THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHANGE TO THE NEW CALENDAR
Written by Vladimir Moss
The
adoption of the new calendar by the Church of Greece in 1924 came at a
very vulnerable time for the Orthodox Church as a whole. The outward
position of the Church had changed radically in the previous ten years.
The Russian empire was gone, and the Ecumenical and the Moscow
patriarchates, to which the vast majority of Orthodox Christians
belonged, were fighting both external foes (the Bolsheviks and the
Turks) and internal schism (“the Living Church” and “the Turkish
Orthodox Church”). Neither the remaining Eastern patriarchates, on the
one hand, nor the Serbian patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad, on
the other, could take the place occupied by the Russian empire and the
Ecumenical patriarchate in the preceding centuries. It followed that if,
as was (temporarily) the case, none of the hierarchs of the Greek
Church would reject the calendar change and break communion with the
Archbishop of Athens, there was only one force remaining that could take
up the banner of truth – the people.
The
position of the laity in the Orthodox Church has often been
misunderstood. In Orthodoxy, the laypeople are neither the inert,
impotent, blindly obedient mass of the Roman Catholics, nor the
all-powerful, revolutionary horde of the Protestants. There are two
vital functions which can only be performed by canonically consecrated
clergy: the administration of the sacraments, including the ordination
of bishops and priests, and the definition of the faith, including the
position of the Church in relation to heretics and schismatics. But
while the laity cannot take the leading role in these two functions,
they do have an important confirmatory role in them. Thus strictly
speaking a bishop or priest cannot celebrate the Divine Liturgy without
the presence of at least one layman. Likewise a bishop cannot ordain a
priest without the consent of the people (expressed by shouting “axios!”
or “he is worthy!”). And a definition of the faith that is rejected by
the people will remain a dead letter. Thus we read: “I shall judge the
bishop and the layperson. The sheep are rational and not irrational, so
that no layman may ever say: ‘I am a sheep, and not a shepherd, and I
give no account of myself, but the shepherd shall see to it, and he
alone shall pay the penalty for me.’ For even as the sheep that follows
not the good shepherd shall fall to the wolves unto its own destruction,
so too it is evident that the sheep that follows the evil shepherd
shall acquire death; for he shall utterly devour it. Therefore it is
required that we flee from destructive shepherds.”
In
the long struggle with the western heresies, the Orthodox had never
found themselves so bereft of clerical leadership as in 1924. The
signing of the uniate council of Lyons in 1274 had been largely the work
of the emperor and his stooge, John Beccus; and there were many clergy
who resisted the Unia, which in any case lasted only eight years (to
1282). The position after the council of Florence was more serious: St.
Mark of Ephesus was the only Greek hierarch who refused to sign the
Unia. And it lasted for a longer period of time (1438-80). There
followed a long period in which, although there were some latinizing
(and protestantizing) patriarchs, the Church as a whole remained united
against the western peril. Thus when the new calendar was introduced by
the Pope in 1582 in order to create divisions among the Orthodox, it was
synodically condemned no less than eight times: in 1583, 1587, 1593,
1722, 1827, 1848, 1895 and 1904. Towards the end of this period
ecumenist tendencies, as we have seen, began to increase in the Orthodox
Churches, but opposition to the new calendar remained strong.
However,
already in their encyclical of 1848, the Eastern Patriarchs had
indicated the people’s role: “With us neither Patriarchs nor Councils
could ever introduce anything new, because the defender of religion is
the very body of the Church, or the people itself, who wanted their
religion to remain forever unchanged and in accord with the religion of
their Fathers.” The question that arose in 1924, therefore, was: did the
people (and a handful of clergy) have the right to separate from all
the innovating bishops and, in the absence of any hierarchs to support
them in their struggle, declare themselves to be the truly Orthodox
Church? The answer supplied by the Holy Tradition of the Church was a
clear: yes. While certain functions that can only be performed by
bishops, such as the ordination of priests, are temporarily suspended in
such a situation, the Church does not cease to exist, and remains
there, and only there, where the True Faith is confessed. For “where two
or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of
them”, said the Bishop of bishops, the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 18.20).
Moreover, the 15th
canon of the First-and-Second Council of Constantinople praises those
who break with a heretical bishop even before his synodical
condemnation. Indeed, there are several cases in the Church’s history of
holy men either breaking immediately with heretical bishops – St.
Hypatius in the fifth century, for example; or dying out of communion
with all the bishops of the Church and yet being praised and glorified
by succeeding generations – St. Maximus the Confessor in the seventh
century, for example, and St. Arsenius of Paros in the nineteenth. Since
the Churches of Constantinople, Greece, Romania, Finland, the Baltic
States and Poland adopted the new calendar in 1924, there was no way the
laity in these Churches could remain in communion with the other
Churches keeping the old calendar unless they broke communion with their
innovating hierarchs.
“But
why such a fuss,” say the new calendarists, “over a mere ‘thirteen
days’ difference?” Because the Apostle Paul said: "Hold the traditions" (II Thessalonians
2.15), and the tradition of the "old" Orthodox calendar was sealed by
the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council and sanctified by many
centuries of usage. To change the calendar, therefore, would be to break
communion, not only with our brethren who keep the old calendar on
earth, but also with all the saints who worship together with us in
heaven.
It
is in this rupture of communion that the major crime consists; for, as
St. John Chrysostom says, "exactness in the keeping of times is not as
important as the crime of division and schism". And again: “To tear
asunder the Church means nothing less, than to fall into heresy. The
Church is the house of the Heavenly Father, One Body and One Spirit." The
supreme aim of our life in Christ is unity in heaven and on earth, in
time and in eternity - "that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art
in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us" (John
17.21); and anything which disrupts that unity is anathema to us.
According to the Holy Fathers, schism is no less abhorrent and deadly a
sin than heresy. Even martyrdom, writes St. Cyprian of Carthage,
followed by St. John Chrysostom, cannot wipe out the sin of him who
divides the Body of Christ. For as Christ is one, so is His Church one;
indeed, the one Christ cannot be separated from the one Church in that
“the full and perfect Christ”, in St. Augustine’s phrase, “is Head and
Body” together.
“Since
the Church,” writes Fr. Justin Popovich, “is catholically one and a
unique theanthropic organism for all worlds, she cannot be divided. Any
division would signify her death… According to the united position of
the Fathers and the Councils, the Church is not only one but unique,
because the one unique God-man, her Head, cannot have many bodies. The
Church is one and unique because she is the body of the one unique
Christ. A division in the Church is ontologically impossible, for which
reason there has never been a division in the Church, only a division
from the Church. According to the word of the Lord, the Vine is not
divided; but only those branches which voluntarily refuse to bring forth
fruit fall away from the ever-living Vine and are dried up (John
15.1-6). At various times heretics and schismatics have been separated
and cut off from the one undivided Church of Christ; they have
subsequently ceased to be members of the Church and united with her
theanthropic body. Such were, first of all, the Gnostics, then the
Arians and Spirit-fighters, then the Monophysites and Iconoclasts, and
finally the Roman Catholics and Protestants and Uniates and all the rest
of the heretical and schismatic legion.”
The
Athonite zealot Fr. Augustine writes: “It is a dogma of the Faith that
the Church is not only Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, but also One, so
that even though the Churches are seen to be many, one and one only is
the Church composed of the many that are seen in different places. This
is the teaching of the Holy Creed, this is the message of the Divine
Scriptures, the Apostolic Tradition, the Sacred councils and the
God-bearing Fathers. From this we conclude that the union of the Church
is a most important dogma of the Faith.
“We
have seen… that St. Constantine and the Fathers of the First Ecumenical
Council re-established both the inner and the outer unity of the
Church, which is why the joyful autocrat cried out: ‘I have reaped a
double victory, I have both re-established inner peace through the
common confession of the Faith and brought the separation which existed
before into the unity of the Church through the common celebration of
Pascha.’
“This,
then, is unity, as we are assured by the Acts of the First Council, an
inner unity and an outer unity, and neither can the first be a true
unity without the second, nor can the second exist without the first.
The relationship between them is like that of faith to works and works
to faith. The one without the other is dead. Thus inner unity without
outer unity is dead, and outer unity without inner unity is dead. And
the first is defined by the common confession of the Faith, and the
second by the visible harmony in accordance with the laws and
institutions of the Church, both constituting the one and only true
unity, the essential unity of the Church.”
In
1968 Abbot Philotheus Zervakos of Paros wrote to the new calendar
bishop Augustine of Florina: “Since the old calendar is a written
tradition, and since the new one is an innovation of papist and masonic
origin, whoever despises the old calendar and follows the new is subject
to anathema. Every excuse and justification is unjustified and ‘excuses
in sins’…
“Last
Sunday I had to go to the peak of All Saints and the Prophet Elijah…
and as I was kneeling in front of their venerable icon I tearfully
besought them to reveal to me which calendar I the wretched one should
follow together with my brethren, my spiritual children and all the
Orthodox Christians. Before I had finished my humble and pitiful
petition, I heard a voice inside me saying: ‘you must follow the old
calendar which the God-bearing Fathers who brought together the seven
holy Ecumenical Councils and supported the Orthodox Faith handed down to
you, and not the new calendar of the popes of the West, who have
divided the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and despised the
Apostolic and patristic traditions’!!!
“At
that moment I felt such emotion, such joy, such hope, such courage and
greatness of soul as I have hardly ever felt in the hour of prayer in
the whole of my life…
“Do
not suppose that following the papist calendar is a small thing. It
[The Orthodox Julian calendar] is a tradition and as such we must guard
it or we shall be subject to anathema. ‘If anyone violates any
tradition, written or unwritten, let him be anathema’, declares the
Seventh Ecumenical Council… This is not the time to continue to be
silent… don’t delay, hurry.”
And
he added that Chrysostom Papadopoulos had told him during a meeting:
“If only I hadn’t gone through with it, if only I hadn’t gone through
with it. This perverse Metaxakis has got me by the throat”!
On
August 7, 1930 Metaxakis headed a delegation from the Churches of
Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Greece,
Cyprus and Poland to the Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops. There
they officially, on the basis of a report by the Anglicans recognising
the priesthood to be a sacrament, declared that the Anglicans had
Apostolic Succession.
But
Metaxakis did not escape retribution. In 1935, on the death of
Patriarch Damian of Jerusalem, he tried to acquire that see, too, but
failed. It is said that he then went out of his mind, and six days
later, grinding his teeth and wringing his hands, he died, groaning:
“Alas, I have divided the Church, I have destroyed Orthodoxy.” He lied
to the end; for he destroyed only himself, while the True Church will
prevail over the gates of hell…
