To Metropolitan Paul of Astoria

[Incognito1583]

From a Matthewite website

"The Apostolic Injunctions permit one-handed consecrations "if a group of bishops cannot assemble".

Really? Which ones?

[drewmeister2]

Dear Metropolitan Paul,

I understand you are permitting the communing of new calendarists at the church of Saint Markella. I don't understand how you can permit this action. The official position of the traditional churches of Greece and Russia, is that new calendarists are anathematized as being non-Orthodox. It is strictly forbidden for Orthodox to give communion to non-Orthodox. By allowing them to receive communion, you are saying they are Orthodox. Since they are Orthodox, is it ok for me to commune in one of their churches? There are only three categories of people who claim to be Christians: Orthodox, schismatics and heretics. That new calendarists are not Orthodox, is the historic and fundamental position of your own jurisdiction. There are only two categories left to them. According to both Greek and Russian traditionalism, new calendarists are not Orthodox. But you are acting in a way inconsistent with that belief, and at the same time claim to be a traditionalist. Do you understand the three fundamental laws of rational thinking? I will explain them tor you.

You would have done well before writing all this to do some research that Metropolitan PAVLOS of North and South America (not Met. Paul of Astoria, he is not bishop of Astoria but archbishop of N. and S. America, and is Pavlos not Paul) has not communed New Calendarists for quite a while. It is true that yes, he did do it at one time, but the Synod told him to stop and he did, and he wrote this encyclical and read it aloud at St. Markella's Cathedral in Astoria: http://www.ecclesiagoc.gr/pegeng/h005/p ... 011.peg|17
The encyclical more or less outlines that clergy may not give the Mysteries to New Calendarists.

I think it should be made clear that Met. Pavlos communed New Calendarists as a way to bring the New Calendarists into the GOC; he was using his pastoralness. He did not do it because he believed the New Calendarists to be perfectly fine where they were.

You are not setting any example to them (or us) in reference to making sacrifices for the truth.

If you knew Met. Pavlos, you would realize how much he has sacrificed for the Church in helping Her to grow. You should learn more about him before you say that he isn't an example of someone who sacrifices for Orthodoxy.

If they are Orthodox, then I can go to their churches and receive communion. Do you bless me to do this?

Once again, read the encyclical posted above.

If you do not stop this action now of communing non-Orthodox people, then your synod will eventually merge with the Greek Archdiocese and their ideas. The process of apostasy is slow and gradual. There are three steps: First it is violently opposed. Second It becomes gradual and slowly accepted (like the frog in the pan analogy). Third, It becomes self-evident and universal. You have the opportunity to stop this now. I hope you will. I understand people have problems with Archbishop Gregory in Colorado. But one thing he has never done and never will do, is commune non-Orthodox people (new calendarists).

I can assure you there is no "violent opposition" going on in the GOC right now, as there is nothing that needs to be opposed. And we are certainly not in the second or third stages, ie, accepting possible union with the GOA.

I don't think it is fair to try to put Gregory of Colorado above Met. Pavlos. Gregory is a blatantly schismatic "bishop", who clearly has his own sinful intentions to go around creating his own fake synod.

Because of your actions of communing new calendarists, the total inconsistencies and hypocracies among traditional bishops and leaders, the lack of cohesion and unity, I feel tempted to return to world Orthodoxy. I simply cannot find a true confessiing traditional church, bishop or monastery. And I am starting to doubt the legitimacy of the traditional position. If it were of God, it would not be so contradictory, so self-destructive, so self-annihilating and so inconsistant. As I said above, I am not trying to cause problems. I just want to be Orthodox. But traditionlaists have not shown me any reason why I should be traditional. They don't even stick to their own programs.

I have observed over the years that there are five main problems plauging contemporary Orthodoxy:

1. No love

2. No humility

3. No patience

4. No obedience (to Christ, the spiritual father, the canons / rules of the Church)

5. No commitment (to the truth).

I want to be commited to the truth, but I can't find it anymore. Traditionalists can't agree on anything and their whole program is self-destructive and inconsistant.

I agree, there have been many problems in the True Orthodox Churches, and it is very sad at times, but you have to look beyond the faults of people and keep your focus on the Truth. If you are scandalized by the problems of the Old Calendarists, the New Calendarists have plenty of their own problems, every church in the world does.

I think that if you were able to meet Met. Pavlos you would find him to be incredibly patient and humble and loving; in fact he is probably one of the most loving, patient, and humble persons I have met. I think you would also find him to be obedient; if he wasn't, then why did he obey the Synod to stop communing New Calendarists? Met. Pavlos has been nothing but devoted to the Truth his whole life and has been utterly devoted to bringing people into the GOC from the New Calendar Church.

I think a problem you are experiencing right now is that you have had no physical contact with any of these various Old Calendarist Churches and clergy that you read about. I was in your spot once, very confused as to where the Truth was, what Synod I should join, etc. It wasn't til I got out and started talking to people and clergy of various synods, and actually visited them, that I got the feel for where I should be.

Andrew

[nicholas candela]

INCOGNITO: Dear Metropolitan Paul,

I understand you are permitting the communing of new
calendarists at the church of Saint Markella. I don't understand how you can permit this action. The official position of the traditional churches of Greece and Russia, is that new calendarists are anathematized as being non-Orthodox. It is strictly forbidden for Orthodox to give communion to non-Orthodox. By allowing them to receive communion, you are saying they are Orthodox.

NICHOLAS: You can trace this disgusting practice to two sad facts: 1) the false ecclesiology of M Chrysostomos, which he held from 1937 until his death in 1955 (his 1950 renunciation of his ecclesiological heresy not consonant with his subsequent actions and words). 2) the Kiousite synod of which M Paul is a member was founded by a renegade "Matthewite" in schism from the Auxentians (also headed by a renegade "Matthewite"), who were founded by the ROCOR in 1960, even though ROCOR rejected the GOC ecclesiology.

INCOGNITO: Since they are Orthodox, is it ok for me to commune in one of their churches? There are only three categories of people who claim to be Christians: Orthodox, schismatics and heretics. That new calendarists are not Orthodox, is the historic and fundamental position of your own jurisdiction. There are only two categories left to them. According to both Greek and Russian traditionalism, new calendarists are not Orthodox. But you are acting in a way inconsistent with that belief, and at the same time claim to be a traditionalist.

NICHOLAS: World Orthodoxy is obviously a satantic counterfeit of the Church. What is not generally believed is that many so-called Traditonalist synods are in fact serving World Orthodoxy. They are false flag operations.

INCOGNITO: There are no true churches anywhere near where I live. I have sacrificed much by not compromising.

NICHOLAS: You have merely done your Christian duty. Christ is Truth: we do do not serve Him by serving lies.

INCOGNITO: But you are giving the message they are Orthodox since you commune new calendarists.

NICHOLAS: True: this is one reason why the ROCOR-generated "GOCs" (Akakian-Auxentian-Maximosites, Kiousites, Makarians) are bogus.

INCOGNITO: And you are giving me the message that my sacrifices have been in vain.

NICHOLAS: To man, perhaps; to Christ they matter.

INCOGNITO: Are they Orthodox or not? You cannot have it both ways. Either they are Orthodox all of the time, or non-Orthodox all of the time. It is impossible to have it both ways. By communing them, you are sowing seeds of confusion among people, not standing for the truth, and spoiling those who you commune. You are not setting any example to them (or us) in reference to making sacrifices for the truth. This is really simple. Stop communing them.

NICHOLAS: Fake Traditionalists see themselves as the incarnation of love, and see any who speak the true words you have written as intolerant, narrow-minded bigots. They call evil good, good evil.
Indeed, that is their definition of economia.

INCOGNITO: The Church is what the people and bishops make it. Bishops make such a big deal out of nothing but fail to realize that they are the ones solely responsible for destroying Orthodoxy in the twentieth century. Why not take a stand and utterly refuse to compromise?

NICHOLAS: The few bishops who have done what you have asked
are habitually excoriated as hateful fanatics, not to mention schismatics.

INCOGNITO: I simply do not understand what you are thinking by allowing this un-Orthodox practice of giving communion to non-Orthodox people. I am not trying to cause problems. You people wrote the book. I just read it. If you believe they are Orthodox, then you are in violation of the official position of the Greek traditionlaists. If you believe they are Orthodox, then you should have no problem with me going to their churches. Is this correct? By communing them you are saying they are Orthodox. If they are Orthodox, then I can go to their churches and receive communion. Do you bless me to do this? You cannot have it both ways. I looked desparetley to find a true confessing jurisdiction in the world. I found your synod, and within days I learned you were already compromising. Why won't anyone take a stand today? If you do not stop this action now of communing non-Orthodox people, then your synod will eventually merge with the Greek Archdiocese and their ideas. The process of apostasy is slow and gradual. There are three steps: First it is violently opposed. Second It becomes gradual and slowly accepted (like the frog in the pan analogy). Third, It becomes self-evident and universal. You have the opportunity to stop this now. I hope you will. I understand people have problems with Archbishop Gregory in Colorado. But one thing he has never done and never will do, is commune non-Orthodox people (new calendarists).

INCOGNITO: Fr Gregory (the ROAC that made him Abp excommunicated him, so how does he remain an Abp?) is hardly
as an example of Orthodox praxis: he is an opportunist of the worst kind. He won't commune non-Orthodox, but with absolutely no justification he singlehandedly consecrates a "bishop" whose credentials for the Orthodox episcopacy is that he spent his entire adult life getting degrees at Papist univeristies, including the Uniate one at the Vatican

INCOGNITO: Because of your actions of communing new calendarists, the total inconsistencies and hypocracies among traditional bishops and leaders, the lack of cohesion and unity, I feel tempted to return to world Orthodoxy.

NICHOLAS: World Orthodoxy, Offical Orthodoxy, is the PseudOrthodoxy of the Patriarchates, which have all succumbed to the heresy of ecumenism, are fiercely attached to the spirit of this age, as perfused by modern Popes. To return there is to return to NOTHING. Christ is not obliged to honor desecration of the Truth. That is what is wrong with officialdom in the first place: it presents us with the outer forms of Orthodoxy, while denying its inner content, indeed, while persecuting those who want to live its inner cntent.

INCOGNITO: I simply cannot find a true confessiing traditional church, bishop or monastery.

NICHOLAS: Christ blesses your search. Don't look back.

INCOGNITO: And I am starting to doubt the legitimacy of the traditional position. If it were of God, it would not be so contradictory, so self-destructive, so self-annihilating and so inconsistant.

NICHOLAS: The chaos in the Greek synods claiming to be the GOC (Genuine Orthodox Christians) was caused soley by ROCOR. Reject the 1960 ROCOR consecration of renegade from the GOC Akakios---at the hands of a ROCOR new calendarist--- and you have rejected the synods that came from that act: the Auxentians (now Maxmosites), the Kiousites, the Makarians. Now you have to study and see whether or not M Nicholas or M Kyrikos is the true GOC. See? It's not as bad as you're saying.

INCOGNITO: As I said above, I am not trying to cause problems. I just want to be Orthodox. But traditionalists have not shown me any reason why I should be traditional. They don't even stick to their own programs.

NICHOLAS: You're looking at the wrong people.

INCOGNITO: I have observed over the years that there are five main problems plauging contemporary Orthodoxy:

1. No love

2. No humility

3. No patience

4. No obedience (to Christ, the spiritual father, the canons / rules of the Church)

5. No commitment (to the truth).

If the churches and bishops exercised these virtues, the Church would be one today.

NICHOLAS: True. But the last days began when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Panagia. Things were prophesied to go this way. So why throw-in with those who are helping the apostasy along?

INCOGNITO: I want to be commited to the truth, but I can't find it anymore. Traditionalists can't agree on anything and their whole program is self-destructive and inconsistant.[/quote]

NICHOLAS: See above.

Nicholas Candela

[nicholas candela]

INCOGNITO: I sent this to Gregory of Colorado.

NICHOLAS: Your mistake is to think that anything you say to this man he will not interpret either as an attack on his person or as grounds for extolling him even higher than he is in his own eyes.

INCOGNITO: "When I read the history of traditonal Greek bishops, I see a lot of pride, ego and ambition among them. I see competition for numbers and recognition. I see human passions running amok.

NICHOLAS: You're looking at PseudOrthodox Greek synods. So you'll get what you're looking for.

INCOGNITO: Why do these bishops divide over the pettiest of reasons? Why do they always have to be right on issues where it doesn't matter who is wrong or right? Why don't they take the wrong position for the sake of humility, obedience and UNITY?

NICHOLAS: Why would Christ bless a unity not based on Truth?
Look, either the ROCOR's view of the calendar schism was correct OR the GOC's declarations are correct. The calendar change is either simply a mistake that does not put you outside the Church ROCOR's position) or it is a Graceless schism (the GOC's declarations), having been previousy Pan Orthodoxly condemned three times. Only one side is right, and no amount of humilty and obedience can make a lie the Truth.

INCOGNITO: Why don't they humble themselves? I see nothing but megalomania. They slander people just to cover their own backs. They think they have the right to lie and slander people. No one is above God's laws.

NICHOLAS: This is why the GOC condemnations of the new calendar and ecumenism are the Lord speaking through His Church.

INCOGNITO: No one has the right to lie and slander. There is no such a thing as "blessed" or sanctified lying or sinning.

NICHOLAS: True.

INCOGNITO: People like Gregory tell people to leave their traditional churches. By doing this, he is taking people away from the sacraments.

NICHOLAS: No he is not, for the bodies of World Orthodoxy are not the Church. Even ROAC has offically declared this fact.

INCOGNITO: This is the work of the devil.

NICHOLAS: Only because poor Fr Gregory can't seem to stop serving the devil. Nearly to a man all who once served Fr Gregory have left him, the Lord cuttng the scales from their eyes.

INCOGNITO: Now Gregory is on a campaign against the Kiousis synod just because the latter expelled him. This is so childish! If you believe you were wronged, why not suffer it with humility? The Kiousis synod was perfectly fine when Gregory was with them. Why do they now suddenly become "schismatics"?

NICHOLAS: You cannot make Fr Gergory's continual self-justifying attacks on synods that did not do his will the criterion for finding the true GOC.

INCOGNITO: I believe most bishops today are wolves in sheeps clothing. They are rendering the Body of Christ apart because of their own passions and childish competitions. They do not care about the scandals they are causing the lay people. Their megalomania and lust for competition, has the potentional to destroy any credibility for Orthodoxy and Christianity in general. I admit that these bishops have caused me doubts toward Orthodoxy in the past. I see too much human passion involved and hardly any divine virtues like humility, obedience and love. These people are not bishop material. A bishop must be free of ambition. They are destroying Orthodoxy because of their own pride, egotism, meglomania and childish passion of competition. They need to get together out of humility and love for unity, comb through their differences, and seek reconciliation.

NICHOLAS: Beware of old calendar ecumenism. There are many fake Traditionalist bishops. ROCOR had more than one bishop who believed the Papists have valid mysteries. Not all is as it seems, and this cuts both ways: things are not as bad as they seem---though I admit, they do SEEM bad, especially if you seek Truth among the PseudOrthodox, including the fake Traditionalists.

Nicholas Candela

[nicholas candela]

INCOGNITO: For example Metropolitan Cyprian's position of "ill" members of the Church; that new calendarists are still Orthodox, but that they are just ill or un-healthy members; that new calendarists have grace. Why can't he sacrifice his opinion for the sake of unity, and join with the true Greek old calendarists?

NICHOLAS: You are right. I never heard it put that way before. Kyprian's ecclesiology is one manifestation of Fake Traditionalism. It's based on false humility. It is an attack on the true ecclesiology of the Orthodox Church, posing as piety. It is an attack on all who hold the true ecclesiology, painting them as hateful.

INCOGNITO: These bishops always have to be right on everything. They have no concept of humility and obedience.

The Matthewites. They had their opinion and ran with it. They had to be "right."

NICHOLAS: If the "Matthewite" ecclesiology is only the opinion of "Matthewites," then tell me, what is the true ecclesiology of the Orthodox Church?

INCOGNITO: The whole history of the Greek and modern Russian traditionalists. They split and split because they have no concept of reconciliation, humility, obedience and forgiveness.

Archbishop Gregory of Colorado.

NICHOLAS: You've GOT to widen your field of vision.

INCOGNITO.He was expelled from jursidictions, and went on malicious campaigns against those who expelled him. Why can't he just humble himself, and suffer being wronged? I can go on and on.

NICHOLAS: What does this man he have to do with objective history of the GOC?

INCOGNITO: There needs to be ONE true old calendar Church in perfect communion.

NICHOLAS: There already IS one. Since the ROCOR-generated GOCs do not share the ecclesiology of the true GOC, what would be the point of uniting with them?

Nicholas Candela

[nicholas candela]

INCOGNITO: That they (the "Matthewites") were right and everyone else was wrong.

NICHOLAS: This is a childish and ahistorical way of viewing what happened. Masons commandeered the EP and the state church of Greece, and imposed on them the papal calendar condemned by three Pan-Orthodox synods and ten local councils. The "Matthewites" would not go along with this diabolical innovation, meant to unify "the churches of Christ everywhere" (the words of the EP's locum tenens, in 1920), that is, to unify Orthodoxy with Papism and Protestantism. First step: get them all on the same calendar. In what sense could the innovators have possibly have been right? And why fault the "Matthewites" for not going along with innovation, for standing with the Holy Fathers?

INCOGNITO: That Matthew had the right to violate the canons of the Church.

NICHOLAS: No one has a right to violate the canons, and St Matthew of course did no such thing. See, you're getting even GOC history from fake Traditionalists, who are notorious slanderers of the great confessor.

INCOGNITO: I am leaning more to the conclusion that traditionalists are true, but that they are not right in their views on who does and who does not have grace.

NICHOLAS: It is self-evident that previously-condemned schismatics, and heretics who by their heresy have left the Orthodox Church do not have the Grace of the mysteries of the Orthodox Church: indeed, they don't WANT it.

INCOGNITO: I don't believe they have the authority to say such things.

NICHOLAS: True bishops do indeed have the authority and the duty to make such declarations, to protect their flocks from the wolves you're complaining about. You can't have it both ways. You cant complain about the wolves AND complain about the bishops who protected their flocks from the wolves.

INCOGNITO: I am leaning toward the opinion that the traditional movements cannot be the light to the world, simply because their whole history is chaotic. If they and they alone represented God's true program for the world, they would have better credibility. I don't believe that is the legacy God gave to the world. Traditionalists believe everyone but their own particular group is without grace. If we take the traditionalist position seriously, then Orthodoxy has ceased to exist because no one has grace.

NICHOLAS: Reductio ad absurdum, used all the time by the World Orthodox against the Church.

INCOGNITO: You can thank people like Archbishop Gregory, Matthew, Paul of Astoria, Cyprian, Macarius and the various "true" Russian groups for where I am today in my understanding.

NICHOLAS: It is unconscionable to compare Fr Gregory with St Matthew. Your "understanding" is severely lacking.

Nicholas Candela

[nicholas candela]

CONSTANTINE: The "Matthewites" are the only synod to not put their opinions forward, Bishop Matthew was the only bishop to remain loyal to the 1935 confession of faith, in other words what the church taught. So if bishop matthew was wrong then the whole GOC confession of faith was wrong. It is only when other bishops began putting their opinions in front of the churches that a schism occured.

INCOGNITO: That's one of the Matthewite lies. The whole synod never violated the 1935 confession of faith.

NICHOLAS: You should not speak with such confidence, since on this matter you do not know what you are talking about. Who signed the 1935 declaration? Who reneged on what it said? Who returned to the state church? Who said "old calendarists" were merely a movement within the state church? What is the "Matthewite" lie?

CONSTANTINE: Bishop Matthew did not violate any canons. It is a bishops DUTY to pass on the Apostolic Succesion and Faith. Any bishop that refuses to do these things is a not fullfilling his responsibilities as a bishop.
http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/1948consecrations.htm

INCOGNITO: Sure, as long as he passes it on canonically. Matthew acted like a protestants in utter defiance of the canons.

NICHOLAS: Talk about a lie!

INCOGNITO: He violated the first Apostolic Canon by single-handedly consecrating four new bishops in August of 1948.

NICHOLAS: He did NOT singlehandedly consecrate four bishops: he singlehandedly consecrated ONE bishop.

INCGONITO: Canon 6 of Nicea states:

"The Great Council has determined that whoever was consecrated bishop without the [local] metropolitan's approval, must not be a bishop."

NICHOLAS: You apply this canon the way the Pharisees applied the Mosiac law: without concern for its spiritual meaning. The canon you quote ASSUMES there is an Orthodox local Metropolitan. Tell me who this man was. You yourself are complaining to M Paul that he should not commune new calendarists because they are not the Church. Why then is St Matthew denounced for teaching the exact same thing, and DOING SOMETHING about it?

INCOGNITO: : He also violated Canon 3 of the 7th Ecumenical Council.

NICHOLAS: Cite it for us, you who would use the things of the Church against the Church, as if the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council could have foreseen a day when the entire hierarchy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate would go into a previously-condemned schism. What you are saying is equivalent to accusing St Matthew of healing on the Sabbath. It is Phariseeism of the worst sort, in that it pretends that a righteous act is of the devil.

INCOGNITO: Many of his supporters, including clergy, monastics and laity left him after this since they were unwilling to accept his uncanonical course of action. They argued:

"How can we censure others for not keeping the holy canons, when we ourselves violate basic canons concerning the consecration of bishops"?

NICHOLAS: This is your Akakian-Auxentian-Kiousite, Makarian slander of St Matthew, who perhaps knew the canons better than you or your mentors, the fake Traditionalists: ""The Apostolic Injunctions, Book VIII, chapter 27, on the other hand, command that anyone ordained by a single bishop be deposed from office along with the one who ordained him, except only in the case of persecution or some other impediment by reason whereof a number of bishops cannot get together and he had to be ordained by one alone, just as was Siderious ordained bishop of Palaibisca, according to Synesius, not by three but by one bishop, Philo" (THE RUDDER, 1957, p. 4). If you do not believe the conditions for the exception were satisfied in 1948, then you do not know the history of the GOC.

Nicholas Candela