Reply to Ekklisiastikos:
Some are looking for excuses, but there are no excuses for this anticanonic consecration which is a fruit of the slavic chauvinism.
First and foremost, the history of your synod is full of truly anti-canonical consecrations, and your canonicity is the fruit of the “Slavic chauvinism”of the Russian Church.
The history of TOC of Greece has nothing to do with the "Serbian matter". These are two different stories. In Greece there was a continuation of True Orthodoxy even after the schism of 1924 . And back in 60's there was an already established and organized Orthodox Church which was left without bishops. And it was at the second panhellenic counsil of TOC clergy and faithful where they elected the candidates and decided to whom to turn for help.
Of course, I agree. The official Serbian Church did not bring in the New Calendar, so the apostasy remained unnoticed to the masses. Let’s say, for example, that the New Calendar hadn’t been introduced in Greece. How many people would be True Orthodox? Until the end of the Second World War the Serbian Church was Orthodox and in communion with the Russian Church Abroad. The Communists killed all the zealots for the Orthodox Faith. The Russian Church Abroad, nevertheless, maintained unofficial brotherly relations with the Serbian Church even after the Second World War, while on the other hand Fr. Justin Popovich made a stand for True Orthodoxy but did not stop communion with the Patriarchate, and so a cessation of communion with the Patriarchate was difficult to understand in the sense of its essential importance for one to be Orthodox. Thus the situation in Serbia really cannot be compared with that in Greece. For example, in the sixties and seventies, it was possible for believers from the Serbian Church to commune in churches of the Russian Church Abroad with Old Calendarist Greeks and Russian Catacomb believers. So the “Serbian question” cannot be assessed with the same measurements as the Greek. Thus it is unacceptable that the believers of the official Serbian church who wish to unite with True Orthodoxy be considered as people with no connection to Orthodoxy or the Orthodox Church, and that on this basis they and the canonical territory of the Serbian church be officially declared to fall within the Greek canonical territory.
Fr. Akakios or the akakian clique till now has not clarified some issues.
Which Holy Canon of the Orthodox Church allowed Akakios to abandon his lawful Bishop and stop being obedient to Him?
Did his Bishop cease to be orthodox? Did he become a heretic?
Is a bishop's nationality over the Holy canons?
Is an artificial presbyterian autocaphalous concregation of three priests over an orthodox and canonic Holy Synod of Bishops?
The Greek bishops were accepted by the Serbs as temporary administrative rulers which according to the canons have the right to determine one bishop who would within the period of one year prepare the consecration of a canonical bishop for that widow church. (Seventh Local Council of Constantinople, 74th Canon). If this does not succeed after a period of a year, then the temporary ruler must be changed so that he would not divide the people and in this way assure for himself the appropriation of that jurisdiction. In the Serbian case, the same bishop has already been in charge of Serbia for fifteen years, and over these fifteen years, for eleven of them the bishop did not even visit “his flock”; I think that it is excessive to point out what the holy canons order in this case of the total indifference of the bishop. Due to the activity of this same bishop people have been estranged from each other, and his allegedly temporary rule has lasted indefinitely, and as such, has become formalized, as you say, as “lawful.” Who controls the work of this temporary rule over the widow Serbian Church, and to whom can the believers of the Serbian Church complain in this difficult and uncanonical situation? Requests for the change of the bishop in question have been sent to the Synod, but of course the Synod has always been on his side throughout the years. Until the appearance of a Russian TOC, the Serbians were in an inescapable situation of Greek violence towards Her weak and powerless sister, the widow Serbian Church.
Who elected him?
Who anointed him as the only candidate?
Were there any council in Serbia where all the parishes participated and elected him?
Why he was consecrated secretly in France far away from Serbia and ''his flock'' ?
Why the Russians two days after their visit to Archbishop Kallinikos and his objections to the ordianation of HIS priest (fr. Akakios) they proceed to this action? Were they truly looking forward to our union or not ?
Because in Serbia thanks to the Greek bishop divisions were created between believers, splitting those who are for and against Bishop Akakije, in any case he was the first candidate for the episcopacy from the beginning and the founder of True Orthodoxy in Serbia. The Kallinikos group in Serbia considers itself as the Greek Church and Greek believers and because of that this matter was not discussed with them, because it is a question of a Serbian bishop for the Serbian Church. All of those who take the position that they are the True Orthodox clergy and believers of the Serbian Church and that their parishes and monasteries are Serbian, along with the entire jurisdiction of the Serbian Church, were of one mind that the only candidate was the present Bishop Akakije. Concerning France, we in Serbia do not have a church of a normal size and altar where three bishops and clergy could consecrate a bishop (which Brother Sava knows well as he has visited all of our churches).
