Old vs. New Calendar?

[ialmisry]

Christ is risen!

From "The Calendar Question" by Fr Basil Sakkas (available at http://hotca.org/orthodoxy/orthodox-awareness/203-the-calendar-question):

The innovation of the New Calendar brought about schism in all the local churches that adopted it. . 

There is no schism in Antioch.  Do get your facts straight.

From "A Life of Metropolitan Philaret" by Vladimir Moss

I don't recall seeing anything worthy ready by Vladimir Moss

[Asteriktos]

I agree that the innovators are responsible for the schism that resulted in 1924.  The three hierarchs that left the State Church of Greece in 1935, however, are responsible for uncanonically declaring the State Church of Greece to be in schism from the rest of the Church and without sacramental grace on account of the adoption of the New Calendar.  Of the three bishops that made this declaration, they all came to regret this decision, but this declaration has nevertheless been adopted again by today’s Old Calendarists despite the fact that it was this single declaration that caused all of the subsequent splintering among the Old Calendarists and prevented any reconciliation with the State Church of Greece or the other Patriarchates.  The resistance of the Old Calendar faithful and clergy from 1924 to 1935 was understandable, and perhaps even laudatory, but this cannot be said of the cacadox ecclesiology introduced by the three renegade hierarchs in 1935.  The holy Met Philaret, though he obviously thought well of the Greek Old Calendarists at first, did not hold to the false ecclesiology of these groups, and it was on account of this false ecclesiology that ROCOR and Met Philaret did not and could not remain in communion with these groups. 

Is there not some evidence that Met. Philaret thought the new calendar Churches graceless, at least in his private opinion*, even if ROCOR never went as far as the old calendarists did in condemning the new calendar Churches publically and officially? (though the anathema of 1983 is a separate topic all it's own, related to this, I suppose)

*Most famously (or infamously), the Letter to Abbess Magdalena of the Lesna Convent

[Punch]

I agree that the innovators are responsible for the schism that resulted in 1924.  The three hierarchs that left the State Church of Greece in 1935, however, are responsible for uncanonically declaring the State Church of Greece to be in schism from the rest of the Church and without sacramental grace on account of the adoption of the New Calendar.  Of the three bishops that made this declaration, they all came to regret this decision, but this declaration has nevertheless been adopted again by today’s Old Calendarists despite the fact that it was this single declaration that caused all of the subsequent splintering among the Old Calendarists and prevented any reconciliation with the State Church of Greece or the other Patriarchates.  The resistance of the Old Calendar faithful and clergy from 1924 to 1935 was understandable, and perhaps even laudatory, but this cannot be said of the cacadox ecclesiology introduced by the three renegade hierarchs in 1935.  The holy Met Philaret, though he obviously thought well of the Greek Old Calendarists at first, did not hold to the false ecclesiology of these groups, and it was on account of this false ecclesiology that ROCOR and Met Philaret did not and could not remain in communion with these groups. 

Is there not some evidence that Met. Philaret thought the new calendar Churches graceless, at least in his private opinion*, even if ROCOR never went as far as the old calendarists did in condemning the new calendar Churches publically and officially? (though the anathema of 1983 is a separate topic all it's own, related to this, I suppose)

*Most famously (or infamously), the Letter to Abbess Magdalena of the Lesna Convent

I have met many withing ROCOR, and other OC jurisdictions who thought so privately, but also told me that it was not the place of one person to condemn an entire Church.  I always took the more moderate side of not communing in the NC Churches, not because they were without Grace, but because there was no unity of Faith and Practice.  It was not up to me to say whether or not a particular jurisdiction did or did not have grace.  This was the view of most of the clergy and faithful of ROCOR that I had contact with.  In fact, I knew of at least one priest who maintained good relations with a Greek priest because the Greek remained with the GOA out of obedience and considered that more important than the calendar, but did not condemn those that thought the reverse.  The two did not share the chalice since it would send the wrong message to the Faithful and could cause some to stumble.  I also heard from one ROCOR Bishop, when asked by a priest why he had fellowship with a Metropolitan of another jurisdiction (Serbian) who was a Mason, who said "A brother does not always do the things that he should.  One does not have to agree with his brother, nor does he have to participate in his brother's sins.  But a Russian and a Serb are still brothers."  That answer was good enough for the priest, and latter for me.  Keep in mind (as I think you have) that the letter above was between the Metropolitan and an Abbess expressing his personal opinion.  Not even all the other bishops of ROCOR agreed enough to confirm that opinion in a Sobor.

[jah777]

Is there not some evidence that Met. Philaret thought the new calendar Churches graceless, at least in his private opinion*, even if ROCOR never went as far as the old calendarists did in condemning the new calendar Churches publically and officially? (though the anathema of 1983 is a separate topic all it's own, related to this, I suppose)

*Most famously (or infamously), the Letter to Abbess Magdalena of the Lesna Convent

Met Philaret, in the article that you quote, considered the “American False-Autocephalites” (OCA) and the “Parisians” to be schismatics and without grace on account of St. Basil’s first canon.  This claim of his was not based on the adoption of the New Calendar (the OCA was still on the Old Calendar then) or on Ecumenism, but on the simple historical fact that both bodies split off uncanonically from ROCOR.  To ROCOR, and to Met Philaret, they were schismatics and should have been treated as such.  As Met Philaret mentions in the letter, however, St. John of San Francisco did not share Met Philaret’s position on these matters, and of course ROCOR itself never Synodically declared anyone to be without grace.   

In the late 1960s into the 1970s, with the “autocephaly” being granted to the Metropolia (although some say the Patriarch of Moscow was in a coma and never signed the document), and the use of the Moscow Patriarchate by the Soviets to promote a pro-Soviet agenda in the World Council of Churches, as well as the lifting of the Anathemas by Patriarch Athenagoras and the ignoring of Met Philaret’s Sorrowful Epistles by the other local churches, the Orthodox world looked very bleak to Met Philaret and many others in ROCOR.  The MP used its influence in the WCC to convince other local churches that ROCOR was schismatic since ROCOR would not remain silent about the martyrdoms and persecutions in Russia (with the MP denied) or about the betrayals of Orthodoxy occurring throughout the world during that time.  With the influence of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston which had long sided with the “Matthewite” Old Calendarist ecclesiology, many in ROCOR including Met Philaret became increasingly severe and perhaps excessive in their criticism of other jurisdictions.  Synodically, however, the bishops would not speak in such a severe manner, and recognized that ROCOR was not a local church, let alone THE entire Church.  The major reason why communion did not continue long between ROCOR and the Greek Old Calendarists is that, in the end, ROCOR would not agree to declare the New Calendarists or any local Church as schismatic and without grace.  As a Synod, ROCOR realized that it had no such authority.  While complaining about the unilateral and uncanonical adoption of the New Calendar by the Church of Greece, the Old Calendarists had no problem “repaying evil with evil” by unilaterally condemning the Church of Greece as schismatic and without grace, an action that has no canonical or ecclesiological justification.     

So, again, the issue in the letter was the effect of actual schism on the sacramental grace in the Rue Daru and the OCA according to St. Basil’s first canon.  Met Philaret did have a very uncompromising stance in a very difficult time, and did his best to follow the canons, but this was a time of great confusion and disorder, and many very unfortunate mistakes and errors in judgment were made.  ROCOR is in a much better position today, remaining uncompromising in following the tradition of the Church, yet embraces the importance of conciliarity and accepts the truth that catholicity is just as much a part of the Symbol of Faith as apostolicity.  May ROCOR continue to remain steadfast in preserving all that it has received, and work diligently with other local churches to promote a common love for and fidelity to the holy tradition that has been faithfully passed down by the Holy Fathers and countless saints and martyrs.   

[Jonathan Gress]

Jason, what is your evidence that ROCOR ceased concelebration with the Old Calendarists over ecclesiology? My understanding of their position is that they would no longer concelebrate with the OCists until they resolved their internal divisions, i.e. the Florinite-Matthewite division. However, they still considered both groups to be Orthodox and with valid apostolic succession. Moreover, ROCOR continued to allow laymen of the OC churches to commune in their churches (see "The Struggle against Ecumenism" by HTM Press, and also you can talk to just about any older person at St Markella's that relations between ROCOR and the GOC did not end in the 1970s).

And your reading of his words is too strained for belief. He wrote those words in 1975, while still in communion formally with both the Florinites and Matthewite, and after both the Florinites and the Matthewites had made their ecclesiological position quite clear. He obviously did not believe the GOC ecclesiology rendered them un-Orthodox. Unless, of course, you have some other documentation to support your assertions.

But you go ahead and keep telling yourself that membership of the WCC represents ROCOR's "uncompromising" stance in upholding the tradition of the Church. I would recommend saying that one hundred times each morning and evening.

[jah777]

In 1971 there were only two Greek Old Calendar Synods, one under Abp Auxentius of Athens who had been consecrated by ROCOR, and the other under Abp Andrew of the “Matthewites”.  ROCOR attempted to unite the two Greek Old Calendarist Synods by entering into communion with both, hoping to form one large united Synod that stood up for traditional Orthodoxy and was opposed to syncretistic Ecumenism (this was when Patriarch Athenagoras was still the Ecumenical Patriarch, a bishop who has probably been unmatched in terms of ecumenical excess and Branch Theory advocacy).  I indicated that ROCOR’s unwillingness to accept the cacadox and false ecclesiology of the Old Calendarists (which they adopted in 1935 when the three bishops left the Church of Greece and condemned the Church of Greece as schismatic and without grace because of the New Calendar) was the main reason why this attempted union failed.  This cacadox ecclesiology was what caused the divisions among the Old Calendarists in the first place.  In 1971, when the Matthewites entered into communion with ROCOR with the assumption that ROCOR agreed with their cacadox ecclesiology, the Matthewite Synod tried without success to persuade ROCOR to submit to them a signed letter stating that New Calendar churches are without grace.  ROCOR refused to make such a statement, and finally in 1974 the ROCOR Synod wrote the following to the Matthewite hierarchy:

“Concerning the matter relative to the presence or the non-existence of God’s Grace among the followers of the New Calendar, the Russian Church Outside of Russia does not consider themselves or any other local Church having the authority to take final decision, as a final settlement of this matter can only be effected through a properly convened competent Ecumenical Council, with the indispensable participation of a free Church of Russia.” (Sept 22, 1974).

ROCOR clearly stated here that neither the Old Calendarists in Greece, nor ROCOR, nor any other local Church, had the authority to declare a local church to be without grace.  Only and Ecumenical (or Pan-Orthodox) Council had the authority to make such a declaration about a local church. 

Communion between ROCOR and the “Matthewites” was formally established in 1971, but both sides agreed to this union with certain conditions, conditions which neither side fulfilled.  It is hard to determine to what extent there ever was real communion between the two Synods.   

Regarding communion between ROCOR and the other Greek Old Calendar Synod under Abp Auxentius, this fell apart quickly too, but mostly over canonical issues and the instability and inexplicability of Abp Auxentius’ actions (for which he was eventually deposed by his own Synod).  When Abp Auxentius received a ROCOR priest without a canonical release, baptized him, ordained him again, and consecrated him as a bishop in 1976, this event shocked ROCOR and is usually cited as the date when a final break occurred between the two Synods, though I’m not sure to what extent the two Synods ever really were in communion (I’m not denying that there was intercommunion, concelebrations, etc., I just honestly do not have a good handle on the extent of communion beyond a letter stating formal recognition). 

Since Abp Auxentius was consecrated by ROCOR, and ROCOR didn’t hold to the false ecclesiology that the New Calendar deprives one of sacramental grace, Abp Auxentius’ Synod didn’t push this false ecclesiology on ROCOR.  Somewhat ironically, Metropolitan Petros (the granduncle of your Metropolitan Pavlos and the founder of St. Markella’s in Astoria) was kicked out of the Old Calendarist Synod of Abp Auxentius in 1974 specifically because Met Petros refused to accept the false ecclesiology that claimed churches lose sacramental grace by adopting the New Calendar.  The reason why Met Petros refused to adopt this false ecclesiology is because he was originally made a bishop in America by ROCOR, and since ROCOR stated in 1974 that they could not declare anyone to be without grace for adopting the New Calendar, Met Petros insisted on remaining obedient to ROCOR’s decision on this matter.  In his own words, Met Petros wrote the following to the ROCOR Synod on August 29, 1976:

“I’m astonished, because as a result of my following the instructions in that paragraph of my ordination letter-document, that I received from your Holy Synod, in which you were good enough to say, “In your questions and doubts it is your obligation that you seek consultation from his Eminence Metropolitan Philaret,” which I proceeded to do, because of the problem aroused from the senseless theme which was created on the part of His Beatitude President Auxentios, and from some of the High-Priests of the Old Calendarist Synod of Greece.

“What was the theme? “New Calendarists do not have grace of Holy Spirit, simply because they follow the New Calendar.” The question of this matter was placed on my behalf in front of the Great Sobor of the Russian Church under the presidency of Metropolitan Philaret in September of 1974. The Holy Synod kindly answered on the matter (attached to this letter you will find copies of all the documents relating to this matter, which I humbly present and piously ask that you study carefully).

“Brothers in Christ, it is due to your Holy Decision that I did not sign the in all-ways faulty, uncanonical, and dangerous encyclical of the Old Calendarist Church of Greece, which proclaimed New Calendar Mysteries as invalid. This encyclical was deplored by all the well-minded clergymen and laymen of the Church. Lastly the Russian Orthodox Synod answered in good faith to the problem. I adhered to the Synod's answer, and because of this adherence, I was rejected from the Hellenic Synod, and would not be accepted again until I did sign this spiritually ill document.

“…Let it be also known that all Hellenic Orthodox Churches, including the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Archdiocese of Mount Sinai (who follow the Old Style), have condemned the decision of Archbishop Auxentios, who proclaimed New Calendarist Mys¬teries as void of Grace.”

Metropolitan Petros protested the cacadox ecclesiology of today’s Old Calendarists because Met Chrysostom of Florina also rejected this ecclesiology as cacadox, uncanonical, and both Protestantizing and Latinizing.  Metropolitan Petros was ordained in 1944 by Met Chryostom of Florina, when Met Chrysostom was claiming to still be part of the Church of Greece and was protesting far and wide against the false ecclesiology which today’s Old Calendarists have all officially adopted (except for the “Synod in Resistance”, but they have other issues and were not in existence in the early 1970s when ROCOR was trying to unite the other Greek Old Calendar Synods).  In any case, this false ecclesiology, which Met Chrysostom of Florina, the whole ROCOR Synod, and Met Petros of Astoria rejected, is the cause of all of the problems among the Old Calendarists, and it is the reason why the return of the Church of Greece to the Old Calendar, or any reconciliation between the Old Calendarists and the rest of the Orthodox Church, has been impossible.

You said:

also you can talk to just about any older person at St Markella's that relations between ROCOR and the GOC did not end in the 1970s.

St. Markella’s and Metropolitan Petros are special cases.  Met Petros established St. Markella’s, but the Cathedral and Met Petros spent time with the Greek Old Calendarists as well as the Metropolia (today the OCA), the Moscow Patriarchate, and ROCOR.  It was ROCOR that consecrated Met Petros a bishop in 1962 and Met Petros remained close to ROCOR, and sought to be obedient to ROCOR, since that time despite his questionable and rather fluid Synodal affiliations over the years.  Only recently under Met Petros’ grandnephew and successor, Met. Pavlos, did St. Markella’s attempt to put a stop to communing “New Calendarists”, and only recently did Met. Pavlos and St. Markella’s adopt the false ecclesiological principle of “New Calendar = no grace”.  I bring this up only to say that St. Markella’s, because of its unusual history, its long historical connection with ROCOR, and its various allegiances over the years, is probably not the best place to go seeking anecdotal information from long-time members about intercommunion between the Old Calendarists and ROCOR.  Long-time members of St. Markella’s may have many memories of concelebration and intercommunion between Met Petros and ROCOR hierarchs and clergy,  but it could be a challenge to determine what Met Petros’ actual affiliation was at the time of such events, or to what extent these relations are indicative of ROCOR’s relations with the Old Calendarists in general.


You said:

But you go ahead and keep telling yourself that membership of the WCC represents ROCOR's "uncompromising" stance in upholding the tradition of the Church.

ROCOR is an autonomous church under the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and does not participate in the World Council of Churches (WCC).  Membership in the WCC was a major issue that was discussed in the reconciliation process between the MP and ROCOR.  The MP expressed that they do not believe it would be wise for them to withdraw from the WCC at this time because the Ecumenical Patriarchate would then be left unchecked.  Understandably, the MP is not comfortable with the EP representing Orthodoxy to the non-Orthodox.  Since almost all of the ecumenical excesses and scandalous ecumenical gestures over the years have come from the EP, I’m sure you can understand the MP’s concern.  While ROCOR was pushing the MP to withdraw completely from the WCC, they did come to see the “necessary evil” of the MP’s current involvement.  For ROCOR, the clear rejection of the Branch Theory by the MP in 2000, and the MPs subsequent ban on joint prayers with the non-Orthodox, has convinced them that the MP shares the same essential ecclesiology. 


     


http://www.genuineorthodoxchurch.com/GOC_ROCOR_feb1976.htm

[jah777]

As many are aware, the Greek Old Calendarists refuse to be in communion with any Orthodox Christians who use the New Calendar (Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.) or who are on the Old Calendar but are in communion with Orthodox churches who use the New Calendar (Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Moscow, Serbia, etc.).  A primary justification for breaking communion with all who are on the New Calendar, and who are in communion with those on the New Calendar, is the claim that this New Calendar the same as the Gregorian Calendar and that the Gregorian Calendar has specifically been anathematized by the Orthodox Church in Pan-Orthodox Councils.  Particular emphasis in this claim is given to the so-called Sigillion of the Pan-Orthodox Council of 1583.  In the thread below, I drew attention to the claims of Fr. Theoklitos of Dionysiou on Mt. Athos (a former Old Calendarist himself) that the 1583 Sigillion is a document that has been forged and falsified by a monk Jacob (Iakovos) of New Skete, that this forged Sigillion is found codex 772 of St. Panteleimon’s Monastery, that the Old Calendarist claims regarding the 1583 Council are derived from this forgery, and that the New or Gregorian Calendar was never anathematized by the 1583 Council.  Here is the thread where I referred to this:

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,34127.msg539656.html#msg539656

An article on the subject by Fr. Theoklitos can be read here:

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/02/old-calendarist-lie-of-codex-772.html

Since this one article by Fr. Theoklitos is all that I could formerly find on the subject in English, I was asked to find supporting information to back up his claims.  The Old Calendarist “Synod in Resistance” in Greece has recently provided a summary in English of a scholarly paper by Bishop Cyprian of Oreoi which goes into greater detail regarding this forgery.  Among other things, Bishop Cyprian of Oreoi of the Synod in Resistance states:

http://www.synodinresistance.org/pdfs/2011/07/04/20110704aSigillion/20110704aSigillion.pdf

C. The Athonite Transcriptions of Monk Iakovos

1. In 1858, an Athonite monk, Father Iakovos of New Skete, transcribed various documents, from among the aforementioned, concerning the repudiation and condemnation of the Gregorian Calendar, which are to be found in Codex No. 258 of the library of Kavsokalyvia. It was from this codex that Codex No. 722 of the Monastery of St. Panteleimon was compiled.12

2. The original texts compiled by Father Iakovos and the items deriving from him in these codices constitute a patently arbitrary admixture of disparate documents of different dates, into which, moreover, alterations and additions have also been introduced, to the point that one wonders what ultimately was the intention of Father Iakovos, who doctored, distorted, and falsified them.

3. This truly deplorable farrago put together by Father Iakovos, which is fancifully characterized as a “Patriarchal and Synodal Sigillion”  “accompanied by sanctions and anathemas,” has been used in self-serving ways since 1924, and has appeared in many versions,13 each worse than the other. The form of it that has finally prevailed bears a title unattested in the original texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: “Sigillion of the Patriarchal formulation of an Encyclical to Orthodox Christians throughout the world not to accept the modernistic Paschalion or calendar of the innovated Menologion, but to abide by what was well formulated once and for all by the three hundred and eighteen (318) Holy God-bearing Fathers of the Holy First OEcumenical Synod, under pain of sanction and anathema.”14

4. In the aforementioned Athonite codices the following three texts, which
have no relation to each other and in which, as we have said, alterations and additions have been introduced, were mixed and spliced together:

[SNIP]

e. The anathema: whereas in Loukaris’ text, there are six anathemas, pertaining to Roman Catholic teachings, the compiler has added to the Sigillion a seventh anathema concerning all who follow the “newly invented Paschalion and the New Menologion of the atheist astronomers of the Pope [sic].”18

This entire summary linked above is worth reading.  While Bp Cyprian of Oeroi shows that Orthodox hierarchs in the 16th century specifically rejected the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar because changing the Paschalian would conflict with the agreement made by all Orthodox churches at the First Ecumenical Council, no mention is made by these same hierarchs regarding the Gregorian Menologion.  When the New Calendar was adopted first by the Church of Greece in 1924 and later by some other local Orthodox churches, the Paschalian was not altered specifically because of the decision of the First Ecumenical Council.  While the Synod in Resistance is still not in communion with any Orthodox Patriarchate because of the subject of “Ecumenism”, in this document it is very clearly demonstrated that the New Calendar has not been anathematized by a Pan-Orthodox Council and that the claim made to the contrary by Old Calendarists is based on a forgery. 

While the introduction of the New Calendar by some local churches was very unfortunate, as it was unnecessary and has resulted in significant disturbance, liturgical disunity, and conflict among Orthodox, it is nevertheless very important to provide this information regarding the 1583 Pan-Orthodox Council in order to emphasize that however unfortunate the calendar change has been, those who departed into schism in response to this change had absolutely no canonical basis for doing so.  No claim can be made that the Orthodox churches began teaching heresy in 1924 when the Church of Greece adopted the New Calendar and, as we see from this article, no claim can be made that any Orthodox church “fell under an anathema” by adopting the New Calendar.  I commend Bp Cyprian for his honest scholarship on this critical historical event, and commend also those who made available the English summary.     

[SubdeaconDavid]

Greg,

How do New Calendar Orthodox respond to this encyclical?

Well, basically, they don't - they don't reply to it, since the whole enterprise of trading the Church Calendar for the Gregorian Calendar (under the sophism of actually adopting a "revised Julian Calendar") was done from a mindset which really did not obsess about fidelity to ecclessiastical tradition, even one obtained only after so much effort and confusion and which manifested the liturgical unity of the Orthodox Church across the world.

While we (who are conditioned by an extremely pluralistic, and egalitarian culture - arguably one which often embodies these two values unto absurdity) may not like the "language" of the Sigillion of 1583 and it's latter confirmations in the following centuries, the fact is it's on the books - and to treat this and the reality it defends with levity, is wrong-headed in the extreme.

As bad as the disunity which the calendar change has introduced into the Orthodox world, I think worse yet was the intention underlying it, as made clear in the EP's 1920 encyclical itself; namely that it was the first "ecumenical gesture" of those proclaiming to speak for the Orthodox Church, an "ecumenism" which in it's very name is misleading (since the Church has always used the word "ecumenical" in a way opposed to how it was used by the "ecumenical movement" started amongst the Protestants in the late 1800's - yet this incorrect definition has now been assumed by Orthodox Christians themselves.)   Indeed, I think it's becoming painfully obvious that the only "union" that will ever be effected by these "ecumenical activities" is the kind of the ill fated unia of Florence - nay worse, since the parties besides the Orthodox thrown into this current soup are even more diverse, and unfortunately even further removed from the truth.

Frankly, they're working to build the church of the anti-Christ, whether they realize it or not (?).   None of this is going to bring a single soul into the Orthodox Church, or create a Godly peace.

If we look at the New Calendar today, while the Church of Greece, the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Rue daru Russian Exarchate, part of the OCA, Bulgaria and Rumania, Finland (which should have remained part of the Russian Church), the Estonian illicit Exarchate of Constantinople (also part of the Russian Church), to name some of the New Calendar players, nonetheless remain  only 15% of of world Orthodoxy.  The overwhelming majority uses the Orthodox's Church Calendar (Julian). 

It may not be a matter of erroneous faith that the New Calendarists have adopted it.  It matters that it was championed by renovationists like Patriarch Meletios - an undoubted modernist, Patriarch Athenagoras whose unilateral actions implied that the Great Schism was a nonsense and the current Greek Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul).  It matters that those that observe the Julian Calendar are castigated as ecclesial dinosaurs - although I challenge anyone to say that to the Patriarch of Moscow.  It matters that parts of the OCA serve feasts on different dates to those who follow the Julian Calendar.  It matters that Orthodoxy is compromised by kow-towing to secular 'science' and the dis-unity that is occasioned is of less consequence than following the Gregorian Calendar (albeit with a Paschal concession). 

The minority - the 15% of New Calendarists should in the interests of humility and Church unity abandon their renovationist calendar and concentrate on Orthodox unity rather than placating heterodox agendas.

[Michał Kalina]

If we look at the New Calendar today, while the Church of Greece, the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Rue daru Russian Exarchate, part of the OCA, Bulgaria and Rumania, Finland (which should have remained part of the Russian Church), the Estonian illicit Exarchate of Constantinople (also part of the Russian Church), to name some of the New Calendar players, nonetheless remain  only 15% of of world Orthodoxy.  The overwhelming majority uses the Orthodox's Church Calendar (Julian).  

This is untrue. Single Romanian Orthodox Church makes 10% of the EOC. I'd say it is 30-40% (after adding numerous Churches of Bulgaria, EP, Alexandria, Greece and Antioch).

[Carl Kraeff (Second Chance)]

As many are aware, the Greek Old Calendarists refuse to be in communion with any Orthodox Christians who use the New Calendar (Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.) or who are on the Old Calendar but are in communion with Orthodox churches who use the New Calendar (Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Moscow, Serbia, etc.).  A primary justification for breaking communion with all who are on the New Calendar, and who are in communion with those on the New Calendar, is the claim that this New Calendar the same as the Gregorian Calendar and that the Gregorian Calendar has specifically been anathematized by the Orthodox Church in Pan-Orthodox Councils.  Particular emphasis in this claim is given to the so-called Sigillion of the Pan-Orthodox Council of 1583.  In the thread below, I drew attention to the claims of Fr. Theoklitos of Dionysiou on Mt. Athos (a former Old Calendarist himself) that the 1583 Sigillion is a document that has been forged and falsified by a monk Jacob (Iakovos) of New Skete, that this forged Sigillion is found codex 772 of St. Panteleimon’s Monastery, that the Old Calendarist claims regarding the 1583 Council are derived from this forgery, and that the New or Gregorian Calendar was never anathematized by the 1583 Council.  Here is the thread where I referred to this:

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,34127.msg539656.html#msg539656

An article on the subject by Fr. Theoklitos can be read here:

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/02/old-calendarist-lie-of-codex-772.html

Since this one article by Fr. Theoklitos is all that I could formerly find on the subject in English, I was asked to find supporting information to back up his claims.  The Old Calendarist “Synod in Resistance” in Greece has recently provided a summary in English of a scholarly paper by Bishop Cyprian of Oreoi which goes into greater detail regarding this forgery.  Among other things, Bishop Cyprian of Oreoi of the Synod in Resistance states:

http://www.synodinresistance.org/pdfs/2011/07/04/20110704aSigillion/20110704aSigillion.pdf

C. The Athonite Transcriptions of Monk Iakovos

1. In 1858, an Athonite monk, Father Iakovos of New Skete, transcribed various documents, from among the aforementioned, concerning the repudiation and condemnation of the Gregorian Calendar, which are to be found in Codex No. 258 of the library of Kavsokalyvia. It was from this codex that Codex No. 722 of the Monastery of St. Panteleimon was compiled.12

2. The original texts compiled by Father Iakovos and the items deriving from him in these codices constitute a patently arbitrary admixture of disparate documents of different dates, into which, moreover, alterations and additions have also been introduced, to the point that one wonders what ultimately was the intention of Father Iakovos, who doctored, distorted, and falsified them.

3. This truly deplorable farrago put together by Father Iakovos, which is fancifully characterized as a “Patriarchal and Synodal Sigillion”  “accompanied by sanctions and anathemas,” has been used in self-serving ways since 1924, and has appeared in many versions,13 each worse than the other. The form of it that has finally prevailed bears a title unattested in the original texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: “Sigillion of the Patriarchal formulation of an Encyclical to Orthodox Christians throughout the world not to accept the modernistic Paschalion or calendar of the innovated Menologion, but to abide by what was well formulated once and for all by the three hundred and eighteen (318) Holy God-bearing Fathers of the Holy First OEcumenical Synod, under pain of sanction and anathema.”14

4. In the aforementioned Athonite codices the following three texts, which
have no relation to each other and in which, as we have said, alterations and additions have been introduced, were mixed and spliced together:

[SNIP]

e. The anathema: whereas in Loukaris’ text, there are six anathemas, pertaining to Roman Catholic teachings, the compiler has added to the Sigillion a seventh anathema concerning all who follow the “newly invented Paschalion and the New Menologion of the atheist astronomers of the Pope [sic].”18

This entire summary linked above is worth reading.  While Bp Cyprian of Oeroi shows that Orthodox hierarchs in the 16th century specifically rejected the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar because changing the Paschalian would conflict with the agreement made by all Orthodox churches at the First Ecumenical Council, no mention is made by these same hierarchs regarding the Gregorian Menologion.  When the New Calendar was adopted first by the Church of Greece in 1924 and later by some other local Orthodox churches, the Paschalian was not altered specifically because of the decision of the First Ecumenical Council.  While the Synod in Resistance is still not in communion with any Orthodox Patriarchate because of the subject of “Ecumenism”, in this document it is very clearly demonstrated that the New Calendar has not been anathematized by a Pan-Orthodox Council and that the claim made to the contrary by Old Calendarists is based on a forgery. 

While the introduction of the New Calendar by some local churches was very unfortunate, as it was unnecessary and has resulted in significant disturbance, liturgical disunity, and conflict among Orthodox, it is nevertheless very important to provide this information regarding the 1583 Pan-Orthodox Council in order to emphasize that however unfortunate the calendar change has been, those who departed into schism in response to this change had absolutely no canonical basis for doing so.  No claim can be made that the Orthodox churches began teaching heresy in 1924 when the Church of Greece adopted the New Calendar and, as we see from this article, no claim can be made that any Orthodox church “fell under an anathema” by adopting the New Calendar.  I commend Bp Cyprian for his honest scholarship on this critical historical event, and commend also those who made available the English summary.     

Thank you very much for your very important contribution to this discussion.

[Carl Kraeff (Second Chance)]

The overwhelming majority uses the Orthodox's Church Calendar (Julian).  

At one time, the majority of Christians followed Arius.

BTW, the Church calendar and the secular calendar are not the same. For example, the Church calendar places the feast of the Nativity on December 25th, the Winter Solstice (for various reasons that have talked to death). Now, it would seem to me that the secular calendar that coincides with the Church Calendar is the correct one. I cannot imagine that anyone (except you of course) can maintain with a straight face that the secular calendar of the admittedly great (but pagan)  Julius Caesar is the one that calculates December 25th to be roughly coincidental with the Winter Solstice. Subdeacon--your beloved Russian Church not only does not celebrate nativity on December 25th, She celebrates it in a different month and a different year. And, why? Because it is nashi--talking about hubris!

[Hermogenes]

Wow! Thirty-five pages on the calendar. Perhaps I misunderstand the point of a calendar. I had always thought it was part of the overall effort by man to measure time more accurately. If I owned a watch that lost time at the rate of, say, 15 minutes a day, I wouldn't think much of it as a tool of measurement, however beautiful it might be to contemplate in other respects.

I accept the calendar my church provides. When I attend a church that uses a different calendar, I take that into account. That's about the best I can do, and with war, starvation, environmental destruction, and political corruption running rampant,  I'm not sure I should spend more time than this arguing about a calendar.

[Asteriktos]

Despite the title, this thread is not exactly just 35 continuous pages about the calendar. Two things are in play here:

1) while the thread title mentions the calendar, a whole host of other topics are also being discussed here, including (but not limited to): the definition, purpose and history of ecumenism; ecclesiological issues such as whether non-orthodox sacraments are valid or have grace; whether Orthodox should be members of groups like the WCC or NCC, and if so what their role should be; relations with various other groups (e.g. the lifting of the anathemas of 1054); the usefulness and/or benefit, or uselessness and/or harm of the many agreed statements and theological commissions and such among the EO/OO, RC/EO, etc.; modernism and anti-traditionalism in personal and corporate practices; whether Orthodox theology, and even the framework within which Orthodox theology is explained to people and taught, has changed for the worse; sergianism; when and how Orthodox can separate from their bishops, and how the various groups can be reconciled; etc.

2) Any time someone starts a new thread about any of the above subjects, it will inevitably be merged with this one. Thus this thread is not one thread that was started long ago and has gone on for 35 pages, but is more like a dozen separate threads that have been mashed together.

[PeterTheAleut]

I wonder if Sbdcn David is going to come back any time soon to defend his most recent post. Or is it just going to be another drive-by?

[SubdeaconDavid]

I wonder if Sbdcn David is going to come back any time soon to defend his most recent post. Or is it just going to be another drive-by?

Michael you can argue numbers of New Calendarists vs. Old if you like.  Maybe if you counted bishops given that the Constantinople Patriarchate has so many titular sees of places long lost to Christianity you might win that way.  I am not really interested in the semantics of the calendar - the so-called science of your Gregorian knowledge or the merits of the place of the winter solstice in the New Calendarist Nativity.

Nothing good has come of the New Calendar. Especially in Greece, thousands of holy Orthodox have felt so strongly about this, that they have left the official Church. It has supported the appalling ecumenism of Patriarch Athenagoras and his successors.  The holiest monastic communities in the world - Mt Athos have roundly rejected it.  It has divided the Church for what? To please the heterodox? Why did the late Patriarch Meletios - an entirely discredited chainsmoking Mason reject the Old Calendar and do so much to push the New? Because the Old did not fit with the ideology that he espoused, with the culture that he wanted for the Church of liturgical reform, shortening the fasts etc. 

The science of the calendar is irrelevant to the salvific mission of the Church, a mission to share the Gospel with the non-believers, to bring the heterodox to the Church.  Disunity hinders that mission just as ecumenism and modernism does.

[Jonathan Gress]

Thank you, Subdeacon David. Regarding Jason's supposed refutation of the Old Calendarist position, let's say that this 19th century monk did interpolate some things into his copy of the manuscripts. But why would he do this? This was over a half century before the calendar schism, so obviously he didn't do it because he was a fanatical Old Calendarist zealot. Rather, it seems far more likely that he was simply reading what he understood to be the mind of the Church before the calendar reform into his copy: i.e. he clearly believed that the Church objected not only to the innovation in the Paschalion (although certainly that was the chief objection), but also to the innovation in the rest of the Calendar (since the two aren't really separable in the traditional cycle of liturgical worship). I can't think of any reason why he would think this was the Church's position if in fact this was not the case. So this "refutation" really backfires, since it only constitutes another kind of evidence that the Church opposed the Papal calendar in all its forms.

And thank you to Sbdcn David also for pointing out that the core of the opposition to the New Calendar is not merely some legalistic attachment to a sigillion, genuine or not, but to the blatantly heretical motivation behind the calendar reform as manifested in the EP's infamous encyclical of 1920. Really, in this debate the legalists are the ones who ignore the beam of this heresy while picking over the motes of which exact parts of the heterodox Western calendar are specifically anathematized.

[primuspilus]

Ok, so I have a question. What is the OFFICIAL position of the church(es) regarding the calendar? Do they differ by patriarch?

PP

[LBK]

Ok, so I have a question. What is the OFFICIAL position of the church(es) regarding the calendar? Do they differ by patriarch?

PP

The canonical old-calendar jurisdictions (Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, etc) are in full communion with the canonical new-calendar jurisdictions (Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, etc). Eack of these churches commemorates all the others' hierarchs in their diptychs. Good enough for an official position, IMO.

[PeterTheAleut]

I wonder if Sbdcn David is going to come back any time soon to defend his most recent post. Or is it just going to be another drive-by?

Michael...

Who's Michael? And why do you call me by that name?

[Alveus Lacuna]

Who's Michael? And why do you call me by that name?

Yeah, everyone knows he's Petey!

[PeterTheAleut]

I wonder if Sbdcn David is going to come back any time soon to defend his most recent post. Or is it just going to be another drive-by?

Michael you can argue numbers of New Calendarists vs. Old if you like.  Maybe if you counted bishops given that the Constantinople Patriarchate has so many titular sees of places long lost to Christianity you might win that way.  I am not really interested in the semantics of the calendar - the so-called science of your Gregorian knowledge or the merits of the place of the winter solstice in the New Calendarist Nativity.

Nothing good has come of the New Calendar. Especially in Greece, thousands of holy Orthodox have felt so strongly about this, that they have left the official Church. It has supported the appalling ecumenism of Patriarch Athenagoras and his successors.  The holiest monastic communities in the world - Mt Athos have roundly rejected it.  It has divided the Church for what? To please the heterodox? Why did the late Patriarch Meletios - an entirely discredited chainsmoking Mason reject the Old Calendar and do so much to push the New? Because the Old did not fit with the ideology that he espoused, with the culture that he wanted for the Church of liturgical reform, shortening the fasts etc. 

The science of the calendar is irrelevant to the salvific mission of the Church, a mission to share the Gospel with the non-believers, to bring the heterodox to the Church.  Disunity hinders that mission just as ecumenism and modernism does.

Does the fact that some churches adopted the New Calendar after Patriarch Meletios did automatically mean that these churches adopted the New Calendar BECAUSE Patriarch Meletios did? Relative positioning on a timeline does not automatically imply cause and effect.

Additionally, as I've seen asked before, why is a pan-Orthodox synod of 1583 somehow authoritative while a pan-Orthodox synod of 1923 is not?

[PeterTheAleut]

Who's Michael? And why do you call me by that name?

Yeah, everyone knows he's Petey!

Who's Petey?

[witega]

Thank you, Subdeacon David. Regarding Jason's supposed refutation of the Old Calendarist position,

While Jason is doing the quoting, the refutation actually comes from an Old Calendrist bishop, published by his Old Calendrist Church. One can easily turn your argument around and ask why an Old Calendrist bishop would publish such a thing--unless he had very good evidence to do so.

let's say that this 19th century monk did interpolate some things into his copy of the manuscripts.

Did you even read the summary? The accusation goes well beyond 'interpolating some things'. The accusation is that the anathema was completely made up.

But why would he do this? This was over a half century before the calendar schism, so obviously he didn't do it because he was a fanatical Old Calendarist zealot.

This is so disingenuous it is hard to take you seriously. The issue of whether Orthodox Churches and Orthodox countries should make some correction to the calendar was ongoing for centuries. In the first millennium, such corrections were made several times (see for example the 'Paschal controversy' of the early Anglo-Saxon Church, which centered around the fact that the Roman Church had changed Paschalions and the Irish Church was still using Rome's earlier version). It was only with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by the Roman Church that the idea of calendar correction stopped being a practical question and became a polemical one. That didn't stop the discussion since it's obvious that sticking to a certain method of calculation was moving us further and further away from the reason those calculations were adopted in the first place (e.g., Nicea's attempt to tie Pascha to the actual vernal equinox, the relationship of Nativity and winter solstice), but it certainly turned up the heat for the 'no-change' side. Then as Orthodox populations started winning free of Ottoman rule, the issue of what calendar to use started picking up steam again throughout the 19th century until it culminated in the Synod of 1923. Fr. Iakovos' composition didn't appear out of nowhere, it was very much part of an ongoing debate.

Further, while it is unlikely Fr. Iakovos was an Old Calendrist zealot in the middle of the 19th century, it's entirely possible he was an anti-Roman zealot of the same strain that toss azymes and the Western tonsure onto the list of Latin heresies because they find ultramontanism and neo-pneumatachianism to be insufficient.

Rather, it seems far more likely that he was simply reading what he understood to be the mind of the Church before the calendar reform into his copy: i.e. he clearly believed that the Church objected not only to the innovation in the Paschalion (although certainly that was the chief objection), but also to the innovation in the rest of the Calendar (since the two aren't really separable in the traditional cycle of liturgical worship). I can't think of any reason why he would think this was the Church's position if in fact this was not the case. So this "refutation" really backfires, since it only constitutes another kind of evidence that the Church opposed the Papal calendar in all its forms.

Really? That's what you are going with? Even if he did lie and invented an anathema which he claimed to have synodical authority, that just proves he was following the mind of the Church? I would submit that if Bishop Cyprian's article is correct and Fr. Iakovos made up the anathema against the Gregorian menaion, then the fact of the lie is very strong evidence that Fr. Iakovos did not understand the mind of the Church. The Truth is not served with lies.

[Andrew Crook]

Who's Michael? And why do you call me by that name?

Yeah, everyone knows he's Petey!

Who's Petey?

Petey the Sailor-Man, duh.. everybody knows who that is.  Come away with me, Wendy and I will take you to Never Never Land!  Oh Petey Pan.. 

[Basil 320]

Reply to No. 1550 and a few clarifications to recent posts.

People who are interested in this topic would do well to read "A Quest for Reform of the Orthodox Church, The 1923 Pan-Orthodox Congress" published by the InterOrthodox Press, of the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute, Berkley, California.  It contains the English language translation of the proceedings of the Congress.

The Congress never asserted itself as a "Synod."  It was convened as an "Inter Orthodox Committee," and during the proceedings declared itself a "Congress."  Its purpose was to preform preparatory work for a Pan-Orthodox Synod (Council), to be convened at a later date.  Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios IV was the only patriarch and first hierarch (primate) present.  The other attendees were designated representatives of the following Churches, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Patriarchates of Serbia and Romania, and the Churches of Greece and Cyprus.  Metropolitan Anastasi of ROCOR was present at the outset, but left during the proceedings; the reason for which is not explained. Russian Archbishop Alexandr, who had resigned as the Archbishop of the Aleutians and North America (the Metropolia, OCA since 1970), participated throughout, and asserted that he was speaking for St. Tikhon on several occasions; the saint was under house arrest and the "Living Church," existed too.  Yet, Patriarch Meletios treated Metropolitan Anastasi and Archbishop Alexandr as representatives of the Church of Russia and the proceedings mention prayers for St. Tikhon and the martyred Church of Russia.  In any event, Patriarch Meletios stated during the proceedings "...it would be necessary henceforth to speak plainly, regarding the meaning of the future decisions made by the Committee. [Later changed to "Congress."]   Our letter inviting the Holy Orthodox Churches makes it clear that we are not gathered in a council, whose decisions would be required to be enforced as canonical legislation.  We work as a Committee of the entire Church, whose decisions receive validity for implementation from a Pan-Orthodox council or from reception by the synod of each one of the local churches."

Patriarch Meletios did not implement the so called Revised Julian Calendar while he was Ecumenical Patriarch.  The Pan-Orthodox Congress concluded its deliberations on June 8, 1923.  His All Holiness sent the reports of the Congress to all the Holy Orthodox Churches, on behalf of the Congress. Patriarch Meletios resigned the Ecumenical Throne in the Fall of 1923, due to pressure from the government of Kemal Ataturk at the negotiations of the Treaty of Lusanne, which demanded his resignation in exchange for Turkey dropping its demand for the removal of the Patriarchate from Turkey.  Greece's Venizelist government reluctantly agreed to secure the resignation. The Church of Greece pressured the Ecumenical Patriarchate to convert to the Revised Julian Calendar to conform with the Gregorian civil calendar Greece had coverted to so that Greek Independence Day and the Feast Day of the Annunciation would coincide.  Although Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory VII was personally opposed to the calendar change, he acquiesced to Greece's demand and implemented the Revised Julian calendar on March 10, 1924 within the Church of Constantinople--the Church of Greece immediately accepting the change.  (+Meletios was later elected Patriarch of Alexandria and implemented the New Calendar within the Alexandrian Patriarchate at that time.)

[Jonathan Gress]

@witega:

I take your last point and will modify my statement. An interpolation in the text obviously does not constitute a synodical anathema or represent the mind of the Church, and lying is never right, even if done for piety's sake. What it does is show that at least some in the Church were already making the connection between the Western calendar innovation and adoption of Western heresy. You seem to concede as much also in your interpretation of the discussions over calendar reform that have occurred from time to time in the Orthodox Church. I think that point is still valid, i.e. the connection between the calendar and heresy was not simply something that Old Calendarists invented after the reform had already occurred, which a lot of New Calendarist apologists assert or imply.

You will find similar justifications for my position in Fr Basil Sakkas' history "The Calendar Question", where he says that it is true that there was always some debate over calendar reform in the Church, but that the positions taken ranged from originally indifferent in the pre-Gregorian period, to outright hostile in the post-Gregorian period. The first phase shows that the Church never felt Herself obligated to correct the calendar for the sake of astronomical accuracy. The function of the original establishment of the calendar was to unify the festal celebrations across all the Local Churches. Astronomical accuracy was not the primary motivation, but rather unity. Once this unity was established, there was no longer any imperative for change. After the Pope unilaterally changed the calendar, on top of this lack of any positive reason for change there came a strong reason against change, namely the implicit concession of authority to the Pope to decide common celebrations for the whole Church, although the Pope was a heretic and outside the Church. Along the same lines, the 1920 encyclical shows that it is no longer even about Papism, but now this essentially Masonic ideology of putting aside doctrinal differences for the sake of some greater social good inserts itself into the question. Personally I find it disingenuous to argue that one could talk about calendar reform after that encyclical without invoking ecumenism.

That being said I'm still not going to commit myself completely to the validity of Met Cyprian's historical conclusions. Although an Old Calendarist, he has adopted the peculiar ecclesiological doctrine that the New Calendarists remain in the Church, even though they are now publicly preaching heresy. In order to maintain this doctrine (which actually comes down to an excuse to remain in schism from the rest of the Old Calendarists), the Cyprianites need to show that the New Calendarists haven't fallen under any anathema that has already been promulgated, which curiously results in them doing a lot of the New Calendarists' work for them, e.g. disproving the validity of the 1583 anathema, or the 1983 anathema against ecumenism passed by ROCOR.

Even if Met Cyprian happens to be right about the 1583 sigillion, I note that he claims to prove that the calendar innovation was still condemned by the Church in some way. I haven't yet read through the whole article, but it could be that his argument taken in its entirety does not support the New Calendarist case as strongly as you or Jason would like to think.

[Jonathan Gress]

I think another point to consider is that, whether or not the document of the 1583 sigillion was tampered with, there was clearly the widespread belief in 1924 that the Papal calendar was under anathema. Otherwise, why did the 1923 "Congress" bother to pretend to have Pan-Orthodox authority? Why did the Greek State Church rely on this authority to push through the calendar change? It seems much too much trouble for them to go to if there was no reason at all to believe the calendar was of doctrinal importance or that it needed ecumenical authority to be changed.

[SubdeaconDavid]

Interesting how a "Commitee" as it was called by Patriarch Meletios IV (Metaxakis) of Constantinople/Istanbul becomes a "Congress" when he is the only Patriarch at the Congress (prior to his deposition and later translation to Alexandria) and somehow assumes pseudo Conciliar status with the New Calendarists.  (One wonders if they also endorse his attendance in 1921 at an Anglican church in New York, where he blessed the people, venerated the altar table, and clearly regarded the Anglican clergy as brother priests or his membership of the Greek Freemason lodge,Megali Stoas Tis Ellados ). Of course the new calendar was supported by the so-called Living Church renovationists, whose schism and heresy was not suppressed by the Moscow Patriarchate until the latter part of the Second World War How can we view the lack of spiritual insight and understanding of the Orthodox faith of the Constantinople and Alexandrian Patriarchate delegates who concelebrated with the heretical Renovationist-Living Church in 1925 in Moscow, despite the fact that they had been excommunicated and their sacraments declared null and void by Patriarch St. Tikhon.

Fr. Basil Sakkas writes:

The Church has expressed her decision by the anathemas which she pronounced, thus officially rendering the calendar an integral part of Her Tradition.  Therefore insofar as the calendar is part of the Church's Tradition, it does not change.Now it is our turn at ask a question of the New calendarists: "Why do you ask the Church to change Her calendar and annul Her anathemas which Her conscience has embraced to itself and held in respect for four centuries"

Fr. Basil also makes the very valid point that the Church's calendar is spiritual in essence and has no need to be endorsed by so-called science or rationalism.  Rationalism is the father of modernism and renovationism. 

We Orthodox do not need to be in step with the Gregorian secular calendar.  We certainly do not need to share the Christmas celebrations of the heterodox world.  Our task is to draw mankind to Jesus Christ, whose Kingdom is not of this world, and we do not need to apologise to the atheistic scientists or the Latin Church for our position on the Church Calendar.


Sakkas, B, The Calendar Question.

L.Regelson. Tragedy of Russian Church. 1917-1953

[Carl Kraeff (Second Chance)]

The science of the calendar is irrelevant to the salvific mission of the Church, a mission to share the Gospel with the non-believers, to bring the heterodox to the Church.  Disunity hinders that mission just as ecumenism and modernism does.

You may have shot yourself in the foot by that statement. I think most heterodox will be repelled by the mind-set of Orthodox folks like you. You lament disunity but foment it. You say the calendar is not essential for the salvific mission of the church but elevate it to quasi divinity. You claim to be deriding modernism but reject the ancient Apostolic teachings. I do not think that you speak with a forked tongue, but you are talking from both sides of your mouth.

[stanley123]

...we do not need to apologise to the atheistic scientists or the Latin Church for our position on the Church Calendar.


Sakkas, B, The Calendar Question.

L.Regelson. Tragedy of Russian Church. 1917-1953

Excuse me, but I believe that you are setting up a straw man argument here. Who in the Latin Church has ever asked anyone to apologise for their position on the Old Calendar?

[ialmisry]

I think another point to consider is that, whether or not the document of the 1583 sigillion was tampered with, there was clearly the widespread belief in 1924 that the Papal calendar was under anathema. Otherwise, why did the 1923 "Congress" bother to pretend to have Pan-Orthodox authority? Why did the Greek State Church rely on this authority to push through the calendar change? It seems much too much trouble for them to go to if there was no reason at all to believe the calendar was of doctrinal importance or that it needed ecumenical authority to be changed.

I don't know of any tradition of not meeting over any issues common to all the Churches.  Do you?

[ialmisry]

The science of the calendar is irrelevant to the salvific mission of the Church, a mission to share the Gospel with the non-believers, to bring the heterodox to the Church.  Disunity hinders that mission just as ecumenism and modernism does.

You may have shot yourself in the foot by that statement. I think most heterodox will be repelled by the mind-set of Orthodox folks like you. You lament disunity but foment it. You say the calendar is not essential for the salvific mission of the church but elevate it to quasi divinity. You claim to be deriding modernism but reject the ancient Apostolic teachings. I do not think that you speak with a forked tongue, but you are talking from both sides of your mouth.

Or perhaps a difference oriface altogether?

The Fathers made specific reference to the science of the calendar at the disposal of the Pope Alexandria (i.e. its accuracy), but your modernist disregard of the Fathers makes you unable to see the unifying factor of that.

[ialmisry]

Interesting how a "Commitee" as it was called by Patriarch Meletios IV (Metaxakis) of Constantinople/Istanbul becomes a "Congress" when he is the only Patriarch at the Congress (prior to his deposition and later translation to Alexandria) and somehow assumes pseudo Conciliar status with the New Calendarists.  (One wonders if they also endorse his attendance in 1921 at an Anglican church in New York, where he blessed the people, venerated the altar table, and clearly regarded the Anglican clergy as brother priests or his membership of the Greek Freemason lodge,Megali Stoas Tis Ellados ). Of course the new calendar was supported by the so-called Living Church renovationists, whose schism and heresy was not suppressed by the Moscow Patriarchate until the latter part of the Second World War How can we view the lack of spiritual insight and understanding of the Orthodox faith of the Constantinople and Alexandrian Patriarchate delegates who concelebrated with the heretical Renovationist-Living Church in 1925 in Moscow, despite the fact that they had been excommunicated and their sacraments declared null and void by Patriarch St. Tikhon.

Don't know, but neither the Romanian Patriarch nor the Antiochian Patriarch (nor AFAIK the Bulgarian Patriarch) did, but they are all on the New Calendar.

Fr. Basil Sakkas writes:

The Church has expressed her decision by the anathemas which she pronounced, thus officially rendering the calendar an integral part of Her Tradition.  Therefore insofar as the calendar is part of the Church's Tradition, it does not change.

Obvious nonsense.  We know for a fact that the Calendar has changed.  Otherwise we would still be on the Hebrew calendar.

Now it is our turn at ask a question of the New calendarists: "Why do you ask the Church to change Her calendar and annul Her anathemas which Her conscience has embraced to itself and held in respect for four centuries[/b]"

because ignorance isn't what the Fathers embraced.
Fr. Basil also makes the very valid point that the Church's calendar is spiritual in essence and has no need to be endorsed by so-called science or rationalism.  Rationalism is the father of modernism and renovationism. 

We Orthodox do not need to be in step with the Gregorian secular calendar.  We certainly do not need to share the Christmas celebrations of the heterodox world.  Our task is to draw mankind to Jesus Christ, whose Kingdom is not of this world, and we do not need to apologise to the atheistic scientists or the Latin Church for our position on the Church Calendar.


Sakkas, B, The Calendar Question.

L.Regelson. Tragedy of Russian Church. 1917-1953

[ialmisry]

Nothing good has come of the New Calendar.

Nothing good has come of the Old Calendar either.

[ialmisry]

Greg,

How do New Calendar Orthodox respond to this encyclical?

Well, basically, they don't - they don't reply to it, since the whole enterprise of trading the Church Calendar for the Gregorian Calendar (under the sophism of actually adopting a "revised Julian Calendar") was done from a mindset which really did not obsess about fidelity to ecclessiastical tradition, even one obtained only after so much effort and confusion and which manifested the liturgical unity of the Orthodox Church across the world.

While we (who are conditioned by an extremely pluralistic, and egalitarian culture - arguably one which often embodies these two values unto absurdity) may not like the "language" of the Sigillion of 1583 and it's latter confirmations in the following centuries, the fact is it's on the books - and to treat this and the reality it defends with levity, is wrong-headed in the extreme.

As bad as the disunity which the calendar change has introduced into the Orthodox world, I think worse yet was the intention underlying it, as made clear in the EP's 1920 encyclical itself; namely that it was the first "ecumenical gesture" of those proclaiming to speak for the Orthodox Church, an "ecumenism" which in it's very name is misleading (since the Church has always used the word "ecumenical" in a way opposed to how it was used by the "ecumenical movement" started amongst the Protestants in the late 1800's - yet this incorrect definition has now been assumed by Orthodox Christians themselves.)   Indeed, I think it's becoming painfully obvious that the only "union" that will ever be effected by these "ecumenical activities" is the kind of the ill fated unia of Florence - nay worse, since the parties besides the Orthodox thrown into this current soup are even more diverse, and unfortunately even further removed from the truth.

Frankly, they're working to build the church of the anti-Christ, whether they realize it or not (?).   None of this is going to bring a single soul into the Orthodox Church, or create a Godly peace.

If we look at the New Calendar today, while the Church of Greece, the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Rue daru Russian Exarchate, part of the OCA, Bulgaria and Rumania, Finland (which should have remained part of the Russian Church), the Estonian illicit Exarchate of Constantinople (also part of the Russian Church), to name some of the New Calendar players, nonetheless remain  only 15% of of world Orthodoxy.  The overwhelming majority uses the Orthodox's Church Calendar (Julian). 

It may not be a matter of erroneous faith that the New Calendarists have adopted it.  It matters that it was championed by renovationists like Patriarch Meletios - an undoubted modernist, Patriarch Athenagoras whose unilateral actions implied that the Great Schism was a nonsense and the current Greek Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul).  It matters that those that observe the Julian Calendar are castigated as ecclesial dinosaurs - although I challenge anyone to say that to the Patriarch of Moscow.  It matters that parts of the OCA serve feasts on different dates to those who follow the Julian Calendar.  It matters that Orthodoxy is compromised by kow-towing to secular 'science' and the dis-unity that is occasioned is of less consequence than following the Gregorian Calendar (albeit with a Paschal concession). 

The minority - the 15% of New Calendarists should in the interests of humility and Church unity abandon their renovationist calendar and concentrate on Orthodox unity rather than placating heterodox agendas.

many of the Old Calendarist should in the interests of humility and Church unity abandon their sanctimonious holy than thou attitude and concentrate on Orthodox unity rather than placating reactionary agendas.

The Fathers respected secular science.  We should as well.

Stop kow-towing to an idol of your own making.  The Fathers didn't fashion that image.

[ialmisry]

I wonder if Sbdcn David is going to come back any time soon to defend his most recent post. Or is it just going to be another drive-by?

Michael you can argue numbers of New Calendarists vs. Old if you like.  Maybe if you counted bishops given that the Constantinople Patriarchate has so many titular sees of places long lost to Christianity you might win that way.

define long.  Most of those abandoned sees were full until last century.  But they were suppressed by Muslims.  Those suppressed in Russia were suppressed by those that PoM had baptized itself.

The EP also has several millions in its home territory.

I am not really interested in the semantics of the calendar - the so-called science of your Gregorian knowledge

it's called astronomy. Btw, do you still believe the sun revolves around the earth?

or the merits of the place of the winter solstice in the New Calendarist Nativity.

The vernal equinox is the most important.

Nothing good has come of the New Calendar.

or the Old Calendar.

Especially in Greece, thousands of holy Orthodox have felt so strongly about this, that they have left the official Church. It has supported the appalling ecumenism of Patriarch Athenagoras and his successors.  The holiest monastic communities in the world - Mt Athos have roundly rejected it.

I vote for St. Katherine's on Mt. Sinai. 

It has divided the Church for what? To please the heterodox?

Only in your head.

Why did the late Patriarch Meletios - an entirely discredited chainsmoking

is there a canon on smoking annulling a consecration?

Mason reject the Old Calendar and do so much to push the New? Because the Old did not fit with the ideology that he espoused, with the culture that he wanted for the Church of liturgical reform, shortening the fasts etc. 

The science of the calendar is irrelevant to the salvific mission of the Church, a mission to share the Gospel with the non-believers, to bring the heterodox to the Church.  Disunity hinders that mission just as ecumenism and modernism does.

sharing your belief that the earth is flat with non-believers isn't helping the salvific mission of the Church.

[Jonathan Gress]

Isa as usual gives a whole new meaning to "gall". The Old Calendarists are the modernists? That's almost as good as Fr Ambrose saying that it is the True Orthodox who are the ecumenists (because we are able to distinguish between administrative and doctrinal divisions, unlike him apparently).

As for my point about the charade of the "Pan-Orthodox" congress, yes, thank you for agreeing with me. The fact that Pat Meletios felt the need to pretend to proceed with ecumenical authority on the issue of calendar reform shows that the calendar was NOT seen by the Church as some irrelevant detail that Local Churches could determine for themselves. QED.

[PeterTheAleut]

Isa as usual gives a whole new meaning to "gall".

Well, enough "gall" to recognize that it was by following the astronomy of the day and by making Alexandria, the church of the city with the most developed understanding of astronomy, the final arbiter on the date of Pascha that the Church accomplished the common celebration of Pascha she considered so important. I suppose, then, that one can say the New Calendar follows more closely the spirit of the Nicene Fathers than such rigid adherence to an Old Calendar that has been so long out of sync with the seasons.

[Jonathan Gress]

Isa as usual gives a whole new meaning to "gall".

Well, enough "gall" to recognize that it was by following the astronomy of the day and by making Alexandria, the church of the city with the most developed understanding of astronomy, the final arbiter on the date of Pascha that the Church accomplished the common celebration of Pascha she considered so important. I suppose, then, that one can say the New Calendar follows more closely the spirit of the Nicene Fathers than such rigid adherence to an Old Calendar that has been so long out of sync with the seasons.

PtA, you should know better. I already explained that the long and persistent history of rejection of calendar change for its own sake surely testifies to the irrelevance of "astronomical accuracy" in the mind of the Church, i.e. the pointless insistence that the cycle of feasts must correlate with some specific astronomical configurations. Don't you think the Church Fathers in the centuries since Nicea knew the spirit of Nicea, most probably much better than you or I or anyone participating in this discussion? Anyway, why does e.g. Christmas need to be celebrated in winter, if we're on the subject of being in "sync" with the seasons? In the southern hemisphere the Orthodox celebrate it in summer. Are they violating the spirit of Nicea, too? And none of this discussion addresses the main point, namely the context of ecumenism in which the new calendar was introduced.

What adds insult to injury, what I call "gall", is when you or Isa or any new calendarist is not content with supporting innovation for purely modernistic reasons like "astronomical accuracy", while we traditionalists are simply content to follow the patristic calendar without such concerns, but on top of that you have the temerity to label us modernists for resisting your modernism! No doubt you make these ridiculous comments simply to wind us up, and the Lord knows I wouldn't want to deprive you of any fun.

[PeterTheAleut]

Isa as usual gives a whole new meaning to "gall".

Well, enough "gall" to recognize that it was by following the astronomy of the day and by making Alexandria, the church of the city with the most developed understanding of astronomy, the final arbiter on the date of Pascha that the Church accomplished the common celebration of Pascha she considered so important. I suppose, then, that one can say the New Calendar follows more closely the spirit of the Nicene Fathers than such rigid adherence to an Old Calendar that has been so long out of sync with the seasons.

PtA, you should know better. I already explained that the long and persistent history of rejection of calendar change for its own sake surely testifies to the irrelevance of "astronomical accuracy" in the mind of the Church,

I'm familiar with this argument, yet I've always suspected that this is more the projection back into the mind of the Nicene Fathers an ascetic mindset that developed since Nicea than it is the genuine "mind of the Church" that the Nicene Fathers shared. I also think the indifference toward calendar reform you cited from before 1583 is probably better explained by the concept of inertia than by a concept of the irrelevance of astronomical accuracy. Unless outside circumstances force us to consider sweeping changes, we are naturally more inclined to accept the status quo, even if the status quo is not exactly the best thing for us.

(The thought just came to mind also that it would take centuries of calendar drift, well beyond the scope of individual experience, for anyone to notice that the vernal equinox was occurring on March 8 rather than on March 21 and that the calendar needed to be tweaked to make it more accurate. What you call indifference to astronomical accuracy was very likely just people not even noticing that the calendar had become inaccurate. Then when someone suggested that the calendar needed adjustment to resynchronize it with the seasons, we rejected it out of hand merely because it was the pope who mandated the change and his new calendar introduced some changes we couldn't accept. I don't see, however, that we rejected at all the general concept of calendar reform in and of itself.)

i.e. the pointless insistence that the cycle of feasts must correlate with some specific astronomical configurations.

You're the one calling this insistence pointless. The evidence I see in Nicea says otherwise.

Don't you think the Church Fathers in the centuries since Nicea knew the spirit of Nicea, most probably much better than you or I or anyone participating in this discussion?

Probably, but they're not the ones involved in this discussion. You and I are. That means it's our job today to discern the spirit of Nicea as best we can. We certainly should refer back to the Fathers for wisdom and counsel, but they are not infallible. To follow after the Fathers means to follow in their practice of prayerful study and discernment of the truth, not to just blindly embrace their opinions as though they have the force of dogma. Would you not agree?

Anyway, why does e.g. Christmas need to be celebrated in winter, if we're on the subject of being in "sync" with the seasons? In the southern hemisphere the Orthodox celebrate it in summer. Are they violating the spirit of Nicea, too? And none of this discussion addresses the main point, namely the context of ecumenism in which the new calendar was introduced.

Did the other churches that eventually adopted the New Calendar do so for exactly the same reasons Patriarch Meletios did? What about the deliberations over calendar reform that were a part of the Russian Sobor of 1917, the same sobor that elected St. Tikhon Patriarch? I think it all too easy for Patriarch Meletios to be seen as the scapegoat for calendar reform and so many of the other ills that supposedly plague the Church today, but I think this scapegoating only ignores what are essentially much more complicated issues.

What adds insult to injury, what I call "gall", is when you or Isa or any new calendarist is not content with supporting innovation for purely modernistic reasons like "astronomical accuracy", while we traditionalists are simply content to follow the patristic calendar without such concerns, but on top of that you have the temerity to label us modernists for resisting your modernism!

Please don't associate me with Isa, since he speaks for himself. I never called you a modernist.

No doubt you make these ridiculous comments simply to wind us up, and the Lord knows I wouldn't want to deprive you of any fun.

What makes you so sure you know me and my motives well enough to say that?

[Jonathan Gress]

Some last thoughts before I go to bed:

I read through that article by Met Cyprian. I don't quite know what to make of it. His arguments on the forged nature of the 1583 sigillion as attested in the codex from St Panteleimon's Monastery seem to be derived entirely from old new calendarist works from the 1920s and 1930s, no doubt written with polemical intent against the supporters of the patristic calendar. I don't see any original manuscript research there. He could be right that the sigillion doesn't correspond to the other documents from the 1583 synod that he mentions, but since he doesn't reproduce that document in its entirety (the joint epistle of Pat Jeremy and Pat Sylvester), it's not clear just how different they are. The text does look a lot like the text of Cyril Loukaris that he does reproduce, although apparently we're meant to take Met Cyprian's word for it that the similarity is because Fr Iakovos borrowed Cyril's text, and not because Cyril borrowed from the 1583 decree.

I'm not sure I completely trust his use of quotations, since, for instance, he omits this important passage from the encyclical following the 1593 synod that also condemned the new calendar (Fr Basil "The Calendar Question", p. 25) (and which does in fact look a lot like part of the alleged 1583 decree):

"He that does not follow the customs of the Church which were
decreed by the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils which have
ordained well that we observe the Holy Pascha and the Menologion,
and wishes to follow the new Paschalia and Menologion of the
Pope’s astronomers, and, opposing himself to all these things,
wishes to overturn and destroy them, let him be anathema and
outside of the Church of Christ and the assembly of the faithful…”

Where he does mention the 1593 synodal decision, he gives the distinct impression that they only mentioned the Paschalion, which is not the case. It is also clear from the last section of the article in particular that the main purpose of his article is to refute the idea that the new Menologion has ever been anathematized, necessitating the convening of a new council to address the question. This of course can be taken to uphold his ecclesiology, which considers the New Calendar churches as not under anathema and still grace-filled, even though the ecumenist heresy is being preached everywhere by them.

The passage from the 1593 encyclical shows that the Church has indeed condemned both the new Paschalion and the new Menologion, with or without the authenticity of the 1583 sigillion.

Some general thoughts: the calendar is like an icon. Of itself it is material, but the Church has made it spiritual. It is impious to deface an icon, and it is impious to disrupt the calendar through ill-conceived reforms. The calendar can be changed, but only if the whole Church changes it, since otherwise unity is violated, and only if some greater spiritual need demands it. There was no such need in 1924, but rather there was the need of the ecumenists to begin the process of rapprochement with the Westerners by having the major feasts coincide in East and West. And the calendar wasn't changed by the whole Church, but by only small parts of it, thereby disrupting unity. By the fruits you shall know the tree.

[Jonathan Gress]

@PtA:

Apologies. In a moment of passion I thought you had called me a modernist, too, but I see you didn't. I'll address your other points tomorrow, God willing.

[LBK]

the calendar is like an icon. Of itself it is material, but the Church has made it spiritual. It is impious to deface an icon, and it is impious to disrupt the calendar through ill-conceived reforms.

In what way is a calendar an icon? Is a calendar a visual expression of the incarnation of God? Is a calendar a window to heaven? A spiritual depiction of holiness? Do we pray to the calendar like we do to the Cross, do we hold feasts of it?

Honestly, Jonathan, you'll have to find a better defense than that if you expect us to take you seriously.

Here's a healthy antidote to "hemerologiolatry":

http://byztex.blogspot.com/2009/06/onion-dome-where-calendar-is-everything.html

[SubdeaconDavid]

I wonder if Sbdcn David is going to come back any time soon to defend his most recent post. Or is it just going to be another drive-by?

Michael you can argue numbers of New Calendarists vs. Old if you like.  Maybe if you counted bishops given that the Constantinople Patriarchate has so many titular sees of places long lost to Christianity you might win that way.

define long.  Most of those abandoned sees were full until last century.  But they were suppressed by Muslims.  Those suppressed in Russia were suppressed by those that PoM had baptized itself.

The EP also has several millions in its home territory.

I am not really interested in the semantics of the calendar - the so-called science of your Gregorian knowledge

it's called astronomy. Btw, do you still believe the sun revolves around the earth?

or the merits of the place of the winter solstice in the New Calendarist Nativity.

The vernal equinox is the most important.

Nothing good has come of the New Calendar.

or the Old Calendar.

Especially in Greece, thousands of holy Orthodox have felt so strongly about this, that they have left the official Church. It has supported the appalling ecumenism of Patriarch Athenagoras and his successors.  The holiest monastic communities in the world - Mt Athos have roundly rejected it.

I vote for St. Katherine's on Mt. Sinai. 

It has divided the Church for what? To please the heterodox?

Only in your head.

Why did the late Patriarch Meletios - an entirely discredited chainsmoking

is there a canon on smoking annulling a consecration?

Mason reject the Old Calendar and do so much to push the New? Because the Old did not fit with the ideology that he espoused, with the culture that he wanted for the Church of liturgical reform, shortening the fasts etc. 

The science of the calendar is irrelevant to the salvific mission of the Church, a mission to share the Gospel with the non-believers, to bring the heterodox to the Church.  Disunity hinders that mission just as ecumenism and modernism does.

sharing your belief that the earth is flat with non-believers isn't helping the salvific mission of the Church.

Your worldly logic re the calendar theories used to justify the Gregorian Calendar/New Calendar is irrelevant.  The first Orthodox patriarch to accept the New Calendar was Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis -  utterly discredited who should have been excommunicated for being a Mason.  Your New Calendarism has changed the culture of Eastern Orthodoxy.  You fail to answer the charge that New Calendarism lends itself to erroneous ecumenism with heterodox.  Patriarch Athenagoras accepted the validity of papist orders.  Patriarch Bartholemew continues in the same vein.  Patriarch Meletios of Constantinople/Alexandria courted Anglicans, and accepted the validity of Anglican orders.  I would like a response to these please. 

Whether the world is round and spinning or flat matters nought to our salvation.  The disunity brought to the Church by the New Calendar was avoidable.  It was unnecessary.  It wiped feasts out as if they counted for nothing in 1924 and forever impacts on the Apostles Fast in the NC Churches.  It separates worshipers even within the OCA.  All in the name of pseudo-scientific relevatism - the logic of which sustains those who want to reduce the fasts because it clashes with our McDonalds loving Western way of life, or who want married bishops or to allow priests, deacons and subdeacons to marry after ordination - or divorce.  The logical extension of this modernism if unchecked - and I acknowledge that there is grace and wisdom and holiness in the New Calendarist Churches - is that you end up with the Episcopalians and liberal Roman Catholics with the ordination of women and gay marriage being accepted as politically correct, psychologically balanced and ethically fine. 

[PeterTheAleut]

Your worldly logic re the calendar theories used to justify the Gregorian Calendar/New Calendar is irrelevant.  The first Orthodox patriarch to accept the New Calendar was Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis -  utterly discredited who should have been excommunicated for being a Mason.  Your New Calendarism has changed the culture of Eastern Orthodoxy.  You fail to answer the charge that New Calendarism lends itself to erroneous ecumenism with heterodox.  Patriarch Athenagoras accepted the validity of papist orders.  Patriarch Bartholemew continues in the same vein.  Patriarch Meletios of Constantinople/Alexandria courted Anglicans, and accepted the validity of Anglican orders.  I would like a response to these please.

I can't begin to tell you at this moment just how many logical fallacies there are in the above paragraph. I'll do that when I have more time after I get home from church.  

Whether the world is round and spinning or flat matters nought to our salvation.  The disunity brought to the Church by the New Calendar was avoidable.  It was unnecessary.  It wiped feasts out as if they counted for nothing in 1924 and forever impacts on the Apostles Fast in the NC Churches.  It separates worshipers even within the OCA.  All in the name of pseudo-scientific relevatism - the logic of which sustains those who want to reduce the fasts because it clashes with our McDonalds loving Western way of life, or who want married bishops or to allow priests, deacons and subdeacons to marry after ordination - or divorce.  The logical extension of this modernism if unchecked - and I acknowledge that there is grace and wisdom and holiness in the New Calendarist Churches - is that you end up with the Episcopalians and liberal Roman Catholics with the ordination of women and gay marriage being accepted as politically correct, psychologically balanced and ethically fine.  

The slippery slope is itself a logical fallacy most of the times it's used, and I haven't even mentioned yet the other logical fallacies in this paragraph either.

In short, if you intend to be taken seriously, you'll need to come up with a much more logical, much less emotive argument than you just posted.

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