Old vs. New Calendar?

[Hermogenes]

Wow. This is truly overwhelming. Everything from the heresies of the early church to smoking!

First, a small comment on regicide: Peter III, Ivan VI, Paul I, all in a period of less than 75 years. Regicide has been common for as long as people have allowed themselves to be ruled by kings.

Second, and I apologize if I'm repeating what others have said: Many of the early fathers of the church were outstanding scholars. I'll just mention Jerome, Basil the Great, Augustine, Ambrose, Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, et al. If they had been exposed to the same evidence that Copernicus, Galileo, and Tycho Brahe saw, to name just a few heretic scientists, I am sure they would have abandoned the Ptolemaic system like a shot. They were highly rational men and would have taken notice of scientific information presented scientifically.

Let us rational sheep do likewise. And let us also pay attention to our spiritual health and not get caught up in arguments that have no solution and are, in any event, beyond our ability to effect any universal outcome. If you prefer the Old Calendar and are certain that it alone contains God's true meaning, then by all means, go to an Old Calendarist Church. If you are equally convinced by the New Calendar, attend a New Calendarist parish. I really don't see what is hard about this. Let the bishops and fanatics slug it out amongst themselves.

[PeterTheAleut]

Wow. This is truly overwhelming. Everything from the heresies of the early church to smoking!

First, a small comment on regicide: Peter III, Ivan VI, Paul I, all in a period of less than 75 years. Regicide has been common for as long as people have allowed themselves to be ruled by kings.

Second, and I apologize if I'm repeating what others have said: Many of the early fathers of the church were outstanding scholars. I'll just mention Jerome, Basil the Great, Augustine, Ambrose, Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, et al. If they had been exposed to the same evidence that Copernicus, Galileo, and Tycho Brahe saw, to name just a few heretic scientists, I am sure they would have abandoned the Ptolemaic system like a shot. They were highly rational men and would have taken notice of scientific information presented scientifically.

Let us rational sheep do likewise. And let us also pay attention to our spiritual health and not get caught up in arguments that have no solution and are, in any event, beyond our ability to effect any universal outcome. If you prefer the Old Calendar and are certain that it alone contains God's true meaning, then by all means, go to an Old Calendarist Church. If you are equally convinced by the New Calendar, attend a New Calendarist parish. I really don't see what is hard about this. Let the bishops and fanatics slug it out amongst themselves.

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

[Hermogenes]

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

True. But no one--certainly no one on this blog--seems to be able to agree whether it was Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII (or someone else, the list of "someone elses" being too long to cite individually) who possessed the Truth of the Church. And I, for one, am not willing to refrain from the sacraments until better minds than mine can work it out.

[ialmisry]

Wow. This is truly overwhelming. Everything from the heresies of the early church to smoking!

First, a small comment on regicide: Peter III, Ivan VI, Paul I, all in a period of less than 75 years. Regicide has been common for as long as people have allowed themselves to be ruled by kings.

Second, and I apologize if I'm repeating what others have said: Many of the early fathers of the church were outstanding scholars. I'll just mention Jerome, Basil the Great, Augustine, Ambrose, Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, et al. If they had been exposed to the same evidence that Copernicus, Galileo, and Tycho Brahe saw, to name just a few heretic scientists, I am sure they would have abandoned the Ptolemaic system like a shot. They were highly rational men and would have taken notice of scientific information presented scientifically.

Let us rational sheep do likewise. And let us also pay attention to our spiritual health and not get caught up in arguments that have no solution and are, in any event, beyond our ability to effect any universal outcome. If you prefer the Old Calendar and are certain that it alone contains God's true meaning, then by all means, go to an Old Calendarist Church. If you are equally convinced by the New Calendar, attend a New Calendarist parish. I really don't see what is hard about this. Let the bishops and fanatics slug it out amongst themselves.

Letting the fanatics steer the ship usually sinks it. Read "Moby Dick."

[Hermogenes]

Wow. This is truly overwhelming. Everything from the heresies of the early church to smoking!

First, a small comment on regicide: Peter III, Ivan VI, Paul I, all in a period of less than 75 years. Regicide has been common for as long as people have allowed themselves to be ruled by kings.

Second, and I apologize if I'm repeating what others have said: Many of the early fathers of the church were outstanding scholars. I'll just mention Jerome, Basil the Great, Augustine, Ambrose, Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, et al. If they had been exposed to the same evidence that Copernicus, Galileo, and Tycho Brahe saw, to name just a few heretic scientists, I am sure they would have abandoned the Ptolemaic system like a shot. They were highly rational men and would have taken notice of scientific information presented scientifically.

Let us rational sheep do likewise. And let us also pay attention to our spiritual health and not get caught up in arguments that have no solution and are, in any event, beyond our ability to effect any universal outcome. If you prefer the Old Calendar and are certain that it alone contains God's true meaning, then by all means, go to an Old Calendarist Church. If you are equally convinced by the New Calendar, attend a New Calendarist parish. I really don't see what is hard about this. Let the bishops and fanatics slug it out amongst themselves.

Letting the fanatics steer the ship usually sinks it. Read "Moby Dick."

True enough, but it's a hell of a ride! Literally.

[Carl Kraeff (Second Chance)]

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

True. But no one--certainly no one on this blog--seems to be able to agree whether it was Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII (or someone else, the list of "someone elses" being too long to cite individually) who possessed the Truth of the Church. And I, for one, am not willing to refrain from the sacraments until better minds than mine can work it out.

There is another factor that you have not factored in--Natural Law, that is, God's ordering of creation. Every calendar is but an attempt to relate God's order or time in human terms. It does not matter whose calendar it is, it only matters which calendar most closely approximates God's time. The problem with proclaiming a particular calendar as a Church calendar is the subordination of Natural Law or God's time to Church practice.

[Jonathan Gress]

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

True. But no one--certainly no one on this blog--seems to be able to agree whether it was Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII (or someone else, the list of "someone elses" being too long to cite individually) who possessed the Truth of the Church. And I, for one, am not willing to refrain from the sacraments until better minds than mine can work it out.

There is another factor that you have not factored in--Natural Law, that is, God's ordering of creation. Every calendar is but an attempt to relate God's order or time in human terms. It does not matter whose calendar it is, it only matters which calendar most closely approximates God's time. The problem with proclaiming a particular calendar as a Church calendar is the subordination of Natural Law or God's time to Church practice.

But that's precisely what happened when the Church decided on a common calendar at the council of Nicea. Are you saying the Church didn't understand natural law or something? The point is not that the calendar was invented by a pagan, but that the Church happened to choose that calendar for sacred purposes. It made sacred something which was previously profane.

[Hermogenes]

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

True. But no one--certainly no one on this blog--seems to be able to agree whether it was Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII (or someone else, the list of "someone elses" being too long to cite individually) who possessed the Truth of the Church. And I, for one, am not willing to refrain from the sacraments until better minds than mine can work it out.

There is another factor that you have not factored in--Natural Law, that is, God's ordering of creation. Every calendar is but an attempt to relate God's order or time in human terms. It does not matter whose calendar it is, it only matters which calendar most closely approximates God's time. The problem with proclaiming a particular calendar as a Church calendar is the subordination of Natural Law or God's time to Church practice.

But that's precisely what happened when the Church decided on a common calendar at the council of Nicea. Are you saying the Church didn't understand natural law or something? The point is not that the calendar was invented by a pagan, but that the Church happened to choose that calendar for sacred purposes. It made sacred something which was previously profane.

In the Fourth Century, it was commonly accepted that the Sun and all the stars and planets revolved around the Earth, which was the center of the universe. Whether that system was regarded as sacred or profane, I am saying exactly that the church of 325 AD did not fully understand "natural law." Nor do we. But with regard to the structure of the physical universe, we are several steps ahead of our Fourth Century ancestors.

[ialmisry]

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

True. But no one--certainly no one on this blog--seems to be able to agree whether it was Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII (or someone else, the list of "someone elses" being too long to cite individually) who possessed the Truth of the Church. And I, for one, am not willing to refrain from the sacraments until better minds than mine can work it out.

There is another factor that you have not factored in--Natural Law, that is, God's ordering of creation. Every calendar is but an attempt to relate God's order or time in human terms. It does not matter whose calendar it is, it only matters which calendar most closely approximates God's time. The problem with proclaiming a particular calendar as a Church calendar is the subordination of Natural Law or God's time to Church practice.

But that's precisely what happened when the Church decided on a common calendar at the council of Nicea. Are you saying the Church didn't understand natural law or something? The point is not that the calendar was invented by a pagan, but that the Church happened to choose that calendar for sacred purposes. It made sacred something which was previously profane.

I wasn't just "happened." It was the calendar the Empire used.  And even then, the Fathers calculated by the stars, not Caesar's date book.

[Jonathan Gress]

I think Jason's thoughtful post deserves a thoughtful response, so here is my attempt point by point.

1) It's true that Pat Meletios only called the Council after he knew that the Greek Church under the newly elected Abp Chrysostomos approved of changing the calendar. But as you note later, the synod under Abp Chrysostomos depended a great deal on the patina of legitimacy that Pat Meletios' Council gave to the reform, and indeed it did not take place until after the Council had concluded. As for the Council, since it was so poorly attended, with no official representation from any other Patriarchate, I'm not sure that Pat Meletios' supposed fairmindedness to different opinions counts for much. To all appearances it's only purpose was to be a platform for Pat Meletios to air his own renovationist vision for the Church.

So yes, Pat Meletios was not the direct instigator of the reform in Greece, but he played a crucial role in legitimizing the process for the reformers in the Greek synod, and ultimately it doesn't matter whether one innovator named Meletios or another named Chrysostomos is responsible. What matters is that the spirit behind these reforms was anti-Orthodox.

2) I'm surprised you find nothing objectionable in the desire to celebrate the feasts together with the Western heterodox. The whole problem with that sentiment, as found in the 1920 encyclical by the EP locum tenens, and later found in Pat Meletios' own words, which I quote below, is that it presupposes that the Western heretics are nevertheless part of the Church in some way, so that celebrating together with them furthers the necessary goal of unity. But if the truth is, as the Church teaches, that the Westerners are in no way part of the Church, then celebrating feasts with them does not strengthen the unity of the Church, but rather pushes the Church towards union with heresy.

Pat Meletios wrote to the Church of Greece on Feb 3 1923 that changing the calendar at his forthcoming council was necessary “so as to
further the cause, in this part of the Pan-Christian unity, of the celebration of
the Nativity and Resurrection of Christ on the same day by all those who are
called by the name of the Lord.” But the Westerners are NOT "called by the name of the Lord"! The point about ecumenism is not merely the idea of uniting in communion with those who do not share our faith (although I will show below that in fact this has already happened), but even allowing that not sharing the Orthodox faith does not preclude participating in some way in the grace of the Church.

The two pastoral reasons for calendar change that you mention, such as having the Church calendar match the civil calendar, or making it easier for Orthodox in foreign countries to go to Church on feast days, are I suppose worth mentioning, but even you must allow that such pastoral considerations were not the only ones being put forward by either Constantinople or Greece. In any case, I would personally disagree that having Orthodox celebrate their feasts together with the heterodox, and now fully secularized holidays like Christmas, would aid in preventing apostasy. But even if this were a good reason to change, you can't deny the presence of the ecumenist motivations as well.

The closeness with the Anglicans that you mention does seem to have passed away, although this is presumably more to do with the extreme moral and doctrinal liberalism of the Anglican communion than with a lessening of ecumenist efforts. The Anglicans are so far gone, and this dissolution has occurred so fast, even the most enthusiastic Orthodox ecumenist can't quite pretend that union is worth pursuing. This case is utterly different from e.g. the Roman Catholics, who now enjoy extremely close relations with the EP, as you must be aware.

3) You say what?! Firstly, heretical union has occurred, between the Orthodox in Alexandria with the Copts, and between the Orthodox in Antioch with the Syriac church. The mutual prayer that goes on between the EP and the Vatican (remember 2006? have you even watched the video?) easily matches anything cooked up by Pat Athenagoras. I can only conclude from your third point that you are blind to everything that is going on today in the ecumenical movement. Whether willfully or not, I can't say, of course.

By the way, what is your point each time you bring up the presence of the Anglican bishop at Met Vitaly's consecration? That Met Vitaly approved of ecumenism and therefore we should too? Or isn't the more reasonable interpretation that this was a relatively small slip in the life of a hierarch who was later famous for his vehement opposition to ecumenism, including support for the anathema against ecumenism of 1983?

4) Pat Meletios proceeded with the conference without even any official attendance by other Patriarchates. It doesn't sound like he was really that interested in having them participate. And it doesn't look like the reaction of other churches was as positive as you make out:

"The most important decrees
of the Congress were the decisions to change to the new style [calendar] and
to allow the clergy to marry a second time. The Alexandrian, Antiochian and
Jerusalem Churches did not participate in the Congress, considering its
convening untimely [and Meletius an uncanonical usurper]. But its decrees
were rejected by them as being, according to the expression of the
Alexandrian Patriarch, ‘contrary to the practice, tradition and teaching of our
most Holy Mother Church and presented under the pretext of being slight
modifications, which are probably elicited by the demands of the new dogma
of “Modernism”’ (epistle to the Antiochian Patriarch, 23 June, 1923). The
representatives of the Russian Church Abroad [Archbishops Anastasius and
Alexander], and after them the Council of Bishops, reacted completely
negatively to these reforms."

That was from a history of the event by ROCOR Abp Nicon (Rklitsky), in his biography of Met Anthony (Khrapovitsky).

I think it's reasonable to suppose that Pat Meletios did want pan-Orthodox support (or at least no active opposition) to his reforms, but that doesn't take away from the following facts: his ideas for reform were animated by heretical ecumenism and anti-Orthodox modernism, not love for Orthodox tradition; the other churches' reaction to his council's proposals was overwhelmingly negative, even if a break in communion did not result immediately; whatever the legitimacy of his council's acts, the reform proceeded unilaterally and uncanonically in a small number of individual local churches, as you yourself concede.

After Pat Meletios resigned from the Ecumenical throne, the following Patriarch did indeed wish to consult with the other local churches before agreeing to Abp Chrysostomos' proposed calendar reform. Here is what the Patriarch of Alexandria had to say:

"Your announcement
that, without any real cause or dogmatic or canonical reasons, the brotherly
advice and entreaties of the four Apostolic Thrones has been rejected, and the
‘reform of the calendar’ has taken place, caused us great grief and surprise.
You are in danger of alienating all the Orthodox peoples of the Church.
Therefore I suggest the convening of a council to examine the question.
Taking into consideration the letters from the Churches of Romania and
Serbia, we abide in these things which have been dogmatized in former
Synodal Congresses, and we reject every addition or any change of the
calendar before the convocation of an Ecumenical Council, which alone is
capable of discussing this question, concerning which Ecumenical Council we
propose a speedy convocation."

This, of course, written on Jan 15 1924, shows that the other Patriarchates did not consider the 1923 congress to have represented or accounted for their opinions, or to have had pan-Orthodox authority.

5) Personally I think the jury's still out on the legitimacy of the 1583 sigillion. As I pointed out before, Met Cyprian's article does not represent new groundbreaking research, but only a regurgitation of old New Calendarist polemics, which were already alluded to in the letter of HTM monastery I cited above. Basically I would not offer an opinion about the authenticity of the sigillion without also reading what Old Calendarists argued in response to the forgery claims back in the 1920s and 1930s. Overall I think it's suspicious that no one claimed forgery before the reform, even Abp Chrysostom when he offered his opinion on the consequences of unilateral calendar reform. Wouldn't that have been the perfect opportunity to point out that the Church had never condemned the Western calendar, or at least the Western menologion?

Given that the 1923 council was not interested in preserving tradition, is it really that surprising they would neglect to mention previous Church decisions that forbad any alteration of the calendar to align with the Western heretics?

6) If the other Local Churches were to view the Church of Greece as schismatic, that means that Abp Chrysostom understood that the Church's voice on the matter of unilaterally changing the calendar was unambiguous enough that other churches could not fail to see that the Greek Church was schismatic. To me Abp Chrysostom's words at the time show that he well understood what the Church had decided.

The opinion of other local churches on whether one church has fallen into schism is valuable, but not essential. For instance, what do you say to the fact that your own ROCOR recognized the Old Calendarists in Greece as the legitimate Church of Greece, consecrating bishops for them? Why does their opinion not count, while the opinion of Jerusalem in 1937 does count? Since there was obviously disagreement and uncertainty among the several jurisdictions as to the implications of the calendar reform in Greece and elsewhere, we can't simply point to what one or other church has said and rely exclusively on that. We have to consider also the evidence for what the whole church had already said about the Gregorian, not only in 1583, but 1587, 1593, 1722, 1827, 1848, 1895, and 1904, and about the declared motivations behind the reform of 1923-4, which are either ecumenist ("we must celebrate together with the Western Christians") or modernist ("we must conform Church practice to secular usage; tradition is worthless if it's not scientifically up-to-date").

[Jonathan Gress]

And in response to his post about whether the True Orthodox bishops in 1935 had the right to condemn the State Church, I should remind him that there are several examples of local councils making such decisions without being followed by an ecumenical council. For instance, Paul of Samosata was condemned for heresy by a council at Antioch. There was never an ecumenical council addressing the matter, but the local decision has still been accepted by the whole Church. It's just not true that local councils have no authority to condemn heresy or impose anathemas. What is true is that local councils don't necessarily have the same authority, for obvious reasons, as ecumenical ones. There is precedent for local council decisions being later overturned; I'm not sure there is any precedent for ecumenical decisions being later overturned. So that's why, at least among "mainstream" Old Calendarists such as my own jurisdiction, we don't make it a dogma to believe the New Calendarists are without grace. That is just the position of our synod, but it's not generally treated as a matter of faith.

[Hermogenes]

I would be very careful about any wholesale condemnation of others who refer to themselves as Christians, for example the billion-plus Roman Catholics. It seems to me this ought to be left to the One Who judges us all. To me, many adherents of these various churches in the centuries after the formal split were men and women of clear sanctity who were touched by God. I'm not going to write them off because they happened to be born in territory governed by the Bishop of Rome. One of the strongest tendencies I notice among we Orthodox is the tendency to smug superiority. We belong to the True Church, and everyone else is wrong. That lack of humility will lead us nowhere we want to go. Or at least, nowhere we want to end up.

In the Apostolic age, i.e., the church in the years immediately following the original Pentecost, a Christian was someone who believed in the Risen Savior. Period. I consider myself a devout child of the Church, but I do not believe God hates those who are not, nor that he hates those who are not Christians. He doesn't seem to hate me, and I'm about as big a sinner as there is, so I cannot fathom why he would hate really good people who don't happen to be Orthodox. Everything I know about our Triune God tells me that I worship a God of love and mercy. Those of you who are fortunate enough to get to heaven may be very surprised at the demographics. LOL

[Jonathan Gress]

I think you misunderstand what the True Orthodox are saying. We're not judging the Catholics or Protestants in that we presume to declare whether or not they go to heaven or hell. We're simply acknowledging that their public confession of faith is not Orthodox, and therefore that they cannot be part of the Church.

[witega]

But that's precisely what happened when the Church decided on a common calendar at the council of Nicea. Are you saying the Church didn't understand natural law or something? The point is not that the calendar was invented by a pagan, but that the Church happened to choose that calendar for sacred purposes. It made sacred something which was previously profane.

I generally try to assume that even when people disagree, they are still doing so in good faith. You are making that increasingly difficult with your willingness to repeat things you should know are false.

Nicea didn't decide on a common Paschalion, much less a common calendar. If it had, there would be some mention of this fact in any of the surviving documents from or about the council. There isn't. The only thing Nicea decided was that Pascha could not be celebrated on the same date as the Jews, had to come after the vernal equinox, and had to be on a Sunday.

If the Fathers had decided on a common calender, the Nestorians, Armenians, and Copts, who all accept Nicea and split from the Church centuries after it, would be using the Julian calendar, rather than continuing to use the same local calendars they have been using since the first century. If they had decided on a common Paschalion, then Rome and Alexandria wouldn't have been using different Paschalions (both of which obeyed the rules of Nicea) for *two* centuries after Nicea. If it had decided on a common Paschalion, there would have been no 'Easter controversy' found in every history of early Medieval England--a controversy which occurred because the Irish missionaries were still using the Western/Roman Paschalion that had been in use in the 5th century when they were evangelized while the Roman missionaries were using the Paschalion Rome had moved to in the 6th century (again, both Paschalions obeyed the rules of Nicea)

[Carl Kraeff (Second Chance)]

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

True. But no one--certainly no one on this blog--seems to be able to agree whether it was Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII (or someone else, the list of "someone elses" being too long to cite individually) who possessed the Truth of the Church. And I, for one, am not willing to refrain from the sacraments until better minds than mine can work it out.

There is another factor that you have not factored in--Natural Law, that is, God's ordering of creation. Every calendar is but an attempt to relate God's order or time in human terms. It does not matter whose calendar it is, it only matters which calendar most closely approximates God's time. The problem with proclaiming a particular calendar as a Church calendar is the subordination of Natural Law or God's time to Church practice.

But that's precisely what happened when the Church decided on a common calendar at the council of Nicea. Are you saying the Church didn't understand natural law or something? The point is not that the calendar was invented by a pagan, but that the Church happened to choose that calendar for sacred purposes. It made sacred something which was previously profane.

On the contrary; that is the reason why the date of Pascha is based on God's time, on the astrological phenomenon of the Vernal Equinox. BTW, the Julian calendar per se was not sanctified; time itself was. The two, God's time and the Julian calendar, coincided at that time--that is the only virtue of the Julian Calendar. And, when it no longer reflected God's time, it should have been replaced by another calendar that approximates God's time. Again, it is God's time that is sacred, not the calendar. You see this most clearly in the setting of Nativity on the Winter Solstice--December 25th being a fair approximation. The Old Calendar date in the following month of the following year is a mockery of the principle of the calendar being the srvant and not the master.

[Jonathan Gress]

But that's precisely what happened when the Church decided on a common calendar at the council of Nicea. Are you saying the Church didn't understand natural law or something? The point is not that the calendar was invented by a pagan, but that the Church happened to choose that calendar for sacred purposes. It made sacred something which was previously profane.

I generally try to assume that even when people disagree, they are still doing so in good faith. You are making that increasingly difficult with your willingness to repeat things you should know are false.

Nicea didn't decide on a common Paschalion, much less a common calendar. If it had, there would be some mention of this fact in any of the surviving documents from or about the council. There isn't. The only thing Nicea decided was that Pascha could not be celebrated on the same date as the Jews, had to come after the vernal equinox, and had to be on a Sunday.

If the Fathers had decided on a common calender, the Nestorians, Armenians, and Copts, who all accept Nicea and split from the Church centuries after it, would be using the Julian calendar, rather than continuing to use the same local calendars they have been using since the first century. If they had decided on a common Paschalion, then Rome and Alexandria wouldn't have been using different Paschalions (both of which obeyed the rules of Nicea) for *two* centuries after Nicea. If it had decided on a common Paschalion, there would have been no 'Easter controversy' found in every history of early Medieval England--a controversy which occurred because the Irish missionaries were still using the Western/Roman Paschalion that had been in use in the 5th century when they were evangelized while the Roman missionaries were using the Paschalion Rome had moved to in the 6th century (again, both Paschalions obeyed the rules of Nicea)

Actually I don't accept your point. Even if we grant that you are right that a common observance wasn't immediately enforced at Nicea, we nevertheless can see Nicea as part of a process of uniting the varying calendars of different parts of the Church. There was an unambiguous sense that a common faith should be accompanied by a common observance of the major feasts. Even the decision on when Pascha could not be observed surely shows that the Fathers wished to bring the different observances into line (and away from the observances of the unbelieving Jews). The spirit of the Fathers is to encourage unity, which seems to me the opposite spirit of Abp Chrysostomos and the other calendar reformers.

[Jonathan Gress]

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

True. But no one--certainly no one on this blog--seems to be able to agree whether it was Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII (or someone else, the list of "someone elses" being too long to cite individually) who possessed the Truth of the Church. And I, for one, am not willing to refrain from the sacraments until better minds than mine can work it out.

There is another factor that you have not factored in--Natural Law, that is, God's ordering of creation. Every calendar is but an attempt to relate God's order or time in human terms. It does not matter whose calendar it is, it only matters which calendar most closely approximates God's time. The problem with proclaiming a particular calendar as a Church calendar is the subordination of Natural Law or God's time to Church practice.

But that's precisely what happened when the Church decided on a common calendar at the council of Nicea. Are you saying the Church didn't understand natural law or something? The point is not that the calendar was invented by a pagan, but that the Church happened to choose that calendar for sacred purposes. It made sacred something which was previously profane.

On the contrary; that is the reason why the date of Pascha is based on God's time, on the astrological phenomenon of the Vernal Equinox. BTW, the Julian calendar per se was not sanctified; time itself was. The two, God's time and the Julian calendar, coincided at that time--that is the only virtue of the Julian Calendar. And, when it no longer reflected God's time, it should have been replaced by another calendar that approximates God's time. Again, it is God's time that is sacred, not the calendar. You see this most clearly in the setting of Nativity on the Winter Solstice--December 25th being a fair approximation. The Old Calendar date in the following month of the following year is a mockery of the principle of the calendar being the srvant and not the master.

If the Church has the mind of Christ, then whatever the Church decides is the calendar is God's time.

[ialmisry]

The Truth of the Church is the possession of the whole Church, not just of the bishops and fanatics. We are all responsible for discerning it and teaching it.

True. But no one--certainly no one on this blog--seems to be able to agree whether it was Julius Caesar or Pope Gregory XIII (or someone else, the list of "someone elses" being too long to cite individually) who possessed the Truth of the Church. And I, for one, am not willing to refrain from the sacraments until better minds than mine can work it out.

There is another factor that you have not factored in--Natural Law, that is, God's ordering of creation. Every calendar is but an attempt to relate God's order or time in human terms. It does not matter whose calendar it is, it only matters which calendar most closely approximates God's time. The problem with proclaiming a particular calendar as a Church calendar is the subordination of Natural Law or God's time to Church practice.

But that's precisely what happened when the Church decided on a common calendar at the council of Nicea. Are you saying the Church didn't understand natural law or something? The point is not that the calendar was invented by a pagan, but that the Church happened to choose that calendar for sacred purposes. It made sacred something which was previously profane.

On the contrary; that is the reason why the date of Pascha is based on God's time, on the astrological phenomenon of the Vernal Equinox. BTW, the Julian calendar per se was not sanctified; time itself was. The two, God's time and the Julian calendar, coincided at that time--that is the only virtue of the Julian Calendar. And, when it no longer reflected God's time, it should have been replaced by another calendar that approximates God's time. Again, it is God's time that is sacred, not the calendar. You see this most clearly in the setting of Nativity on the Winter Solstice--December 25th being a fair approximation. The Old Calendar date in the following month of the following year is a mockery of the principle of the calendar being the srvant and not the master.

Um, if the Church has the mind of Christ, then whatever the Church decides is the calendar is God's time. Nice try.

Then we can just proclaim, say, April 4th perpetually Pascha, as if the Church declares it the first Sunday after the first new moon after the equinox, no matter what the moon God created or the weekly cycle He set in motion says.

[Jonathan Gress]

If the Church says it's so, then it's so. Do you have a problem with that?

[ialmisry]

If the Church says it's so, then it's so. Do you have a problem with that?

False churches distinguishing themselves by their foolish pronouncements from the sane pronouncements of the True Church? No, no problem at al.

[Jonathan Gress]

If the Church says it's so, then it's so. Do you have a problem with that?

False churches distinguishing themselves by their foolish pronouncements from the sane pronouncements of the True Church? No, no problem at al.

I thought you were saying that if Church decided to make Pascha a fixed feast, that would be absurd. I say it wouldn't be absurd if the Church says it's so.

[witega]

Actually I don't accept your point. Even if we grant that you are right that a common observance wasn't immediately enforced at Nicea,

This is like saying 'Even if we grant that Abraham Lincoln was president during the Civil War' or 'Even if we grant that the Gregorian calendar was promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII". You are 'granting' demonstrable historical fact that no one who has spent any time at all looking at the primary documents or studying the history of the period disputes. That you would rather make stuff up about what the Holy Fathers of Nicea said instead of dealing with their actual decision says quite a bit about your dedication to the truth. Not so much about actual Orthodoxy though.

we nevertheless can see Nicea as part of a process of uniting the varying calendars of different parts of the Church There was an unambiguous sense that a common faith should be accompanied by a common observance of the major feasts.

Sure. If you are going to make things up, you can see any pattern you want. New Agers do this all the time. I almost said Protestants, but the sincere among them at least try to tie their personal interpretations to the actual text which is more than you are doing. I challenge you to find one Father (much less conciliar decision) from the first 7 centuries who thought the fact that Alexandrian, Antiochian and Armenian churches were using a local Menaion based on a local calendar for every feast (and fast) other than Pascha (and Pentecost) was in any way something to be addressed. What's 'unambiguous' is that other than Pascha, nobody cared.

That the Church ended up with one calendar by the second millenium was not the work of any Father. It happened because large numbers of the local Christians went into schism and then the entire area fell under the Muslim yoke leaving the remaining Orthodox heavily dependent on Constantinople. Maybe you think God hates Calendrical variety so much that He thought schism and Muslim conquest were better--but you would be decidely outside the Patristic consensus in such an opinion. Not that you appear to care.

Even the decision on when Pascha could not be observed surely shows that the Fathers wished to bring the different observances into line (and away from the observances of the unbelieving Jews).

Again, read the actual text. We have the imperial letter where St. Constantine explains why Nicea made the decisions it did about Pascha. And it's not because they were thinking about any observance other than Pascha. Indeed the whole thrust of his letter is that Pascha is *special*. Pascha is *unique*. And so therefore it should be treated specially (i.e., differently than *all* the other days where variety is irrelevant.

[SubdeaconDavid]

I would be very careful about any wholesale condemnation of others who refer to themselves as Christians, for example the billion-plus Roman Catholics. It seems to me this ought to be left to the One Who judges us all. To me, many adherents of these various churches in the centuries after the formal split were men and women of clear sanctity who were touched by God. I'm not going to write them off because they happened to be born in territory governed by the Bishop of Rome. One of the strongest tendencies I notice among we Orthodox is the tendency to smug superiority. We belong to the True Church, and everyone else is wrong. That lack of humility will lead us nowhere we want to go. Or at least, nowhere we want to end up.

In the Apostolic age, i.e., the church in the years immediately following the original Pentecost, a Christian was someone who believed in the Risen Savior. Period. I consider myself a devout child of the Church, but I do not believe God hates those who are not, nor that he hates those who are not Christians. He doesn't seem to hate me, and I'm about as big a sinner as there is, so I cannot fathom why he would hate really good people who don't happen to be Orthodox. Everything I know about our Triune God tells me that I worship a God of love and mercy. Those of you who are fortunate enough to get to heaven may be very surprised at the demographics. LOL

I have no doubt that God Who is Love looks with Fatherly tenderness on heterodox, non-Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, seeing in some sincerity of desire to know and love Him. and in all, aspiring for their reconciliation to the Church of God.  I cannot imagine heaven without Desmond Tutu.  
That is however NOT the same as saying that Archbishop Tutu is a validly consecrated bishop of the Church, or that heterodox are in the Catholic and Apostolic Church - because clearly they are not. The actions of successive Ecumenical Patriarchs in praying with the Latin Pontiff, or at Anglican masses with the Archbishop of Canterbury merely muddies the waters and fails to send to those men the message that they are in serious error. To allow a glimmer of hope is to subscribe to the Anglican Branch Theory - that Catholicism rests in the Roman (Latin), Anglican and Orthodox Churches.  
So to say that because the Julian calendar inconveniences us with weekday feasts or Christmas  apart from the Protestant and Roman Catholic mainstream somehow is the vestige of a cultural ghetto is just plain wrong.  We don't need the Nativity to be mixed with heterodoxy.  We need to bring the heterodox to the Church, and to the faith and to an understanding that Orthodoxy is very different to the values of secularism and the customs and values of heterodoxy.  
Look at the Latin Church and its calendar today.  Even the variable feasts that fall on weekdays like the Ascension are transferred to the nearest Sunday.  Is that the logical extension of calendar revisionism for Orthodoxy, hand in hand with clergy without beards in Roman collars and suits, organs with hymns and churches that look like so different to traditional Orthodox Churches?  Calendar revision has done nothing to fight modernism.  Calendar reform has done nothing for the unity of the Church - and please, don't blame those of us who keep the Julian Calendar, because it was universal prior to the ill-conceived actions of the Greek State Church closely followed by the notorious Patriarch Meletios.

[LBK]

Calendar reform has done nothing for the unity of the Church

The only disunity in the Church with regard to the adoption of the new calendar by some Orthodox jurisdictions is the existence of splinter groups which, in the vast majority of cases, do not even recognise each other. OTOH, the canonical churches are in full communion with each other, irrespective of which calendar is used.

[stanley123]

Look at the Latin Church and its calendar today. ...clergy without beards in Roman collars and suits, ...

How strict is the requirement that clergy are to have beards?

[ialmisry]

If the Church says it's so, then it's so. Do you have a problem with that?

False churches distinguishing themselves by their foolish pronouncements from the sane pronouncements of the True Church? No, no problem at al.

I thought you were saying that if Church decided to make Pascha a fixed feast, that would be absurd. I say it wouldn't be absurd if the Church says it's so.

It would be an absurdity to move the landmark which the Fathers have set up.

[Jonathan Gress]

If the Church says it's so, then it's so. Do you have a problem with that?

False churches distinguishing themselves by their foolish pronouncements from the sane pronouncements of the True Church? No, no problem at al.

I thought you were saying that if Church decided to make Pascha a fixed feast, that would be absurd. I say it wouldn't be absurd if the Church says it's so.

It would be an absurdity to move the landmark which the Fathers have set up.

Of course I agree with that. I don't think the Church would ever change the way we determine Pascha. I guess that was a pointless red herring on our part.

[Jonathan Gress]

Actually I don't accept your point. Even if we grant that you are right that a common observance wasn't immediately enforced at Nicea,

This is like saying 'Even if we grant that Abraham Lincoln was president during the Civil War' or 'Even if we grant that the Gregorian calendar was promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII". You are 'granting' demonstrable historical fact that no one who has spent any time at all looking at the primary documents or studying the history of the period disputes. That you would rather make stuff up about what the Holy Fathers of Nicea said instead of dealing with their actual decision says quite a bit about your dedication to the truth. Not so much about actual Orthodoxy though.

we nevertheless can see Nicea as part of a process of uniting the varying calendars of different parts of the Church There was an unambiguous sense that a common faith should be accompanied by a common observance of the major feasts.

Sure. If you are going to make things up, you can see any pattern you want. New Agers do this all the time. I almost said Protestants, but the sincere among them at least try to tie their personal interpretations to the actual text which is more than you are doing. I challenge you to find one Father (much less conciliar decision) from the first 7 centuries who thought the fact that Alexandrian, Antiochian and Armenian churches were using a local Menaion based on a local calendar for every feast (and fast) other than Pascha (and Pentecost) was in any way something to be addressed. What's 'unambiguous' is that other than Pascha, nobody cared.

That the Church ended up with one calendar by the second millenium was not the work of any Father. It happened because large numbers of the local Christians went into schism and then the entire area fell under the Muslim yoke leaving the remaining Orthodox heavily dependent on Constantinople. Maybe you think God hates Calendrical variety so much that He thought schism and Muslim conquest were better--but you would be decidely outside the Patristic consensus in such an opinion. Not that you appear to care.

Even the decision on when Pascha could not be observed surely shows that the Fathers wished to bring the different observances into line (and away from the observances of the unbelieving Jews).

Again, read the actual text. We have the imperial letter where St. Constantine explains why Nicea made the decisions it did about Pascha. And it's not because they were thinking about any observance other than Pascha. Indeed the whole thrust of his letter is that Pascha is *special*. Pascha is *unique*. And so therefore it should be treated specially (i.e., differently than *all* the other days where variety is irrelevant.

Then I wonder why ever since the Church has considered the calendar to have been instituted by the Fathers of that Council. There continued to be local variations in determining Pascha, e.g. for a time in the West, but weren't even these variations ironed out eventually? As you say, the churches that keep old versions of different calendars fell into heresy. How do you know they wouldn't have conformed to the mainstream practice eventually if they had remained Orthodox? I certainly don't get your argument from silence: that simply because no mention is made of other feasts, the Fathers didn't believe them to be important. I don't dispute they are less important than Pascha, but less important is not the same as unimportant.

I feel like your approach is basically a renovationist one: we ignore what the Church in more recent times believed about the earlier history, and instead we jump over centuries of tradition to decide for ourselves what the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils meant. It's a variation of the "sola scriptura" approach to my mind, except applied to other old written documents rather than just the Bible. But isn't an important aspect of tradition continuity? You basically seem to be saying that the Church in the 16th centuries and later had the wrong idea about what the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils believed about the calendar. Is that really possible, though? Wouldn't that mean the Holy Spirit was no longer guiding the Church in all Truth?

If my understanding of Tradition were limited to just the written documents that one could interpret as one wished, I would be a Protestant. Maybe an Anglo-Catholic. But I believe Tradition is a seamless whole. So I'm not saying you're wrong that the written decisions of Nicea only lay down a few rules concerning the calculation of Pascha, but I think we also have to consider other things: the eventual conformity of the peripheral parts of the Church to the ecumenical practice, and the clear understanding of the Church in later centuries that the Ecumenical Councils sanctioned this universal calendar, if not in writing, then by the actual use of the calendar.

[Jonathan Gress]

And this is from St Constantine's letter to the council on the keeping of Pascha:

"When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it was universally thought that it would be convenient that all should keep the feast on one day; for what could be more beautiful and more desirable, than to see this festival, through which we receive the hope of immortality, celebrated by all with one accord, and in the same manner?"

I don't know about the other feasts, but at least this is pretty unambiguous: Pascha should be celebrated on the same day by all the Church. Not just within a certain range of dates, as you earlier implied. This means that the continuing discrepancy between West and East on the celebration of Pascha is clearly not something that St Constantine (or presumably the Council Fathers) would have approved of.

[PeterTheAleut]

Look at the Latin Church and its calendar today. ...clergy without beards in Roman collars and suits, ...

How strict is the requirement that clergy are to have beards?

Please don't ask that question here. Haven't you been told before to start new threads for your off-topic questions?

[username!]

The old calender is a bad term, it is the Julian Calender and it

ROCKS

[Aindriú]

The old calender is a bad term, it is the Julian Calender and it

ROCKS

You rock!

[username!]

The old calender is a bad term, it is the Julian Calender and it

ROCKS

You rock!

thanks

[witega]

Then I wonder why ever since the Church has considered the calendar to have been instituted by the Fathers of that Council.

The Church has never considered any such thing. A minority of ill-informed individuals centuries later have assumed this and then can't seem to be bothered to look at the actual record, but if Church actually thought any such thing, you would be able to easily meet my challenge since I posed the much lower bar of finding any Father from the time when multiple calendars were in use for calculating everything besides Pascha who thought that was a problem. If you can't find one Father who thought that then you certainly can't claim the "Church" (i.e., the Consensus Patrum) thought such a thing.

There continued to be local variations in determining Pascha, e.g. for a time in the West, but weren't even these variations ironed out eventually?

You're confusing paschalions and calendars. The first is used to determine the movable feast of Pascha (and because of that Pentecost), the latter is used to determine everything else. In 500 AD, Rome and Constantinople had the same calendar but different paschalions; at the same time Constantinople and Alexandria had the same paschalion but different calendars. Everyone (then and now) agreed that the Church should have one paschalion (hence, as I pointed out, the sub-genre of Patristic texts discussing how to most accurately calculate Pascha in accordance with the Nicean guidelines), and the Church eventually got there (with the exception of Ireland) through the conscious activity of the Fathers. On the other hand no one at that time thought the calendar differences were an issue and the Church took no action to bring them into alignment.

We're in basically the same situation today--most of the Church on one paschalion (check); an exception here or there (Finland now, Ireland then--check); multiple calendars (check). The only difference is that then no one thought any of this justified schism whereas now we have an Eastern version of Protestants who are prepared to go into schism in order to keep their personal preferences intact.

I certainly don't get your argument from silence:

I'm not arguing from silence. My whole argument is that there is silence--in contradistinction to your entirely false claims that there is any Patristic justification for caring whether a local church celebrates the Nativity on the Julian December 25th or on some other day.

See, I don't have to justify anything. I'm simply following the decisions of my bishops. You are the one who is trying to defend laity rebelling against their bishops and bishops rebelling against their synods. The only way such behavior can be justified is by demonstrating that the bishop/primate is 'teaching heresy bareheaded in the Church'. And for that, you need the Fathers to have made some indication that the Julian calendar is part of the 'Faith delivered once for all to the saints'. Which they never did.

I feel like your approach is basically a renovationist one:

Yes. You've been quite clear about your personal feelings. As I'm not a Protestant, I don't find them relevant to a discussion about the actual teaching and practice of the Church.

[Irish Hermit]

I would say that a Church-wide change to the New Calendar is inevitable. 

The thing is that Russians and Serbs are just not irrevocably committed to the Old Calendar. 

Patriarch Dimitrije and the Serbian Synod  reached a decision to change the Calendar.  But they changed their minds, thinking it was too early for a change to be accepted by the Serbian people. 

Patriarch Saint Tikhon and the Russian bishops were willing to discuss a change in 1917 but the Synod was interrupted by the Revolution.  All the same in 1924 when the New Calendar was accepted in Istanbul Patriarch Saint Tikhon mistakenly thought that ALL the Churches had voted for it and he sent a telegramme saying the Russian Church would follow suit and make the change.   

This recent history demonstrates that the Russian and Serbian hierarchs see,  from the actions of their predecessors, that they are possessed of the freedom to make a change at an appropriate time.

Hierom.Ambrose

[SubdeaconDavid]

It is an absolute blessing for those Orthodox who keep the Church's calendar, the Julian Calendar, to not have the Nativity Feast tainted with the heterodox and secular mishmash of Christmas.  Perhaps this is confusing to ecumenists who think that love can mend all things and heal the divided Church - but the fact remains the calendar if it does nothing else, serves to protect in some way the people of God from the spiritual malaise of heretics, who are fully outside of the Church and in need of being under her shelter.  In regard to the Russian Church, the 'Living' church schism failed, with their endorsement of married bishops, the Gregorian calendar, liturgical butchery etc.  The Russian Church, sanctified by the blood of millions of martyrs I suspect will not so easily give up her sacred traditions and fidelity to what Constantinople also adhered to with similar fidelity and tenacity and integrity - before the now virtually discredited Patriarch Meletios Metxakis's disastrous short sojourn on the throne changed the direction and spiritual culture of the Constantinople Patriarchate.

[Orthodox11]

It is an absolute blessing for those Orthodox who keep the Church's calendar, the Julian Calendar, to not have the Nativity Feast tainted with the heterodox and secular mishmash of Christmas.  Perhaps this is confusing to ecumenists who think that love can mend all things and heal the divided Church - but the fact remains the calendar if it does nothing else, serves to protect in some way the people of God from the spiritual malaise of heretics, who are fully outside of the Church and in need of being under her shelter.  

I very much agree with this. Most years, by accident more than choice, I end up celebrating Christmas on both calendars. This year because I went to the Holy Mountain. One gets the feeling of something pure and untainted standing there singing 'Today the Virgin' and 'Christ is Born' after all the hype associated with the 'secular mishmas of Christmas', however enjoyable, has passed away. Switching to the New Calendar was a great tragedy indeed.

In regard to the Russian Church, the 'Living' church schism failed, with their endorsement of married bishops, the Gregorian calendar, liturgical butchery etc.  The Russian Church, sanctified by the blood of millions of martyrs I suspect will not so easily give up her sacred traditions and fidelity to what Constantinople also adhered to with similar fidelity and tenacity and integrity - before the now virtually discredited Patriarch Meletios Metxakis's disastrous short sojourn on the throne changed the direction and spiritual culture of the Constantinople Patriarchate.

The Russian Church, sanctified by the blood of martyrs, already gave up many of her sacred traditions under Peter the Great. The idea of the glorious traditional Russian Church vs. the ailing and innovative Church of Constantinople is silly at best. Not that Metaxakis' reforms weren't disasterous, just that I have a lot of sympathy for those in the 17th century who thought Peter the Great to be the anti-Christ based on his utter disregard for Orthodox tradition, which he imposed on the Russian Church, and from which she still suffers the effects.

[SubdeaconDavid]

It is an absolute blessing for those Orthodox who keep the Church's calendar, the Julian Calendar, to not have the Nativity Feast tainted with the heterodox and secular mishmash of Christmas.  Perhaps this is confusing to ecumenists who think that love can mend all things and heal the divided Church - but the fact remains the calendar if it does nothing else, serves to protect in some way the people of God from the spiritual malaise of heretics, who are fully outside of the Church and in need of being under her shelter.  

I very much agree with this. Most years, by accident more than choice, I end up celebrating Christmas on both calendars. This year because I went to the Holy Mountain. One gets the feeling of something pure and untainted standing there singing 'Today the Virgin' and 'Christ is Born' after all the hype associated with the 'secular mishmas of Christmas', however enjoyable, has passed away. Switching to the New Calendar was a great tragedy indeed.

In regard to the Russian Church, the 'Living' church schism failed, with their endorsement of married bishops, the Gregorian calendar, liturgical butchery etc.  The Russian Church, sanctified by the blood of millions of martyrs I suspect will not so easily give up her sacred traditions and fidelity to what Constantinople also adhered to with similar fidelity and tenacity and integrity - before the now virtually discredited Patriarch Meletios Metxakis's disastrous short sojourn on the throne changed the direction and spiritual culture of the Constantinople Patriarchate.

The Russian Church, sanctified by the blood of martyrs, already gave up many of her sacred traditions under Peter the Great. The idea of the glorious traditional Russian Church vs. the ailing and innovative Church of Constantinople is silly at best. Not that Metaxakis' reforms weren't disasterous, just that I have a lot of sympathy for those in the 17th century who thought Peter the Great to be the anti-Christ based on his utter disregard for Orthodox tradition, which he imposed on the Russian Church, and from which she still suffers the effects.

I agree fully with your criticism that the Church under Tsar Peter the Great underwent reforms that were at best inappropriate.  They impacted negatively right through to the restoration of the Patriarchate - and indeed to this day, because the Russian Church lost her freedom entirely under the Bolsheviks until the early 1990's.  It will continue to take time, as the Moscow Patriarchate heals, grows and expands, for the Petrine reforms to fully be repaired.  The main thing is that the restoration of the Patriarchate occurred. 

There are many things to lament.  The loss of the Orthodox New Rome of the Byzantine Empire was a loss that modern Orthodox today do not fully appreciate.  I have been reading Meyendorff's Byzantium and the Rise of Russia and have appreciated the closeness of the relationship of the Metropolitanate of Kiev and All Russia to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.  Of course in faith, the Russian closeness to the soul of Byzantium was maintained through these centuries with remarkable loyalty - and that of course included the Orthodox Calendar aka Julian calendar.  It is likewise a terrible loss of contemporary Orthodox monarchy and the calendars they used - the Imperial family of Russia, the Orthodox monarchy of Greece, Serbia, Rumania and Bulgaria. 

[genesisone]

It is an absolute blessing for those Orthodox who keep the Church's calendar, the Julian Calendar, to not have the Nativity Feast tainted with the heterodox and secular mishmash of Christmas ... the spiritual malaise of heretics, who are fully outside of the Church and in need of being under her shelter.

With a little editing, I agree fully with your sentiments. Unfortunately, by your reasoning you should be consistent and expect a calendar that is certain to remove our celebration of Pascha from the "heterodox and secular mishmash of [Easter]". I do realize that that wish will come true if division continues unresolved, but not in our lifetime.

[SubdeaconDavid]

It is an absolute blessing for those Orthodox who keep the Church's calendar, the Julian Calendar, to not have the Nativity Feast tainted with the heterodox and secular mishmash of Christmas ... the spiritual malaise of heretics, who are fully outside of the Church and in need of being under her shelter.

With a little editing, I agree fully with your sentiments. Unfortunately, by your reasoning you should be consistent and expect a calendar that is certain to remove our celebration of Pascha from the "heterodox and secular mishmash of [Easter]". I do realize that that wish will come true if division continues unresolved, but not in our lifetime.

You are right - there is much worthiness in the argument that the Pascha of the Orthodox should be always separated from the observances of the heterodox. 

[genesisone]

It is an absolute blessing for those Orthodox who keep the Church's calendar, the Julian Calendar, to not have the Nativity Feast tainted with the heterodox and secular mishmash of Christmas ... the spiritual malaise of heretics, who are fully outside of the Church and in need of being under her shelter.

With a little editing, I agree fully with your sentiments. Unfortunately, by your reasoning you should be consistent and expect a calendar that is certain to remove our celebration of Pascha from the "heterodox and secular mishmash of [Easter]". I do realize that that wish will come true if division continues unresolved, but not in our lifetime.

You are right - there is much worthiness in the argument that the Pascha of the Orthodox should be always separated from the observances of the heterodox. 

But is it our concern that others have appropriated our celebrations? Are we to yield to those advances?

You won't get an argument from me that our observances should be separated from the secular, and by that I mean the way in which we observe - not necessarily the date. We probably also agree that the confusions of heterodoxy have contributed to many secular observances even within heterodox communities.

It is the faith, worship, and daily life of Orthodox Christians that will set us apart from the world. We should not allow a calendar to do that for us. In my city, and probably elsewhere, there are articles in the media about "Ukrainian Christmas" every year and sometimes Pascha, especially when the date differs from western Easter. The general response, "Oh, isn't that quaint?" It seems that the Orthodox are known only for their calendar. That is unfortunate.

[PeterTheAleut]

Frankly, I think the desire to celebrate Christmas on a separate date from the secularized "Xmas" of the "heretics" is among the worst possible excuses for following the Old Calendar. Rather than run away and hide in our own little ghettos when the world becomes "hostile" to us, wouldn't it be immensely better to fight to take back our holy days from the secularism that has taken them hostage? I'd be willing to bet that it's not a desire for holiness that motivates your desire to celebrate another Christmas, but a spirit of raw fear.

[witega]

But I believe Tradition is a seamless whole.

I actually agree with this. The problem is you say it, but you don't mean it. If one looks at the Tradition 'as a seamless whole', there are clearly things that never change--Christ is God, the role of the bishop, the centrality and meaning of the Eucharist, etc--and there are clearly things that can and do change--minor orders come into being (readers and subdeacons) and fall into disuse (deaconesses), the exact wording of various prayers (like confession) change, the calendar for fixed feasts varies. The Church and its Tradition are a living thing, not a static showpiece.

But the Old Calendrist position is to take one particular point in that living Tradition and attempt to freeze it. "I know the Apostles and the Fathers of the Councils considered this a variable but NO MORE. NOW it is fixed and can never be changed." I'm no fan of change for change's sake. Nor am I a fan of liturgical archaeology that attempts to revive an obsolete observance simply because it's there. But if something is clearly in the 'can and does' change category, then I have no basis to object when a competent authority makes a change (whatever his reasoning). I can express my criticism, of course, but I can't use it to justify the sin of schism. To think otherwise is to essentially adopt the papal model of 'development of doctrine' - the Dormition of the Theotokos wasn't something the Fathers considered a test of communion, but NOW we know better; the infallibility of the pope wasn't part of the Apostolic Foundation but NOW we know better.

we ignore what the Church in more recent times believed about the earlier history

You don't seem to get that you can't just assert 'what the Church believed'. You have to demonstrate it somehow. And so far your 'demonstrations' have consisted of quoting a single local council--which it now turns out was most likely a forgery by a 19th century monk who wasn't terribly concerned with honesty--and then to make your own inventions about what the ancient councils said.

What the Church 'believes' was made quite clear when the first local church changed to the New Calendar--it didn't matter. Not a single Local Church broke communion over it. Some bishops thought it was a bad idea, some thought it was a good idea, but with the exception of what 3 bishops?, the Church went on as it *always* has when dealing with calendrical differences.

According to St. Vincent of Lerins (though I realize he's one of those ancient fathers you don't seem to have much time for): "What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty." The idea that communion can be cut off based on the day Nativity is celebrated or that the Calendar can never be changed is most surely a novelty.

[SubdeaconDavid]

But I believe Tradition is a seamless whole.

I actually agree with this. The problem is you say it, but you don't mean it. If one looks at the Tradition 'as a seamless whole', there are clearly things that never change--Christ is God, the role of the bishop, the centrality and meaning of the Eucharist, etc--and there are clearly things that can and do change--minor orders come into being (readers and subdeacons) and fall into disuse (deaconesses), the exact wording of various prayers (like confession) change, the calendar for fixed feasts varies. The Church and its Tradition are a living thing, not a static showpiece.

But the Old Calendrist position is to take one particular point in that living Tradition and attempt to freeze it. "I know the Apostles and the Fathers of the Councils considered this a variable but NO MORE. NOW it is fixed and can never be changed." I'm no fan of change for change's sake. Nor am I a fan of liturgical archaeology that attempts to revive an obsolete observance simply because it's there. But if something is clearly in the 'can and does' change category, then I have no basis to object when a competent authority makes a change (whatever his reasoning). I can express my criticism, of course, but I can't use it to justify the sin of schism. To think otherwise is to essentially adopt the papal model of 'development of doctrine' - the Dormition of the Theotokos wasn't something the Fathers considered a test of communion, but NOW we know better; the infallibility of the pope wasn't part of the Apostolic Foundation but NOW we know better.

we ignore what the Church in more recent times believed about the earlier history

You don't seem to get that you can't just assert 'what the Church believed'. You have to demonstrate it somehow. And so far your 'demonstrations' have consisted of quoting a single local council--which it now turns out was most likely a forgery by a 19th century monk who wasn't terribly concerned with honesty--and then to make your own inventions about what the ancient councils said.

What the Church 'believes' was made quite clear when the first local church changed to the New Calendar--it didn't matter. Not a single Local Church broke communion over it. Some bishops thought it was a bad idea, some thought it was a good idea, but with the exception of what 3 bishops?, the Church went on as it *always* has when dealing with calendrical differences.

According to St. Vincent of Lerins (though I realize he's one of those ancient fathers you don't seem to have much time for): "What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty." The idea that communion can be cut off based on the day Nativity is celebrated or that the Calendar can never be changed is most surely a novelty.

I agree with your last paragraph.  I assume you are referring to schismatic Old Calendarists and not the Julian Calendar Slavic Churches - Moscow Patriarchate, Serbia, Georgia, Jerusalem, ROCOR, OCA Diocese of Alaska who numerically constitute the majority of Orthodox today.  The unilateral actions of the Greek State Church in adopting the New Calendar was surely an act cutting that Church apart from the rest of Orthodoxy - something that the Patriarch of Alexandria stated at the time. The act of the discredited Patriarch Meletios, prior to his deposition from the Ecumenical Throne was not the act of a Council, or a legitimate 'Congress' but was a railroaded modernist change that was just part of the agenda of Constantinople at the time. 

[Jonathan Gress]

"Did the iconoclasts not deride the Orthodox for considering the icons, that
is, boards and colours, as a dogma of the faith? Yet, who among the Orthodox of
today can deny the dogmatic significance of the icons ? Concerning this question,
Father Paul, a monk of the Holy Sepulcher, remarked most justly that a board,
before it has the countenance of our Saviour portrayed upon it, is but a common
piece of wood which we may burn up or destroy. From the moment, however, that
we paint the icon of Christ, the King of All, upon it, this wood becomes sanctified
and a source of sanctification for us, even though the wood be of inferior quality.
Likewise, the solar calendar, insofar as it is a calendar of days and months is, in
itself, nothing to be esteemed. But from the moment when the Holy Church placed
Her seal upon it and organized Her life upon this foundation, even though it has
become astronomically erroneous, still it remains holy! The calendar is no longer
Julian, but ecclesiastical, just as the board is no longer a simple piece of wood but
an icon."

From Fr Basil Sakkas, The Calendar Question

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