Florinites

[JOVAN]

This is an article from 1969, ROCOR says Florinites are OK..

http://www.ecclesiagoc.gr/pegeng/h002/p ... 0011.peg|4

When did the ROCOR split with Florinites? Was it before m. Philaret died or after?

[Daniel]

The split was in 1994. It had to do with the Church Arbroad going into communion with Cyprian of Fili, who had been deposed around 1984.

[Anastasios]

In the book "The Old Calendar Church of Greece" published by the Cyprian group, they claim the ROCOR suspended all concelebration with ALL Greek groups in 1976. They decided to enter communion with Cyprian in 1994, and the offical ROCOR Synodal decision made no mention of any other unions with other Greek Synods being in existence at that time. This question is something that I think needs to be cleared up because I always see this 1994 figure for the rupture of ROCOR and GOC, but I think the 1976 figure is more likely.

anastasios

[Justin Kissel]

Perhaps some of the ROCOR bishops distanced themselves from the GOC during the 1980's, much like ROCOR later distanced themselves (according to Met. Cyprian himself) from the TOC in the 1990's? Just speculation, though I do know that Met. Cyprian stated publically in a letter to the Synod that he felt like ROCOR was withdrawing a distance from him (and he also wanted to know why ROCOR was doing other things, like claiming to be in communion with the Serbs). Also, whatever ROCOR thought of the relationship with the GOC in 1994, certainly the GOC itself thought it was in communion, since they sent the deposition papers of Cyprian to their Council in France, and also formally said they were breaking communion after the ROCOR had acknowledged that they were in communion with Cyprian. All things considered, it seems to me another case of ROCOR being purposefully vague about their relations with other groups (e.g., how hard is it to know what their exact relationship is with the JP even to this day? how many conflicting things were said regarding the Serbs for decades? How many argued about whether the MP had grace [with the Synod never demanding that people stop debating the issue]? etc.)

PS. (I don't think it's necessarily wrong to be purposefully vague, I hope no one will take that as an attack on ROCOR. I can perfectly understand a bit of agnosticism or vagueness in such intricate and unclear situations).

[JOVAN]

Sorry, I am a complete ignorant about these matters.. Who deposed Cyprian in 1984..? Why?

Florinites are by far the largest old-calendar community, right? When we say "greek old-calendarist" it probably refers to Florinites, doesn't it?

What about Cyprian community - how popular is it?

About 1976 ROCOR cutting connections with greeks.. WHY did it happen in 1976 - what happened that year?

I apologize for bothering, but I couldn't find more information on the internet, as their websites offer very poor information about history..

[Daniel]

I haven't had the chance to read the deposition papers personally, but as far I know...

Cyprian was deposed by Archbp. Chysostomos (and the rest of the synod), because 1) the change in his ecclesiology (saying that the schismatic/heretics can still have valid Mysteries), and 2)sorta setting up his own synod. After ignoring requests for him to go to Athens and explain himself he was deposed.

That's as far as I know.

[Justin Kissel]

Here's what Vladimir Moss had to say on the issue:

In 1986, Archbishop Chrysostom’s Synod proceeded to defrock Metropolitan Cyprian’s Synod for creating a schism, for giving communion to new calendarists and for preaching that the new calendarists have grace of sacraments. Needless to say, the Cyprianites rejected this verdict. There were now four major Greek Old Calendarist Synods: the Matthewites, the Chrysostomites, the Auxentiites and the Cyprianites, and a number of independent bishops. The first three Synods were united in considering that the new calendarists were schismatics without the grace of sacraments, but the Cyprianites refused to make this judgement, considering the ecumenist Orthodox Churches to be “errant but uncondemned” Mother-Churches. Most of the zealot monks of Mount Athos, led by the only zealot monastery, Esphigmenou, remained in communion with the Chrysostomites. The Romanian Old Calendarists, under their holy leader Metropolitan Glycerie, remained in communion with the Cyprianites. However, the Romanians appear to adhere to a stricter ecclesiology than the Cyprianites, chrismating the new calendarists who join them...

In July, 1994 a union took place between four True Orthodox Churches: the ROCA, the Romanian Old Calendarists under Metropolitan Blaise, the Bulgarian Old Calendarists under Bishop Photius of Triaditsa and the Greek Old Calendarists under Metropolitan Cyprian of Orope and Fili (the “Cyprianites”). Any reversal of the process of fragmentation among the True Orthodox Churches could only be accounted a positive sign. In this case, however, union was achieved at the price of the ROCA officially rejecting the validity of the Florinites’ defrocking of Metropolitan Cyprian in 1985 and accepting his very controversial ecclesiology as her own. This ecclesiology recognised that the churches of ecumenist “World Orthodoxy” still had grace, justifying this on the grounds of a completely unacceptable theory of the relationship between the Seven Ecumenical Councils and the heretics of their day. Thus the “Third Way” between Orthodoxy and heresy that Metropolitan Cyprian was preaching, and which he had succeeded in having accepted by three other Churches, threatened to become yet another of the diplomatic compromises with which Orthodox history is scattered and which have always failed in the longer term.

From the start, there were many critics of the union among conservative members of the ROCA in Russia and America. Even the two most senior ROCA bishops, Metropolitan Vitaly and Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles, were reported to be against it. Thus in his Nativity epistle for 1995/96 Metropolitan Vitaly contradicted the Cyprianite ecclesiology he had signed up to, saying that he personally believed that the Moscow Patriarchate did not have the grace of sacraments. And in December, 1996, he wrote flatly that the Moscow Patriarchate was "the Church of the evil-doers, the Church of the Antichrist", which "has completed sealed its irrevocable falling away from the body of the Church of Christ". Again, although the Romanian Old Calendarists have been in communion with the Cyprianites for several years and have not protested their ecclesiology, their own practice of chrismating new calendarists who come to them suggests that they hold to a stricter ecclesiology. - Vladimir Moss, The Orthodox Church at the Crossroads: From 1900 to the Present Day, Chapter 7