Metropolitan Petros: in ROCOR for awhile AFTER the split?

[Anastasios]

Metropolitan Petros

Your last issue said that Metropolitan Petros was in communion with you and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. I have learned that this is not so. Metropolitan Petros only celebrated the anniversary of his ordination at Jordanville. ...He does not accept Grace in the New Calendarist Mysteries. How could you be in communion with him? This would be inconsistent. ...His nephew is an ecumenist who considers Old Calendarists schismatics. How do you deal with that? (PL, NY)

The January 15/28, 1995, issue of Pravoslavnaya Rus' ( No.2, p. 8 ), published by Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY, takes note of "A Joyful Event," the establishment of "prayerful and liturgical communion" by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad "with Archbishop Peter of Astoria and with the clergy and Faithful of his diocese. Archbishop Peter, following the establishment of communion, served at the Holy Trinity Monastery on the third day of the Feast of the Nativity." The former Metropolitan was received by the ROCA with the title "Archbishop."

Archbishop Peter, an Athonite monk who served the Old Calendar movement in Greece at its very inception, was Consecrated to the Episcopacy by Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, along with other among the Hierarchs of the Old Calendar Church of Greece, following the death of Metropolitan Chrysostomos four decades ago. Though he refused, in 1974, to follow the extremist Old Calendarists in declaring the New Calendar Church of Greece to be without Grace, he wavered in this policy and a decade later joined with Archbishop Chrysostomos (Kiousis), whose Synod issued a similar declaration and deposed Metropolitan Cyprian and his Bishops (even though they had never belonged to Chrysostomos' Synod) for ecumenism and betrayal of the Old Calendarist movement.

Long protesting that his private views were different from those of Archbishop Chrysostomos and his Bishops, Archbishop Peter's appeal for communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and thus with our Church, suggests no inconsistency on our part. We are simply delighted to see one more step towards unity among Orthodox traditionalists, adding to our coalition of moderate resisters the several parishes and monastic institutions of Archbishop Peter's Hellenic Orthodox Traditionalist Church of America.

The accusation. that Archbishop Peter's able nephew is an ecumenist or that he considers Old Calendarists schismatics is unfair. These accusations stem from a newspaper interview in which he was misquoted and his thoughts and ideas misrepresented. Moreover, they are of little relevance to Archbishop Peter's admirable moves towards unity and peace with his traditionalist Orthodox brothers.

from Orthodox Tradition 12:3 (1995), pp. 25-26.

[Anastasios]

Obviously I know better than to post this and accept what it says at face value. It has been claimed that ROCOR split with the GOC in 1994 over the Cyprian affair (even though ROCOR letters seem to indicate the split happened in either 1976 or 1979), so this would be interesting if indeed Met Petros joined ROCOR AFTER the split. Of course, it was only a few months that he was in ROCOR before he returned to the Synod of Chrysostomos II, where he died.

anastasios

[Daniel]

Anastasios,
Is the first paragraph in the post a letter written to Orthodox Tradition? And the following paragraphes the editor's reply?

[Anastasios]

Daniel,

Yes.

anastasios

[Daniel]

Daniel,

Yes.

anastasios

OK, thanks

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Anastasios,

I have been told by several sources that Met. Petros in fact made a personal choice NOT to be in communion with the ROCOR in the years leading up to the final break in 1994 exactly because ROCOR was leaning liberal.

This article certainly counterdicts this, and many other facts I know are true. For instance, then Archmandrite Gregory (now ROAC) of had left the ROCOR (c. 1994) because of there communion with the Cyprianites. He joined our Synod and was under Met. Petros exactly because we were not in communion with ROCOR. Knowing something about now Bishop Gregory's "exactness" let's say, I find the article to be in question.

I forwarded to someone in the know and will post any response.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Anastasios, here is the response from my sources (some of it you already know)...

...in 1974, bishop Petros of Astoria and Metropolitan Chrysostom of Thessaloniki (now Archibishop of Athens) along with Metropolitans Gabriel of the Cyclades (d. 1999) and Akakios of Diavlia refused to participate in the Synod of Archbishop Auxentios for reasons other than what "Etna" cites in their article. Etna has a habit of appropriating things that do not belong to them.

For example, they assert that Metropolitan Chrysostom (Kavourides) of Florina (from whom the terms "Flornites" and "Chrysostomites" come) espoused what we today call "Cyprianite" ecclesiology--i.e. that the New Calendarists are still inside the Church and that we are still "inside" them, except that we are walled-off. This is in fact not true. Despite the fact that Met. Chrysostom disagreed with bishop Matthew (Karpathakis=the Matthew of the "Matthewites") in that he was not ready to categorically reject that the N.C. sacraments were communicant of grace, he nevertheless believed that it was the Old Calendar Church alone that preserved the catholicity of the Church of Greece. In the 1940's he still had some hopes that the "Innovating Hiearchy" (this is what he
calls the State Church) could be reconciled by reverting to the Old CAlendar.

By 1950 he became convinced this was not so and proclaimed that the N.C. were in full schism from the Church and devoid of grace in an encyclical--an act that triggered a police crack-down on the Old CAlendarists from 1950-1955. Nevertheless, he did not rescind that statement, despite government pressure. Etna thus is not justified in claiming his "moderate position" as a justification for their schism.

Coming back to 1974, as part of an aggreement between the Matthewites and the Synod of Archbishop Auxentios arranged by Metropolitan Philaret (ROCOR), the Matthewite hiearchy recieved the laying on of hands from the ROCOR (in correction of their uncanonical ordinations in 1948) with the promise that they would unite with Auxentios. Reciprocally, Archbishop Auxentios' Synod would proclaim the sacraments of the N.C. invalid. What ended up happening was that the Matthewites finally rejected the ROCOR corrections--except for bishop Kallistos of Corinth
who joined Auxentios' synod. A few of the Florinite Bishops (mentioned in the above paragraph) over a number of decisions and ordinations Archbishop Auxentios had performed without the consent of the Syond. In addition,these bishops still held on to Metropolitan Chrysostom of Florina's reservations about declaring the N.C. sacraments invalid, although they believed the N.C. to be in full schism. The division was not caused, however, because they rejected the Encyclical of 1974. The matter of the encyclical rather became a secondary matter of disagreement, but not THe reason for separation, as Etna tries to claim.