Church to prepare all that was needed and to light the candles and kandelia for the Midnight Service. The weather was calm, with clear skies and numerous stars; no cloud was in sight. Suddenly, a great bolt of lightning cme down from the heavens and, passing through a window in the dome of the Church, struck in front of the Miracle-working Icon of the Mother of God. It hit the stone floor, and a section of stone collapsed; from the impact, the candlestand that was affixed to this slab in front of the Icon was knocked over.[14] When the Fathers and Brothers came to Church, the Priest who was serving told them what had happened; seeing the damage done by the lightning strike, they all concluded that it was a Divine sign.
“Here is another incident. When Father Glycherie reached the Coroi Ravine, a spiritual uneasiness overcame him. One night, after lengthy prayer, he was beset by heavy thoughts. ‘How is it possible,’ he said, ‘that in our country many Priests with advanced theological training, together with a large number of intellectuals, are leaving the Old Calendar, as it was bequeathed to the people by the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, who have honored it from times of old? Should I not abandon the Old Calendar and be one of these? Am I making a mistake before God by not changing?’ Late in the night, he had a beautiful vision: from the West, a dark cloud appeared; it tried to cover the whole world and was moving furiously towards the East, howling like a monster. In front of the cloud, a powerful storm formed, adorned with a chain as black as tar, on which black Crosses appeared. Everyone was frightened. But looking towards the East, he saw a snow-white cloud, glittering like gold; before it was a chain of gold, from which there were hanging Crosses of gold.
“A choir of Hierarchs also appeared – all with golden vestments, – walking towards the black cloud. In a designated place, the two clouds collided and the dark cloud fell; and in its place, a sea of water appeared, engulfing the earth…”[15]
Metropolitan Cyprian writes: “The Romanian Patriarchate, both in 1926 and 1929, celebrated Pascha with the Latins, constituting an infringement of the Orthodox tradition of centuries. Indeed, on the second occasion that this was done, Patriarch Miron, having the undivided support of the Uniate (Greek-Catholic) prime minister, Julius Maniu, and several others among the clergy, compelled all of the Romanian Metropolises to proceed with the common celebration of Pascha with the Papists, a fact which evoked great commotion in the ranks of the Romanian Church. Metropolitan Gurias of Bessarabia openly criticized Miron and, ignoring the Patriarchal decree, ordered his churches to celebrate with the other autocephalous Orthodox Churches (i.e. with the entire Orthodox world, with the exception of the innovative Church of Finland). Patriarch Miron’s action also scandalized these other Orthodox Churches, many of which reacted in protest. As well, the White Russian clergy of Bucharest took a particularly strong position during those trying days, ignoring the Patriarchal order and celebrating Pascha in accordance with the traditional canonical decrees.
“The uncanonical and un-Orthodox celebration of Pascha with the Latins deeply grieved the reverent Romanians, many of whom returned to the Old Calendar. Among them were three Hieromonks, as well as two Romanian Priest-monks who had returned to Romania from Mt. Athos. Hieromonk Glycerius, who had taken a leading position in the Old Calendar movement from the beginning, began to build churches in the vicinity of Neamt Monastery. The first was established in the village of Vanatori. By 1936 he had built about forty large churches, the majority of them in Moldavia.”[16]
The Romanian monks on Mount Athos fully supported their Old Calendarist fellow-countrymen in the homeland. Thus in 1930, “there arrived in the Moldavian skete [of the Forerunner] from Romania one of the skete’s hieromonks, Simeon, a fifty-year-old who had been sent by Patriarch Miron to propagandise the new style on Athos. He brought with him a lot of money… from Romania. He also brought with him from Romania a lawyer, who was armed with an agreement obtained in Athens to conduct negotiations over the return of the metochion on the island of Tasso. The skete-dwellers received him with honour. They promised to gather the brotherhood and speak to them in the church about accepting the new style. But they prepared a trap for him. They summoned him to the hall, cut off his beard and pigtail, took the money sent for propaganda, put a jacket and hat on him and drove him out.. He appealed to the police in Karyes [the capital of Athos] for help, but they replied that this did not come within the compass of their responsibilities. This was the end of the propaganda for the new style on Athos. This was already the Romanians’ second piece of trickery. The first time they had received a letter from the patriarch suggesting that they change to the new style. The skete-dwellers, on receiving this letter, served a triumphant all-night vigil, and, on the next day, a liturgy with a moleben, after which they pronounced an anathema on the patriarch, composing an official document which they sent on to him.”[17]
In 1925 Metropolitan Anastasy of Kishinev wrote to Protopriest Vladimir Polyakov saying that he still considered himself head of the Bessarabian Church and was waiting for the opportunity to return there. In 1930 he concelebrated with Fr. Glycerius in Jerusalem…[18]The Struggle on Mount Athos
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The centre of the struggle against the new calendar was Mount Athos. In 1924, all the monasteries with the exception of Vatopedi had stopped commemorating the Ecumenical Patriarch. On Great Thursday, 1926, 450 hieromonks and monks on Mount Athos led by the Romanian Fr. Arsenius Kotteas signed “The Sacred League of the Zealot Monks” for the defence of Orthodoxy against the new calendar. In the same year the League published its Constitutional Charter under the heading “The Anchor of Orthodoxy” until it was banned by a new Charter for Mount Athos ratified by the Greek government in 1927. This did not stop the zealot monks, however, who initiated a vigorous campaign against the new calendar throughout Greece. This led to the expulsion of nineteen zealots from the sketes of Vatopedi and Koutloumousiou in 1927. Some were allowed to circulate freely through Greece, while others were confined to a monastery in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos.
In 1926 the “Association of the Orthodox” in Athens was replaced by the “Greek Religious Community of the True Orthodox Christians”. This Community now joined with the Athonite Sacred League to work for the return of the Orthodox Calendar. In 1926, Hieromonk Matthew (Karpadakis), the confessor of three of the Athonite monasteries, went to Athens to help the True Orthodox there, and in 1929 the Sacred League sent two more hieromonks.[19]
In 1927 a patriarchal committee succeeded in negotiating a compromise that was accepted under pressure by all the monasteries but not by all the monks. The committee assured the Athonites that the calendar reform was not final in that it had not been accepted by all the Orthodox Churches. Moreover, the issue was to be reconsidered at an impending Pan-Orthodox Council that would resolve the matter. In this way, the committee persuaded the Athonites to continue following the Old Calendar while commemorating the Ecumenical Patriarch, pending the resolution of the question by a Pan-Orthodox Council.
The compromise was accepted by all the Athonite monasteries, but only partially by Esphigmenou, which did not resume the commemoration of the Patriarch but did continue to receive his representatives and to commune with other monasteries that commemorated him. Moreover, they continued to concelebrate at the cathedral of the Protatou in Karyes, where the Patriarch was commemorated.[20]
However, many of the monks refused to accept the compromise – which turned out to be a deception in that the new calendar was not abolished by any Pan-Orthodox Council. The spirit of these zealot monks is well caught in the following excerpt from the life of the zealot monk Habbakuk “the barefoot”: “After the adoption of the new calendar, a large number of Athonite Fathers decided to stop commemorating their bishop, who was subject to the Patriarch, and to break communion with the latter and with every church that accepted the innovation of the new calendar or even continued to be in communion with the innovators. But the majority of the monks did not dare to subscribe to this decision; whence the schism which continues to this day and whose effects are felt more and more acutely. At the beginning, twenty-four monks from the monastery of the Great Lavra rebelled, among whom was the peaceable Habbakuk.
“The quarrel was so intense that shouting could be heard even in the courtyard of the monastery. For a place in which a tranquil calm had reigned only shortly before, it was a harsh trial that suddenly flared up. Father Habbakuk shut himself in his cell. Prayer-rope in his hand, he prayed without ceasing that God bring back peace to sorely tried Athos. The monks who were faithful to Tradition continued, as before, to work in the monastery, but since they could no longer accept the commemoration of the patriarch they were not in communion of prayer with the other Fathers and celebrated separately, in a large chapel which had been granted them. Soon Fr. Habbakuk was exiled for a certain period to Vigla, to the cave of St. Athanasius. But very quickly the Fathers, seeing how noble his cause was and how much they loved him, could not stand it any longer and asked for his recall to the monastery. This time he was given the service of nurse; he was attached to the great hospital which the Lavra had for the numerous old or sick members of the community…
“However, the evil one again lay in wait. Soon his position as an old calendarist brought the elder a second exile to the cave of St. Athanasius. It was not long, however, before the sick complained: the nurse who had replaced Fr. Habbakuk did not have the strength to follow the routine of his predecessor in the very testing service of helping the sick. For Fr. Habbakuk was known to have a very strong constitution, he was the most dedicated worker of them all and never felt tired. So the sick very quickly got him back through their supplications! And one should have seen the enthusiasm with which the monks and the sick, who all loved him, reserved for his return.
“At the beginning of 1927 the community wanted to put an end, once and for all, to the pitiless quarrel which would end by destroying the monastery. And to assure them of a better success, they sent a written invitation to the governor, asking him to come and preside over the synaxis of the elders which would debate the question of the zealots faithful to the calendar of the Fathers for the last time. At the suggestion of a brother doctor, Fr. Athanasius Kambanaou, who was himself a zealot, they had elected Fr. Habbakuk to represent these Fathers. All the elders were present with the governor in the chair.
“He immediately asked Habbakuk: ‘Father, how do you explain your deserting a community in the heart of which you had previously sown anarchy? And tell me: why are you not in communion with the other Fathers?’ Fr. Habbakuk replied with meekness and humility: ‘Has your Excellency the Governor read the holy canons of the Rudder?’ ‘And what does the Rudder say, Father?’ asked the other. Fr. Habbakuk replied promptly: ‘If you don’t know it, Sir, go and read it first. Then you can come and judge us.’
“Judging that this reply constituted a grave insult to authority, the synaxis immediately exiled its author to the holy monastery of Xeropotamou. Poor Habbakuk was driven out of his place of repentance for the third time.
“About two months later, he was recalled from his exile. That day, which was March 9, they even asked him to be present at an all-night vigil with the governor. And in the morning, immediately after the service which had lasted all night, the governor mounted his mule and hurried back in haste to Karyes. Then Fr. Habbakuk, seeing an opportunity to make him hear the voice of reason, took the animal by the halter and set off on the path with him. And as they were going along he spoke to him as he knew how. He explained to him in a gentle way which had its effect on the author why the Fathers of the Holy Mountain were opposed to the change in the calendar, and he made him see how the ecclesiastical texts formed a good basis and justification for such an opposition. Very soon the governor was moved by the simplicity and childlike enthusiasm which Habbakuk put in his words, as well as by his admirable mastery of Holy Scripture. And it did not take him long to come to the conclusion that he was dealing with a virtuous man who was in love with an ideal. So immediately he arrived at Karyes he asked for the zealot to be returned without delay to his home monastery. Some days later, the Great Lavra received Habbakuk into its bosom again.
“However, his return did not take place without disappointment. Of the zealot fathers who had been his companions in the struggle, almost all had fled, some of their own free will and others constrained by force. And the few who remained had hastened to rejoin the Catholicon. From then on, Fr. Habbakuk had no peace until the day when, with one of the brothers who also loved the virtues, he left the monastery…
“Thus it was his love for the apostolic Tradition of the Church, a pure and disinterested love which was proof against tribulations and penalties, that always made him struggle to discern the will of God in everything. It was this love that had merited him exile to Vigla. But he had his reward: for it was also there, in the solitude of Vigla, that he was granted a multitude of spiritual goods, goods which were clearly not earned without sweat and grief, but which were great gifts for all that.
“… One day a monk whom he loved very much, Fr. Ephraim who was from the Great Lavra like himself, asked why he had become a zealot. He was given a reply full of a frank realism: ‘Because God will call me to account; he will say: “Habbakuk, you knew the law of the Church, how did you come to trample it underfoot?’ And he added that the new calendar was a ‘sacrifice of Cain’.”[21]The Struggle in Greece
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Led by the Athonite confessors, the Old Calendarists continued to defy the innovators on the mainland and islands of Greece.
On October 25, 1925, four nuns from the monastery of St. Pelagia on the island of Tinos were sent for trial before an ecclesiastical court for breaking communion with the new calendarists. The court decreed that they should be exiled, but they ignored this order and continued to carry out missionary work among the pilgrims who came to venerate the wonder-working icon of the Mother of God on Tinos. On April 14, 1926, three of them were sent for trial in Athens. During the trial, Bishop Sinesius of Thebes said to one of the nuns, Abbess Eupraxia, who was also his cousin: “If you do not repent and accept the decision of the Holy Synod concerning the calendar, I personally will take off your cassock.” “I grieve,” replied the abbess, “that kindred blood flows in our veins, and that you have broken your hierarchical oath. I will say just one thing to you: ‘I prefer to go to Paradise in coloured clothes but Orthodox, than to be in hell in my cassock but together with schismatics!’ Seven hierarchs under the presidency of Chrysostom Papadopoulos sentenced the nuns to be deprived of their monastic schema and excommunicated. Then the ten leading zealots in the monastery were expelled. But the rest continued the struggle.[22]
In 1926, in the village of Nicetas in Khalkidiki, the True Orthodox priest, Archimandrite Hilarion Ouzounopoulos, was arrested and given three months in prison in spite of the resistance of his parishioners. Fr. Hilarion was called a “counter-revolutionary”. From this it is evident that the True Orthodox in Greece shared not only their name and their faith but even the form of their accusation with the True Orthodox of Russia.[23]
At Christmas in the year 1926, Chrysostom Papadopoulos ordered the closing of the True Orthodox church of St. Parasceva, Aiantios on the island of Salamis. So the priest, Fr. Christopher Psillides, decided to celebrate the Divine Liturgy outside, opposite the doors of the church, in spite of the December cold. The ecclesiastical authorities on the island sent some sailors to the church to seize the priest, but after arriving and surrounding the worshippers they decided to disobey orders and go back.[24]
In Thessalonica on the Sunday of the Samaritan woman, 1927, Fr. Stergius Liouras, the married priest of the True Orthodox Church of the Three Hierarchs, was arrested after the Liturgy on the orders of the new calendarist metropolitan. In 1935 he was again seized on the order of the same metropolitan and beaten by the police. He died a few days later.[25]
On November 21, 1927, the local authorities moved to arrest the priest of the True Church in Mandra, Attica. However, the parishioners formed a wall to defend their pastor, and in the ensuing scuffle a young married woman, Catherine Routti, was fatally wounded. She died on November 28, the first martyr of the Old Calendarist movement in Greece.[26]
On the Sunday of Orthodoxy, 1928, on the orders of Chrysostom Papadopoulos, police came to seize the priest of the True Orthodox church of St. Marina, Liopesi, Attica. The priest escaped, but several parishioners were taken to Koropi prison.[27]
On April 22, 1928, Hieromonk Arsenius Sakellarios was taken to Lamia police station. Then the local new calendarist metropolitan put him on public trial, at which he was officially defrocked and the hair of his beard and head cut off. Then he was released.[28]
On April 7, 1929, the Annunciation Liturgy at the True Orthodox church of the Annunciation, Kertezi, Kalavryta, was forbidden by the police because the priest did not have the permission of the local new calendarist metropolitan. The church was besieged, and the chief of police on horseback threatened to shoot the whole congregation. But the people refused to hand over their priest, saying, “We’ll all die with him”. The policeman took out his revolver, but the people stood firm. Eventually he had to give in.[29]
In 1929, on the feast of St. George according to the new calendar, Fr. Nicholas, the new calendarist priest of the church of the Forerunner, Mesoropi, Pangaion was struck by the incongruity of celebrating the feast of St. George during the period of the Great Fast (something that never happens according to the Orthodox Calendar). He went to his local bishop and asked him for permission to celebrate the feast of St. George according to the Orthodox Calendar. The bishop gave permission. However, when Fr. Nicholas continued to celebrate according to the old calendar, a persecution was stirred up against him. And as he felt the approach of death, he told his parishioners: “When I die and they stop you from burying me in the cemetery, bury me in my garden. But if they come and take my body away by force, I adjure you not to follow my funeral procession!”
The new calendarists set the date of Fr. Nicholas’ trial for November, but he died on October 19. The new calendarists came to bury him, but his widow refused to hand over his body. Then the new calendarist bishop came to the town, and sent a priest to the widow. He, too, was rebuffed.
Then the True Orthodox laypeople began to bury their pastor in his garden, as he had ordered. But then the bishop came with police and forbade the burial, ordering the police to seize the body. The parishioners at first resisted, but then, not wanting bloodshed, they kissed the body, threw some earth on it and then allowed it to be taken away.[30]
While the Greek confessors were suffering in this way, the Eastern Patriarchs were one by one entering into communion with Metropolitan Sergius in Russia. Sergius’ church organisation was legalised by the authorities in August, 1927, after which first Patriarch Damian of Jerusalem, then Patriarch Gregory of Antioch and then, in December, Patriarch Basil III of Constantinople wrote to Sergius recognising him – although Basil did not immediately break relations with the renovationists.[31] Thus did the traitors of Orthodoxy in the Greek- and Russian-speaking Churches join hands over the tortured minds and bodies of the True Orthodox Christians.Not Bowing the Knee to Baal
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Although the people with their few priests were essentially alone in openly opposing the calendar change, there were still some who had not “bowed the knee to Baal” in “the king’s palace” – the hierarchy headed by Chrysostom Papadopoulos.
Thus Metropolitan Germanus of Demetrias protested against the introduction of the new calendar and held it in abeyance in his diocese until February 15, 1928.[32] Again, “on July 2, 1929, in the presence of forty-four metropolitans, Chrysostom suddenly demanded the immediate signature of the hierarchs present to a report he had prepared approving the calendar change and condemning those who stayed with the old. This satanic plan of Chrysostom’s was opposed by the metropolitans of Kassandreia, Maronia, Ioannina, Druinopolis, Florina, Demetrias, Samos and Khalkis. When the archbishop insisted, thirteen hierarchs left, while of the fifty-one who remained twenty-seven against four signed Chrysostom’s report.”[33] Indeed, it was the hope that the State Church would eventually return to the Julian Calendar, that persuaded those bishops who later joined the True Orthodox to stay where they were for the time being.
Bishop Ephraim writes that at a “Pre-Council” held at the monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos in 1930, “the representatives of the Serbian and Polish Churches (the Churches of Russia, Georgia, and Bulgaria were not represented at the council; Russia and Georgia were not present because, at the time, they were weathering the third wave of persecutions under Stalin, Bulgaria was not present because the ‘Bulgarian schism’ was still in effect) asked for a separate chapel. When the Greeks insisted that they all celebrate together the Slavs refused, excusing themselves by saying that the language was different, as well as the typicon, and that there would be confusion. The Greeks kept insisting and the Slavs kept refusing, and in fact, to the end of the council, the two did not concelebrate, and it became clear that the Slavs considered the calendar issue important enough at the time to separate themselves from the Greeks. When they said that their typicon was different, the calendar obviously weighed heavily as a part of that difference…
“In fact the Serbian Church even supported the Old Calendarist movement in Greece by sending them Chrism across the border secretly.”[34]
During this council Bishop Nicholas (Velimirovich) of Ochrid vehemently defended the Orthodox Calendar, declaring that the 1923 Congress which approved the new calendar had created a schism. “Does the present assembly,” he said, “have any relation to the Pan-Orthodox Congress of Constantinople, from which the anomalies known to us all proceeded? The Church of Serbia was stunned when she saw the decisions of that Congress put into practice.”[35]
Again, in 1929 the Russian Metropolitan Innocent of Peking wrote an open letter on the calendar question in which he said: “In the Church of Christ there is nothing of little value, nothing unimportant, for in every custom there is incarnate the Spirit of God, by Whom the Church lives and breathes. Does not everyone who dares to rise up against the customs and laws of the Church, which are based on sacred Tradition and Scripture, rise up against the Spirit of God and thereby show to all who have eyes to see of what spirit he is? Worthily and rightly does the Holy Church consign such people to anathema.”[36]
But these were foreign bishops; in Greece there was no bishop serving according to the Julian calendar. However, the number of True Orthodox parishes in Greece had multiplied (800 were founded in the years 1926-30 alone), and, helped by a parliamentary decree of 1931 granting freedom of worship to the Old Calendarists, the numbers of the faithful had swelled to over 200,000 by October, 1934. Moreover, by that time it was becoming clear even to many new calendarist hierarchs and theologians that the introduction of the new calendar had been an unmitigated disaster.
The disastrous consequences of the innovation have been summarized by Nicetas Anagnostopoulos as follows: “The Greek Church infringed on the dogma of the spiritual unity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, for which the Divine Founder had prayed, because it separated itself in the simultaneous celebration of the feasts and observance of the fasts from the other Orthodox Churches and the Orthodox world, 8/10ths of which follows the Old Calendar (the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Holy Mountain, Russia, Serbia and others).
“In Divine worship it has divided the pious Greek people into two worshipping camps, and has divided families and introduced the simultaneous feasts of Orthodox and heretics (Catholics, Protestants and others) as well as confusion and disorder into the divine Orthodox Worship handed down by the Fathers.
“It has transferred the immovable religious feasts and the great fasts, handed down from ages past, of Christmas, the Mother of God and the Holy Apostles, reducing the fast of the Apostles until it disappears when it coincides with the feast of All Saints; and has removed the readings from the Gospel and Apostle from the Sunday cycle.
“From this it becomes evident that the Calendar is not an astronomical question, as the innovators of the Church of Greece claim in their defence, but quite clearly a religious question, given that it is indissolubly bound up with the worshipping, and in general with the religious life of the Orthodox Christian.
“Through the calendar innovation the new calendarist Church has transgressed, not only the perennial Ecclesiastical Tradition of the Patristic and Orthodox Calendar, and not only the above-mentioned Apostolic command [II Thessalonians 2.15; Galatians 1.8-9] and the decision of the Seventh Ecumenical Council concerning the anathematisation of those who violate the Sacred Tradition [“If anyone violates any ecclesiastical tradition, written or unwritten, let him be anathema”], but also the decisions of the Pan-Orthodox Patriarchal Councils of the years 1583, 1587 and 1593 under the Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II and of 1848 under the Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimus, which condemned and anathematized the Gregorian calendar.
“It has also transgressed the Sacred Canons which order the keeping and observance of the Sacred Traditions, which are: a) the Third of the Council of Carthage, b) the Twenty-First of the Council of Gangra, and c) the Ninety-First and Ninety-Second of St. Basil the Great, as well as the Forty-Seventh canon of the Council of Laodicea, which forbids the concelebration with heretics, which is what the Latins and the Protestants are, and the First of the Seventh Ecumenical Council concerning the steadfast observance of the complete array of the divine Canons.”[37]
Nor did the new calendarists lack direct warnings from the Heavenly Church that the path they had embarked on was false.
One such warning was given to the new calendarist Bishop Arsenius of Larissa on December 12/25, 1934, the feast of St. Spirydon according to the Old Calendar, but Christmas according to the new calendar.
“In the morning the bishop went by car to celebrate the Liturgy in his holy church. When he arrived there, he saw a humble, aged, gracious Bishop with a panagia on his breast. Arsenius said to him: ‘Brother, come, let’s proclaim the joyful letters of Christmas and then I will give you hospitality.’
“The humble Bishop replied: ‘You must not proclaim those letters but mine, St. Spirydon’s!’ Then Arsenius got angry and said: ‘I’m inviting you and you’re despising me. Go away then.’
“Arsenius went into the church, venerated the icons and sat in his throne. When the time for the katavasias came, he sang the first katavasia, and then told the choir to sing the second. Arsenius began to say the third, but suddenly felt anxious and unwell. He motioned to the choir to continue and went into the altar, where they asked him: ‘What’s the matter, master?’ He replied: ‘I don’t feel well.’
“When Arsenius’ indisposition increased, they carried him to his house, where his condition worsened, and the next day he died. He had been punished by God for his impious disobedience to St. Spirydon. This miracle is known by the older Orthodox faithful of Larissa.”[38]Three Holy Priests
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During this early period of the struggle against the new calendar, many people sympathized with the True Orthodox but did not join them because they did not yet have bishops. Others continued to worship according to the Orthodox Calendar without openly breaking communion with the new calendarists. Among the latter were two holy priests, Fr. Nicholas Planas of Athens and Fr. Jerome of Aegina.
Fr. Nicholas was the priest who was called to conduct a service of Holy Water to bless the “Society of the Orthodox”, which effectively marked the beginning of the Old Calendarist struggle. At that service he said: “Whatever has been done uncanonically cannot stand – it will fall.” And he celebrated according to the Orthodox Calendar until his death in 1932.
Once “he wanted to serve according to the traditional Calendar on the feast of the Prophet Elisseus [Elisha]. But since he feared that obstacles might arise, he agreed with his assistant priest the night before to go and serve at Saint Spyridon’s in Mantouka. In the morning his chantress went to Saint Spyridon’s and waited for him. Time passed and it looked as though the priest was not going to come to serve. She despaired. She supposed that something serious had happened to him, and that was why he hadn’t come. She left and went to Prophet Elisseus’ (because the ‘information center’ was there), to ask what had happened to the priest, and there, she saw him in the church preparing to celebrate the Liturgy! She chided him for breaking the agreement which they had made, and asked furthermore why he was not afraid, but came there in the center, right in the midst of the seething persecution. He said to her, ‘Don’t scold me, because this morning I saw the Prophet and he told me to come here to serve and not to fear anything, because he will watch over me.’ His helper was left with her argument unfinished! ‘But, how did you see him?’ she asked him. He told her, ‘I got up this morning and got ready for Saint Spyridon’s. I was sitting in an armchair while they brought me a carriage. At that moment I saw Prophet Elisseus before me, and he told me to go to his church to celebrate the Liturgy!’…
“Another example similar to that of Papa-Nicholas is that of the priestmonk Jerome of Aegina, who followed the same path. Shortly after his ordination to the priesthood, a year or so before the calendar change, Fr. Jerome ceased from serving because of a vision that was granted him during the Liturgy. According to some accounts this occurred within forty days of his ordination. He continued to preach, however, at a hospital chapel where he lived, and which he himself had built there on the island of Aegina. Although this chapel officially was under the new calendar diocese of Aegina, Fr. Jerome always celebrated the feast days according to the traditional ecclesiastical calendar… Although he himself did not serve as a priest, nevertheless, because of his saintliness and his popularity among the people and because of the obvious gifts of the Holy Spirit which he possessed, he had great influence among the faithful who looked to him for direction and guidance. This came to the ears of Procopius, the Bishop of Hydra and Aegina. As a result, the bishop sent word to Fr. Jerome that he was going to come and impose on him to concelebrate with him. Up to this time, Fr. Jerome had sought to remain faithful to the Church’s tradition and to his conscience without making an issue of it publicly or in street demonstrations. He saw, however, that the bishop was determined to create an issue now and force him into communion with him. As a result, Fr. Jerome sent the bishop a short note and resigned from the diocese, saying among other things: ‘I ask you to accept my resignation from the Hospital, because from 1924 and thence, my longing, as well as my zeal, has been for the Orthodox Church and Faith. From my childhood I revered Her, and dedicated all my life to Her, in obedience to the traditions of the Godbearing Fathers. I confess and proclaim the calendar of the Fathers to be the correct one, even as You Yourself acknowledge…’”[39]
An especially active role in the struggle was played by Hieromonk Matthew (Karpadakes), who in 1927, in response to a Divine vision, founded the women’s Monastery of the Mother of God at Keratea, Attica, which soon became the largest monastery in Greece.[40]
In 1934 he wrote: “For every Christian there is nothing more honourable in this fleeting life than devout faith in the Master of all things, our Lord Jesus Christ. For what else can save the soul from death, that is, from the condemnation of eternal punishment, than this faultless Orthodox Christian Faith of ours, about which the Lord speaks clearly, saying: ‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned’ (Mark 16.16). This Faith was compared by the Lord to a valuable treasure which a man found hidden in a field and to buy which he sold all his possessions (Matthew 13.13).
“Therefore the blessed Apostle Jude exhorts everyone ‘to contend for the Faith which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Catholic epistle, v. 3). And the divine Apostle made such an exhortation because there were appearing at that time men of deceit, the vessels of Satan, guileful workers, who sow tares in the field of the Lord, and who attempt to overturn the holy Faith in Christ. Concerning the men of impiety and perdition, the holy Apostle went on to write: ‘For admission has been secretly gained by some who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.’ Because of these innovators and despisers of the Faith in the Holy Church of God which has been handed down to us, the Apostle of the Gentiles and Walker in heavenly places Paul hurled a terrible anathema, saying: ‘If any one preaches to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed’ (Galatians 1.9).
“Therefore our Lord in the Holy Gospel cries to all His faithful servants: ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits… Take heed that no one leads you astray… And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.’ (Matthew 7.15,16, 24.4,11)
“Against these innovating false-bishops and their followers the synodical decrees of the Church through the Most Holy Patriarchs declare that ‘whoever has wished to add or take away one iota – let him be seven times anathema’…
“Thus with what great attention should every Orthodox Christian care for the valuable treasures of the Faith, so as to keep it undefiled, as the divine Apostles and Godbearing Fathers handed it down to us, and that he should struggle to preserve the state which is fitting for Christians of penitence, the fear of God, good works; for we live in an age in which, as the Evangelist John says, so many antichrists have appeared. He writes: ‘Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.’ (I John 2.18-19)
“… Those who govern the Church of Greece today have, together with the clergy who follow them, persisted in error, kakodoxy, schism, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the heresy of the Papist calendar! And they have led the people into error and become ‘heresiarch’ hierarchs according to the divine Fathers!
“… What great wealth of the grace of God is brought into the soul of the Christian by a little patience in afflictions! Although the holy martyrs, confessors and righteous ones passed their lives i