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[In this piece Elder Philotheos criticizes both the Old Calendarists and New Calendarists, and distances himself from both by saying that he and his monks "do not follow calendars". Of course, Elder Philotheos was faithful to his local Church and remained in communion with the canonical Church till the end of his life, living according to the New Calendar, but always disappointed by the schism which he attributed to both the extremities of Old and New Calendarists. It is an enlightening piece and shows the great sensitivity he had for this issue. He desired to see the Greek nation unified in their Orthodoxy once again, and this lead him to a position in which he saw the Church divided by schism could only be unified if both the Church and State returned to the Old Calendar. Unfortunately this has proved to be an impractical solution, especially in our days, and it may be that only a true fidelity to the canonical Church is the most practical solution to schism; and of course a bit of humility would be a positive step as well. - J.S.]
The monks of Longovarda do not follow calendars, they follow Christ who said "Whoever wishes to follow Me let him deny himself, carry his cross and follow Me" (Mark 8:34). He did not say we should follow the lifeless calendar and he who believes in it and is baptized will be saved. The believer in Christ and in the Bible will be saved, not by the Old Calendar.
Many of the fanatical and zealous Old Calendarists are greatly deceived believing that without the calendar man cannot be saved. All the Saints, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs and the Sanctified were not saved and performed miracles based on the calendar but on faith.
The performed Mysteries by the New Calendarists are valid, because the calendar does not perform and sanctify them, but they are performed by the Holy Spirit that the New Calendarists also invoke to sanctify them and man is saved by the true faith, of love and good works, not by calendars.... Worship which many Old Calendarists ascribe to the Old Calendar has made them time worshippers that lack true and sincere love towards God and neighbour. They lack love towards each other and even towards Old Calendarists. The impiety, the unfaithfulness, the bad polity, the ignoring of the Law of God, the divine commandments and holy traditions of most clerics and lay New Calendarists prolong the division, the schism, increase the passions, the hatred, the bad intentions, the sins, they harden the hearts of both, distance themselves from repentance and we approach, if we do not repent, perdition.
"If you do not repent", said the Lord, "you shall lose yourselves" (Luke 13:3).
All of us, we have become, with the exception of a few, a cunning generation, crooked and perverse; and to the perverse the Lord sends them to perverse ways. The cunning, like all sinners, He destroys and the Lord keeps all those that love Him. Men will not be judged nor condemned as much for the calendars as for their lack of love and good works. Let us love the Lord, let us keep His commandments and if as humans we commit a sin, let us repent that we may not be excluded from the Bridegroom Christ.
It is needful here to describe two miracles that demonstrate that the Mysteries performed by the New Calendarists are valid and that man does not live by the calendars but repentance saves him, through confession, faith, love, good works, God.
In the village of Parthenios there was a young man who was convinced by some Old Calendarists not to go to the Church, nor to go for Confession or partake of the Holy Mysteries because he would be cursed since Liturgy or the Mysteries cannot be performed under the New Calendar. All those who go to the Church are New Calendarists, they Confess, they Commune, but they are all cursed. The young man, becoming scared, distanced himself from the Church and from the Holy Communion. And to the unfortunate one it happened what Saint Cyril said of those who distance themselves from the Church and the Holy Mysteries, that they become enemies of God and friends of the devil. The compassionate God however did not leave him to perish because he was naively deceived by the Old Calendarists, so when he became sick and was approaching death, one day a crowd of demons entered his room and embracing him they told him, "We came to take you, you are ours". At the presence and sight of the vile demons the youth became frightened and loudly cried, "Help! Help! Send away these black ones that came to take me". Frightened the parents and the neighbours came and asked him what happened. He would however scream louder. "Throw out these black ones who came to take me away" The parents and those who run to him could not see anyone and tried to console him but he continued to tremble, to cry and to scream to throw them out.
Seeing that they could not help him at all, he told his parents, "Bring me Father Philotheos to confess me", but because they told him he was away he told them "Bring me Father Manoli". They told him, "He is a New Calendarist and you never went to the church because he was a New Calendarist and you wouldn't even greet him, how then do you now seek him?" He said, "I was wrong, I was wrong; bring him that I may confess". They called him, the Father came and he confessed. When however the Priest came, the demons went outside and stood by the door. However, when the priest read the prayer of repentance, the black and uncomely demons left crying, while some beautiful youths, very good looking, embraced him and told him, "Because you confessed yourself clean, we came to help you".
The youth stopped crying and being scared, with cries of thanksgiving, with cheerful and joyful face, he invited his parents and neighbours to come and see the brightness and beauty of those young ones, but being unworthy they could not see them. Three days later he told his parents, "Call Father Manoli tomorrow at 9:00am to come and commune me because the young ones who keep me company told me that they will take me with them. So it happened and he left happy and with good hope to the Jerusalem above.
At Syros there were two hieromonks who were spiritual fanatics and great zealots of the Old Calendar, who advised and preached the people, the Christians, not to go to the church, nor to partake of the Holy Mysteries. Instead of partaking of Communion, they would say, it is preferable to fill a glass with wine and dipping a slice of bread in it to eat it. Also, about their babies, instead of New Calendarist priests baptizing them, it would be preferable to have a swim in the sea or to fill a container with water and wash them. In fact someone much more fanatical used to say that the Communion of the New Calendarists, he would place on the floor and step on it, while mouthing a rude word.
They had between them such hatred, envy and maliciousness that they would do nothing else but go to the people, acquaintances and strangers alike and accuse one another, with horrible accusations and slander. There was such a great scandal in the town of Syros.
Some sensible and God fearing people begged me to intervene and pacify them. I tried to convince them as Christians and especially as hieromonks and spiritual people to repent, to discuss, to expel the malice and enmity that they may not die in enmity. But it proved impossible. One of them, after many examples and teachings from the Bible, I managed to convince him that they should forgive each other. The other one proved impossible, so I told him, "If you do not forgive him then do not perform the Liturgy, for Christ says: 'First make peace with your enemy and then offer your gift or sacrifice'. He however told me: "I shall perform the Liturgy ....". But instead of performing the Liturgy, a few days later when I told him not to perform the Liturgy, he took a knife and went to kill the nephew of the industrialist, for he believed that he stole his money. However, because the policeman locked him up for a few days and warned him not to disturb his nephew anymore otherwise he would punish him, he went, like another Judas, and took rope which he tied to a rock and tried to drown himself. Luckily, at that moment a woman who saw him, called others who then untied him and saved him. But because of his mental state he was locked up in a mental asylum. When he was approaching death, the priest went to commune him but found him eating his waste! Thus he died uncommuned, he who was saying that he would place the Communion of the New Calendarists on the floor and step on it and plaster it with waste. When he was exhumed his body was incorrupt and black, it stunk foul, his mouth was open and his tongue hung outside his mouth. These were the achievements of fanatical Old Calendarists, who expelled love while holding tight to the Old Calendar not to lose it.
If I had to enumerate the deceits and heresies the Old Calendarists fell into after the introduction of the New Ecclesiastical Calendar (eortologion), time would not be enough. Short of re-Baptism and re-Chrismation, some would not dare enter the churches of New Calendar Christians, would not venerate the sacred icons and even while passing outside the churches would not bother to cross themselves, saying that these churches are Latinized and the icons are polluted. And when the bells chimed on the feast of a Saint, some Old Calendarists would say that it was a feast of Latin Saints. A certain Old Calendarist nun from a convent in Tinos, while passing by the open doors of the Church of the Great Paraskevi and seeing the crucified Christ in the middle of the Church, turned her back to Christ. When another Old Calendarist nun questioned her why she was not ashamed, she answered with impudence and disrespect saying: "That Christ is not ours, He belongs to the Latins". Enough I do not wish to say any more, but just to add, "Father forgive them for they do not know what they do" (nor what they say).
This I write, so that you not be deceived and that you do not believe I say these to defend the New Calendar. From the beginning I was, is and shall be against the thoughtless, anti-canonical and illegal introduction of the New Calendar. I struggled, struggle and shall struggle to the end for the return of the Old Calendar, not because I consider that the calendar is what will save me. "I struggle for the solidarity, the unity and peace of the Church" without which both nation and Church will sink....
[From "Unpublished Letters on the Issue of the Calendar" by Archim. Philotheos Zervakos.]
Excellent letter; thank you for posting it.
ReplyDeleteGreat article, misleading title.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it mean for the new calendar to be valid? If we understand the term "validity" in your title to mean canonical lawfulness, J.S., then the Elder himself denies its validity, stating in the last paragraph of your post that he does not defend the wisdom of switching to the new calendar; indeed, it is anti-canonical and was illegally introduced. Only the (old) Church calendar is valid in that sense, i.e., only the Church calendar is canonical and lawful. Perhaps a better title for this article would have been, "how the invalidity of the new calendar does not invalidate Divine Grace in Churches that have adopted the new calendar, and the consequences for those who think otherwise" or something similar but pithier. The current title, on the other hand, misrepresents this particular article, as well as the issue in general.
In fairness to the fullness of Elder Philotheos' wise opinions on this topic, perhaps you can round out the post above, which addresses the blasphemies of old calendarist extremism, by posting something from the Elder's pamphlet entitled "The New, Papal Calendar and Its Fruits," which discusses the bitter fruits of the new calendar innovation.
We must not let the wrongful actions of the old calendar extremists distract us from recogning and promoting how desperately Holy Orthodoxy needs to return to the unity of the Church calendar. Let us promote this return to the Church calendar, for by doing so we will honor the memory of Geronda Philotheos and the other 20th-21st century luminaries of our Faith who fought lawfully against Meletios' lamentable innovation.
In IC XC,
DB
I think the title's fine. It seems from this writing that the holy elder criticizes the calendar change precisely because of the scandal and division it brought, not because it was of itself a bad thing. If it were, then he would not have kept it.
ReplyDeleteThis is the only legitimate criticism of the calendar innovation it seems to me-- that it produced this disunity and scandal. Perhaps also one may argue that the motives of some were heretical, but I think a previous article published on this blog addressed this and explained that much of these rumors are the propaganda of fanatics. This movement, primarily in Greece, is very similar to the old ritualist fanatics of Russia. Both sacrifice the inward reality for the beauty of an outward form that the Church has decided, by the authority given it from the Lord, to change.
Keep up the excellent calendar post. I love the old calendar, but I am 100% in agreement with you.
There is a great article (I'm posting the link at the bottom) about the utter difference between ROCOR and old calendarism. It speaks of people like St. John of Shanghai who absolutely opposed the old calendarists in the 1950s, refused to help them, and (this is not mentioned in the article) received the French Orthodox under the New Calendar. Much in the same way that old calendarists have attempted to coopt elder Philotheos' legacy, so also have they tried to coopt Met. Philaret's and St. John's, as explained by the article also. The Romanian old calendarists even showed up at St. John's canonization service to concelebrate, and the ROCOR hierarchs forbade them.
www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/rocorold.htm
From an Interview with Dr. Constantine Cavarnos concerning Photios Kontoglou in Divine Ascent Magazine:
ReplyDeleteDA: Why do you think that Philotheos Zervakos and Photios Kontoglou sided with the so-called "New Calendar" Church?
DC: I explained this in Volume Eleven of my series Modern Orthodox Saints, which is devoted to blessed Philotheos Zervakos. From the very time the idea of introducing the New Calendar was conceived, Father Philotheos wrote letters of protest saying, "No! Stop it; don't do it," but they did not listen to him. He wrote letters and brochures protesting this innovation until the time of his death. His predictions came true: he said that if you allow this innovation to stand, you will divide the people into two hostile parties. This prophecy of Zervakos was completely fulfilled. In his later years, when he saw that the Greek government, the Church of Greece, and the Œcumenical Patriarchate did not listen to him, he thought about simply returning his monastery to the Old Calendar. On this matter, I suggest a careful reading of my book on Blessed Father Philotheos. His senior monk, Father Leontios, whom I happened to meet a few years before he died, said that Father Philotheos was very determined to declare that the monastery had returned to the Old Calendar. But he was opposed by some of his senior monks, particularly Father Leontios. Every time the Elder left the monastery to travel as a Confessor, sometimes for weeks, Leontios was the acting abbot. So he had a strong voice. He emphasized that if they changed the monastery to the Old Calendar, then the local bishop would immediately step in and force them to give up that idea, or else. The "or else" would be that the police would be sent over to expel the monks and say this monastery belongs to the local bishop of Paros and Naxos. Father Philotheos was close to the century mark, and Father Leontios was about the same age, and they pictured themselves being thrown out of the monastery. It would have been a very tragic situation. So what Father Philotheos did was to die on the Old Calendar. He invited a confessor from Mount Athos, where the Old Calendar is followed, to serve for his last confession and to bury him.
DA: And did Photios Kontoglou die with those following the New Calendar?
DC: Well, Kontoglou himself was in a dilemma. He had followed pretty much the advice of Philotheos Zervakos to wait for the return of the Church of Greece to the Traditional Calendar. in the 1960s, before Kontoglou died, the Archbishop of Athens was Chrysostomos, who was very venerable and traditional. I interviewed him once. He said he had made it one of his priorities before he died to return the Church of Greece to the Old Calendar. So you see, Zervakos and Kontoglou were hoping that this dilemma would be resolved by him and that it would be done canonically by the Holy Synod of Greece. But it did not happen because the dictatorship that came into power removed Archbishop Chrysostomos from his throne and installed the priest of the palace, Hieronymos Kotsonis, a modernist and ecumenist, as Archbishop of Athens. It was a very difficult dilemma for them. What was one to do? A dilemma, you know, has two horns and no matter which one you choose it is bad. Kontoglou and Father Philotheos were hoping that the change would come down from the top in the Church of Greece. In the meantime, Photios consoled himself and was at peace with his conscience by attending services at a church in his neighborhood that followed the Old Calendar.
Up until the 1970's or so there was a belief that the Calendar was against the canons because it required an Ecumenical Synod for it to be canonically changed. However, this opinion is long outdated now and only held and propagated by schismatics and those influenced by them. Even Elder Philotheos, a few years before he died, changed his view on this with many others that the Calendar change does not require an Ecumenical Synod unless the date of Pascha is an issue. I will post what he wrote on this later.
ReplyDeleteAnd one should be weary of Dr Cavarnos' comments on the Calendar, as he in recent years left the New Calendar church and is now with the Synod of Resistance. When you compare his comments to Elder Philotheos' many lettters and writings on the issue, you do not see a correlation. In fact, from his writings it seems that he became more and more frustrated by Old Calendarists towards the end of his life because he was so heavily criticized by them. This is why he sought to transcend the issue of the Calendar and seek unity for the Church, which at the time he thought could only come by the Church and State returning to the Old Calendar.
As pointed out, the title is misleading; that last paragraph is anything but an endorsement by Fr. Philotheos of the validity of New Calendar.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Fr. Andrew Phillip's piece, posted by Isaac, I've been reading Fr. Andrew's site for years, and so I think we need some context. Fr. Phillips is 100% against the New Calendar, and, if you read the archives, you get the impression he views the EP as an ecumenist sell-out. I bet he thanks God daily that he is not under the EP. For him, hope lies in a rejuvenated MP, and he had always argued, from within, for ROCOR's reconciliation with it.
This article on ROCOR's past may have to do with the fact that a sizeable portion of ROCOR did not share his views on the MP, and are not willing to interpret the history of the ROCOR the way he is. Things like "+Philaret was a spiritual man but a weak leader" (to paraphrase) etc., is purely subjective evaluation.
And now that most of the opposite camp of the old ROCOR have joined the Greek OCs, the pro-MP group in power are trying to present their opponents' actions as being totally out of sync with how they want to remember the old days.
Isaac,
ReplyDeleteI agree 100% with the article you posted, and will quote only one of its many great points:
"The Romanian Elders Cleopa and Arsenie (Boca) and many others expressed the Orthodox understanding - as did other Elders in other countries. This understanding is that clearly the old calendar is the Orthodox calendar, but schism and disobedience are even more dangerous than having the fixed feasts on the wrong calendar."
My main concern is that the first part of this statement is being forgotten. We have become so accustomed for generations now to a two calendar system that we don't even realize what horrible bitterness and sadness the new calendar switch brought to the Church. I hear a lot of traditionally minded Orthodox people quickly agree that, "yes, yes, the new calendar was an innovation, etc." but then even more quickly forget about the subject altogether. The only way it's brought up afterward is as a short preamble or postlude to an exhaustive denunciation of old calendarist extremists.
Generations have now passed with the calendar innovation blighting the unity of the Orthodox faithful. We may even wake up one day to hear that if only it weren't for the Orthodox who stubbornly cling to the "old" calendar, the Orthodox Church would be completely united!
I hope I will see more posts in the future from J.S. and others defending the honor and propriety of the Church calendar.
In IC XC,
DB
The title Mr Sanidopoulos has for this post is indeed appropriate, as the whole thing is about the validity of the New Calendar as opposed to the extremist claims of schismatic Old Calendarists. Here is a quote from above:
ReplyDelete"The performed Mysteries by the New Calendarists are VALID, because the calendar does not perform and sanctify them, but they are performed by the Holy Spirit that the New Calendarists also invoke to sanctify them and man is saved by the true faith, of love and good works, not by calendars."
If the Mysteries of the New Calendarists are "valid", then the New Calendar is valid. And just because Elder Philotheos does not like the New Calendar does not mean it is not valid, as he himself proves.
The point of the article is that the Mysteries - the Holy Mysteries, NOT the calendar - of new calendar Churches are valid. Nowhere in the article does the Elder mention the "validity" of the new calendar; he does, however, affirm the validity of the Holy Mysteries performed in new calendar Churches.
ReplyDeleteThe article is about the Holy Mysteries and the utter irrelevance of the calendar to the subject, regardless of whether it's the Church calendar or the papal calendar.
J.S. this latest exchange perhaps affirms the "validity" of my first post? :)
In IC XC,
DB
No DB, I would agree with Savas. It is a logical conclusion. Both Old and New Calendar are valid according to the Elder. This is clear. You are just nitpicking, I would say. The Elder advocates the Old Calendar as a source of unity in all his writings, not because it is more or less valid as schismatics and their sympathizers would assume.
ReplyDeleteFr. Philotheos: "This I write, so that you not be deceived and that you do not believe I say these to defend the New Calendar. From the beginning I was, is and shall be against the thoughtless, anti-canonical and illegal introduction of the New Calendar. I struggled, struggle and shall struggle to the end for the return of the Old Calendar, not because I consider that the calendar is what will save me. "I struggle for the solidarity, the unity and peace of the Church" without which both nation and Church will sink...."
ReplyDeleteJS & Savas: "This shows the New Calendar is valid."
OrthoScooter: Smiles...
OrthoScooter needs to get off his scooter and grow up and learn to read things in context. :)
ReplyDelete"The delusions of the Old Calendarists are greater in number and worse than the deceptions of the New Calendarists." - Elder Philotheos
OrthoScooter, just because the Elder was against the "introduction of the New Calendar", as your quote ONLY indicates, doesn't mean he did not consider the New Calendar valid. Why would he and his monks celebrate year after year with an invalid calendar?
ReplyDelete"Man does not live by the calendars but repentance saves him, through confession, faith, love, good works, God." - Elder Philotheos
I guess OrthoScooter, if he is to be consistent, would find this quote to invalidate both calendars.
Furthermore, in the early Church, for 300 years, the Church followed four or five different calendars. The only thing that united them at the First Ecumenical Synod was Pascha. But for hundreds of centuries after different churches celebrated other feasts, even Christmas, on different calendars, and still the Church was one and united. Therefore, it is absurd for anyone to believe not only that a calendar can save, but also that the unity of the Church depends on the calendar. As the Church Fathers say: "The Church cannot be divided."
I meant "hundreds of years", NOT "hundreds of centuries". lol!
ReplyDeleteYou're right James. Certainly Elder Philotheos was incorrect in many of his assessments, which cannot be denied. For example, he claimed the Church was one for 20 centuries until 1924 when the New Calendar was introduced. But as you point out, the Church has never been united in its calendar, especially in the first millenium of the Church.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't rocket science, guys. The sainted Father Philotheos believed the Old Calendar is the liturgical calendar of the Orthodox Church and that it should not have been tampered with. Though, to his mind, the changing of the calendar was not the kind of thing that would invalidate the efficacy of a Church's mysteries--a point of his disagreement with _certain_ Old Calendarists--it was still not a good thing per se to change it. It was acceptable, but only by a kind of concession. This is not a ringing endorsement.
ReplyDeleteJames, Fr. Philotheos and his monastery used the New Calendar, yes, though with a heavy heart and out of fear they would be evicted from their monastery if they did otherwise and switched back. Nevertheless, it is said that, in his personal prayer life, he continued to use the Old till the end. For the New not only creates a disruption with those who continue to go with the Old (i.e. most of the Church), but, because the NCs still calculate Pascha the old way, it also upsets the delicate connection between the movable and immovable feasts as this has been set in motion in the life of the Church from time immemorial.
Again, James, it is imprudent to invoke the lack of a common calendar in the first 300 years as justification for the re-disruption of the liturgical life of the Church 1600 years later. These variations in the liturgical timing back then were not exactly sources of happiness and harmony so one wonders why someone would actually want us to go back to that. God knows what manner of mischief a "Church reformer" could wreak if he applied your logic across the board.
JS, he said 2000 and not, say, 1500--big deal. You've just said the bigger whopper: "The Church has NEVER been united in its calendar."