On the question of the calendar

[Mor Ephrem]

But it is not really that we place such a great deal of emphasis on dates as the articles incorrect prequel charges; it is just that we don't have a great love of ecumenism, which was why the heretics changed the calendar. Because of this, there is no need to read any further, as the very premise of the article is wrong.And it needs to be wrong or we would just be hearing another shallow rendition about "astronomical correctness", which was the same cheap sales advertisement pope Gregory used on the Orthodox bishops in the 1500's.

Look at the bright side, though...at least he hates Monophysites.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Look at the bright side, though...at least he hates Monophysites.

I didn't see that. I guess he can't be all that bad.

[George Australia]

how can an article exploring the question of the calendar ignore the most basic question of why the ecumenists destroyed this unity, but rather move immediately to a presumption someone is a "schismatic" as a result?

Dear OOD,
Again I would say I respect your right not to read the article, and again I say that I think this may be a dangerous position for us to take as exemplified by this statement.
George

[Aristokles]

Dear in Christ, Justin,
I agree, but I think again we might be missing the point and need to be more circumspect. Nothing in what the author says suggests that he disagrees with your statement quoted above. What the author is saying is that following the Old Calendar does not make one an heretic or schismatic, but objecting to the New Calendar does.
George

I noted that last thought, and his basing it on St. Nikodimos, as something new or novel in my very superficial study of the calendars (as opposed to the calendar "issue"), but I do think it begs the question that there would have been NO schisms without any wrongly inspired change in the first place. I don't know what the sentiment is "down under", but I've yet to find any NC cleric here who admits that the New Calendar was worth the price.

Demetri

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

The article states: "Any hierarchs that choose of their own will to pray with heretics (whether within the WCC or outside) have themselves to blame! God will judge them. Yes, we must shout against such blasphemous moves, and we do! However this does not mean we pack our bags and leave the Church..."

To this the Holy Fathers answer:

"Any servant who kept his peace and did nothing in order to prevent thieves from breaking into his master's house to rob it, but allowed them to take everything secretly and to leave, would becondemned by is master as being a treacherous thief like them, even if he had done nothing to assist them." Homily Seventy-Eight, Saint Symeon the New Theologian

"Even if one should give away all his possessions in the world, and yet be in communion with heresy, he cannot be a friend of God, but is rather an enemy." Saint Theodore the Studite

"Submit not yourselves to monastics, nor to presbyters, who teach lawless things and evilly propound them. And why do I say only monastics or presbyters? Follow not even after bishops who guilefully exhort you to do and say and believe things that are not profitable. What pious man will keep silence, or who will remain altogether at peace? For silence means consent. Oftentimes war is known to be praiseworthy, and a battle proves to be better than a peace that harms the soul. For it is better to separate ourselves from them who do not believe aright than to follow them in evil concord, and by our union with them separate ourselves from God." Saint Meletius the Confessor

"For when the [unbelievers and heretics], though established in a lie, use every means to conceal the shamefulness of their opinions, while we, the servants of the truth, cannot even open our mouths, how can they help condemning the great weakness of our doctrine? How can they help suspecting our religion to be fraud and folly? How shall they not blaspheme Christ as a deceiver, and a cheat . . . ? And we are to blame for this blasphemy, because we do not desire to be wakeful in arguments for piety, but deem these things superfluous, and care only for the things of earth." Homily Seventeen on the Gospel of Saint John
Saint John Chrysostom

"Any one who is able to speak the truth and does not do so shall be condemned by God." Dialogue with Trypho, Saint Justin the Philosopher

"It is a commandment of the Lord that we should not be silent when the Faith is in peril. So, when it is a matter of the Faith, one cannot say, ÒWhat am I? A priest, a ruler, a soldier, a farmer, a poor man? I have no say or concern in this matter."Alas! the stones shall cry out, and you remain silent and unconcerned? Epistle Eighty-One Saint Theodore the Studite

[George Australia]

I noted that last thought, and his basing it on St. Nikodimos, as something new or novel in my very superficial study of the calendars (as opposed to the calendar "issue"), but I do think it begs the question that there would have been NO schisms without any wrongly inspired change in the first place. I don't know what the sentiment is "down under", but I've yet to find any NC cleric here who admits that the New Calendar was worth the price.
Demetri

Dear Demetri,
I agree- why put the cat amongst the pidgeons in the first place. But the reality is that in 1923, the cat was put amongst the pidgeons, so I think the more pertinent question is whether it was a big enough cat to warrant the pidgeons dividing into schisms. And I say this as a follower of the Old Calendar myself. I may be wrong, but I hold that the Calendar issue in itself is not sufficient to warrant schism, or even "walling off from" the New Calendarists. There is, to my (possibly insufficient) reckoning, no justification for believing that the New Calendar is directly related to the error of false ecumenism. To me, that would sound a bit like saying that the liberation of the serfs was directly responsible for Soviet Communism.
The experience of Greece, is that Old and New Calendar can co-exist without having to lead to division as in the Church of Greece and the Holy Mountain (Esphigmenou has seperated itself for reasons other than the Calendar). Schism over the Calendar issue (as in the case of the Matthewites in Greece) seems optional, not inevitable. In which case, we should not opt for it.
George

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

George,

...I hold that the Calendar issue in itself

The calendar has never been an issue by itself, which is why I don't believe you have a very good grasp of it, nor of the Holy Fathers of Esphigmenou.

If the strugglers for Orthodoxy have been called “old-calendarists”, this is due to the fact that the enemies of Orthodoxy decided to begin her overthrow with the introduction of the Papal calendar. If they had started with something else, the form of the struggle and the designation of Orthodoxy’s strugglers, who today are called “old-calendarists”, would have been different.

The sickness of the new-calenarists began in 1920 when the ecumenists circulated the official heretical confession of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate “To the Churches of Christ Wheresoever They Might Be.” It was the first time an Orthodox Patriarchate overturned the article of the Symbol of Faith “in One . . . Church” and officially proclaimed belief in many “Churches.” For the first time, an Orthodox Patriarchate confessed publicly, and in a most official manner, that the Church of Christ is not One, is not the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the one known by the name Orthodox, but that all the heresies which exist on the face of the earth are also “the Churches of Christ.” This was the beginning of the Ecumenist heresy, and this beginning was in 1920.

The 1920 Encyclical stated clearly: “In our opinion, such a friendship and kindly disposition towards each other [that is, between the Church and the various denominations] can be shown and demonstrated in the following ways: 1) through the adoption of one single calendar for the common celebration of the great Christian feasts by all the Churches.” This proposition, therefore, was accepted in 1920. Only the implementation was delayed four years, and that is what awakened the Orthodox. The Orthodox became aware of the heresy of Ecumenism little by little as it advanced and became more apparent. And the responsibility of the new-calendarists increased right along with this growing awareness until the mutual lifting of the anathemas in December of 1965 left them with no excuse. Since then it has been outright diabolical.

So can we speak of “old calendarist” schisms when it is really a matter of the ecumenists heresy? The calendar change was simply an implementation of a decision which already had been accepted in 1920. How much time did the seed of the Latin heresy need before it became the horrible tree we see today? And to think the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church separated with the Latins as soon as the change to the symbol of faith was known, the filioque. So it should be no surprise that today, the Orthodox are again separating because of the change of the Symbol of faith – and not just one change, but two.

With regards to the Holy Fathers of Esphigmenou, they separated with all of the monasteries of the Holy Mountain because of the calendar change and the introduction of ecumenism. They have not gone back as the others. I have no idea what information you have to make such an incorrect statement about them as you did.