Actually, the Hieromonks from Mt. Athos could only serve on antimens. Those were signed by Bishops of the EP. So there is a distinction between "non Commemoration" and "being out of Communion." The Athonite hieromonks were hieromonks of the EP.
As far as ROCOR "going into Communion with the GOCs," that is highly revisionist. No, ROCOR acted from the early 60s to approximately 1970 in providing Bishops for the GOCs, where a Synod of a united GOC church was to be established. Archbishop Auxentios was the head. The Matthewites were the first to break with this arrangement and then the Synod collapsed in on itself in mutual anathemas and dozens of splinters. ROCOR established Communion for these people, but NEVER shared extreme GOC ecclesiology. It flirted with the "Florinite (as in Chrysostomos of Florina)/Kiprianite" view.
While it is also unclear when ROCOR broke Communion with the EP, but it is clear that by 1968 that things were pretty much settled there, and Blessed Metropolitan Philaret did the appropriate thing. The question begged then is "Should the ROC (or any non-EP organism) at least address the issues which have brought unrest to the Orthodox world which the EP is responsible for in honest dialogue?" I state emphatically yes. Should Communion with them be abandoned if they remain stalwart in their Renovationism and Uniatism? I absolutely believe so.
Technically, they didn't adopt the papal calendar, but a contrivance of their own which differs little from the papal calendar, so by the letter of the Canons they hang their justifications. Thus, a council needs to decide the matter on the issue of the calendar. Is it a schismatic act--this new calendar? Yes. Is it anathemized conciliarly? The Seventh Ecumencial Council anathemizes all innovations, but its Canons are not self enforcing and have to be conciliarly adjudicated. Is it heretical? Is Iconoclasm and Renovationism heretical? The Seventh Ecumenical Council and St. Tikhon resp. have made that clear. But at least a spiritual court has to decide the issue and interpret the Canons.
Jason Bently
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