How Have Holy People Responded to the Old Calendarist Movement?

Excerpted from Q&A of Lesson 11: The Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle & Evangelist John the Theologian, Series 2, by Fr. Peter Heers

Photos of Elder Ieronymos of Aegina (+1966) and Elder Philotheos Zervakos (+1980)

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[Orthodoxi]

God bless you Father Peter, this tree growing from your work in grace will imho eventually bear very amazing fruit. If you bear it as you have been to the end.

Christ is born!

[novaxdjokovic]

This is honestly something that should be dealt with. I am of the opinion that the Orthodox Church should be using the same calendar in its entirety. It's so ridiculous that we even celebrate the birth of our Lord on different days depending on your jurisdiction! We are ONE FAITH, and we need to be worshipping TOGETHER on something that important.

[ryrocks]

Thank you father. Your videos seem to keep me in truth as I keep moving towards Orthodoxy.

[JackTimothy]

Many Greek Old Calendarists were in communion with Rocor as recently as twenty years ago. The Rocor hierarchy viewed them as a sister church even before formal communion. This fell apart as union with the Moscow Patriarchate approached in 2007. St. John of San Francisco concelebrated at the Genuine Orthodox Cathedral of St. Markella in Astoria, New York. It’s also not accurate to say that all of the “True Orthodox” believe that “World Orthodoxy” is graceless. The largest faction of the Old Calendarists see themselves as a resistance movement within the church (“synod in resistance”) and not walled off completely. The new Athonite Father, St. Ephraim of Katounakia, was ordained a priest of the most zealot OC group (the Matthewites) and was never re-ordained. And St. Joseph the Hesychast’s mother as well as his two sisters reposed as old calendar monastics. St. Ephraim’s mother, Maria the nun, went to the old-calendar Monastery of Keratea, where she was buried and her relics are fragrant. This history is incredibly complicated and rarely talked about because it doesn’t fit the narratives of contemporary ecclesiology (assembly of bishops and ancient radio Orthodoxy) - the calendar change for heterodox unity created Orthodox disunity and is similar to the struggle and simple Christian piety of the Old Believers in Russia.

[francinebotton]

1969 Patriarch Benedict of Jerusalem under pressure from World Council of Churches had introduced the New Julian calendar, on Great Saturday the Holy Fire did not descend on the Lord's Sepulchre. He commanded that the Old Calendar be restored immediately. The following year the Holy Fire again descended. The Paschal Fire in Jerusalem, Bishop Auxentios of Photiki, St. John Chrysostom Press, page 94.

[thelwulf]

I left Catholicism over Ecumenism. I don’t plan on attending a parish that supports it. Simple as. The calendar issue is just the tip of the iceberg.

[savvasbournelis]

Geronda Ephraim of AZ has an excellent chapter on this issue in his “My Elder Joseph the Hesychast” book. A must read!

[rafaelprocopiak]

May the Holy Orthodox Priests here pray for this Orthodox Christian! For a good job which does not fall on Sundays and for ikons.

[godsaveus]

St. Joseph the Hesychast, in his revelation over the Old-Calendarist issue, saw they were still part of the Church. He didn't want to deal with the bickering. St Hieronymus said "I'm not with the ones who are bickering."

[emilesturt]

It is a shame isn't it. An unnesessary change. Thank you Father 🙏 Though I'm not Orthodox (with a big o), I've lived with and worshiped for many years with Russian Orthodox here in the UK.

[AndreasPhilippou-on]

How can you call it as Old calendar problem, if the Old calendar was there from the 44pc and the new calendar change everything?

[paulhudson]

If they are not against us leave them alone, love ❤️ them ☦️

[evangelosnikitopoulos]

With all due respect, father, there are a lot of misrepresentations here. The collective witness of the saints is certainly in favour of the Old Calendarists. Elder Kallinikos the Hesychast (who was the first to fight the name-worshipping heresy on Athos and was himself the elder of St. Joseph the Hesychast for a time), was a zealot and non-commemorator. Elder Daniel of Katounakia, in his 1925 book "Voice from the Holy Mountain, " writes that the Calendar change violates the Apostolic Canons and is a stepping stone to heresy. Elder Moses of Athikia (the spiritual brother of Saint Nektarios) was a zealot, and a very rigourist one at that. Saint Ieronymos of Aegina was definitively opposed to the New Calendar (calling it "a door of evils") and was in communion with the Old Calendarists his whole lifetime. Saint John the New Hozebite (accepted as a saint by all) was an Old Calendarist, as was Saint Myrtidiotissa of Klisoura (recently canonized by the EP. She was actually ordained an abbess by Bishop Cyprian of Oropos). There's also Elder Habbakuk the Barefoot (the leader of the zealot monks at Great Lavra, whose grace astounded even Professor Ioannis Karmiris of the New Calendar), Haralambis the Fool for Christ of Kalamata, Saint Martyr Philoumen of Jacob's Well (who refused to commemorate the Patriarch of Jerusalem). Not to mention the many saints who concelebrated with the TO or considered them spiritual brothers: Saint John Maximovitch, Saint Philaret, Bishop Averky Taushev, etc.

The deeper you look, almost every saint of the 20th century was connected to the TO. Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos, the Apostle to Africa, was tonsured a monk at an Old Calendar monastery near Kalamata. Elder Philotheos Zervakos, the spiritual son of Saint Nektarios, blessed his disciple Cyprian to join the TO in the 60s. Saint Savas the New of Kalymnos died on the Old Calendar. The famous Augoustinos Kantiotes of Florina (who was called "a martyr of the faith" by Saint George Karslimis of Drama), considered the Old Calendarists to be a valid church (you can find his 1967 speech at an Old Calendarist gathering here on YT).

The Old Calendar was the innovation of two men (the heretic Meletios Metaxakis, who was in communion with the "Living Church" of Russia, and Archbishop Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, who was the first to propose the creation of the WCC in 1920). It was imposed by threats and violence during the aftermath of the Asia Minor genocide by a revolutionary government (the Venizelist Plastiras). It was synodally condemned by Alexandria in March of 1924, and before that by the 1904 pan-Orthodox patriarchal consultation. The Romanians accepted it to please the 3 million Uniates they had absorbed following WWI, leading to another schism there. Even a respected scholar like Nicholae Iorga called the Romanian Synod schismatic because of it. Currently, the EP believes Roman Catholic sacraments are valid, is in communion with a group of self-consecrators (the Ukrainian "Church") and is increasingly preaching tolerance of homosexuality. You shall judge them by their fruits.

[صوتالسلام-ضخ]

What about Elder John of Amphiali the new almsgiver. He's in schism for the new calendarists?

[xenosmann]

Instead of asking about the old calendar movement we should ask about the heretical movement of the new calendar

[dianecleary]

Beloved Orthodox. I am hoŕrified at the popes action at Assisis and now at Sion. I relate more to the Maronites . I am deeply drawn to Orthodoxy. The more I research the more confised I am . Its a labyrinth of conflicting stances. Meanwhile the whole earth is slidng into a spiritual abyss. The hour is late . 2000 years of debate by great minds. How can we bring the peace of Christ into the world when thete is no prace amoungst Christians. I despair.

[NavelOrangeGazer]

As Blessed Seraphim of Platina warned we have to be equally as weary of zealotry on the right. He spoke often of this issue in his letters and sadly predicted that the behavior of the Pantelemionites in Boston would lead them into schism.

[dropsofink]

The accurate measurement of time and reorganization of a calendar doesn’t exactly explain why Pope Gregory changed the date of Christmas by two weeks. Moving the date did not remove error from the Gregorian calendar. Before Pope Gregory even made the calendar he already demonstrated that was not an Orthodox Pope. What he most accomplished by moving the date was to create a new Masonic jurisdiction based on a hybrid lunar solar calendar. This new Masonic jurisdiction creation by manipulating the calendar was also done in France during the French Revolution. Away what is most important is the “Appointed” time. It was “Appointed” on the 25th on the Julian Calendar by the Holly “Orthodox” Emperor Constantine. Which is January 7th on the calendar of the Apostate Pope Gregory’s calendar. The Julian Calendar is still used to measure time. Your watch uses Julian time. Longitude as found on navigational charts still use Julian time and so does space navigation satellites GPS etc.

[emilianohermosilla]

This is an issue that I don’t know much about. What would be the good conclusion? To go back to the old calendar for the sake of the integrity of apostolic tradition? And also get ourselves sorted from ecumenist heresy as well as schismatic old calendarism?

[RaptorLlama]

The main reasons I cannot become an Old Calendarist are the rejection of the saints (the ones mentioned and also St. Sophrony, and then different ones can't agree on others like St. John the Wonderworker) and also their inability to answer the question of the Holy Fire. If they are asked if the Holy Fire is from God or Man, if they reply God, one must wonder how a church they consider Graceless is still the one that receives it (and the other annual miracles), and if they say it's from man, they are at a loss to account for the hagiography of St. Tounom the Emir. They must say that it was from God then and then suddenly, whilst still identical to the original miracle, has now become a fabrication, or they must deny the hagiography and tradition of it. Either case puts them in a bad predicament.

And then there's the Neo-Donatist ecclesiology that half the time winds up becoming essentially Protestant "invisible church" but with more Orthodox sounding language, and the other half results in, if followed to its logical conclusion, results in basically the entire Russian Church losing grace by certainly the 19th century (by their strict criteria of one believing a heresy losing grace before even being condemned by a council) and the entire Greek church certainly losing grace before the Old Calendar movement even came into existence (since the ecumenist language was present before the new calendar was introduced). "A CRITIQUE OF OLD CALENDARIST ECCLESIOLOGY"
Panagiotis M. really gets into this issue with old calendarism extremely well.

All that said, it's indeed notable that old calendarism has shifted, from a more internal issue where the Greek Church was persecuting people just keeping to the Old Calendar, to those people eventually developing a Neo-Donatist ecclesiology, and sometimes getting involved in other controversies like the whole name worshipping ordeal. The Old Calendarists of today are not the same of those in the 50s and before. I have encountered Old Calendarist laity that venerate Sts. Porphyrios and Paisios, and recognize grace in the churches they communed with, but not old calenderist hierarchs, at least ones still living.