Anastasios Hudson's Blog, page 2

Ordained by a New Calendar Bishop?

Part of my ongoing Correspondence series, featuring replies to people who contacted me and asked questions.

Based on your research, Is it true that one of the ordaining bishops of Metropolitan Petros was with the “New Calendar but under the ROCOR” like I have read?

You’re getting things mixed up a bit—Metropolitan Petros was ordained by ROCOR Bishop Seraphim of Caracas and Archbishop Leonty of Chile.

Archbishop Akakios of the GOC

The ordination you are referring to is that of Archbishop Akakios, who was ordained for Greece while traveling to America (the only way he could get out of Greece was because he was going for cancer treatment, I believe, as Old Calendarists were forbidden to travel internationally at that time). Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago agreed to do the consecration, but they needed a place to do it and a second bishop, so Bishop Theofil (Ionescu) agreed to help.

Bishop Theofil (Ionescu) had left the Romanian Patriarchate because of Sergianism, and applied to ROCOR, which accepted him, on the condition that he return to the Old Calendar. They gave him some time to do this, since there were pastoral concerns. Archbishop Akakios did not know that Bishop Theofil was on the New Calendar, until he arrived at the cathedral and saw Christmas decorations up. He protested, and the situation was explained to him. Archbishop Seraphim was the primary consecrator anyway since he was the senior hierarch, so the “succession” comes from him, but he read a forgiveness prayer over Bishop Theofil first to calm Archbishop Akakios’s conscience.

Archbishop Leonty (Filippovich) of ROCORhelped him ordain the rest of the GOC bishops of the restored Synod.

After the ordination, Archbishop Leonty of Chile met Archbishop Akakios in Greece, where he helped him ordain the rest of the GOC bishops of the restored Synod.

Our argument is that the unilaterial adoption of the New Calendar is a schismatic act, and that the underlying reasons were ecumenistic, but we do not make the argument that the New Calendar per se is heretical—except perhaps for the most extreme among the Matthewites. As such, the ROCOR allowing it out of economy in the case of a bishop fleeing heresy, who needs time to acclamate his flock, is not the same thing as a bishop switching to the New Calendar himself in order to be in sync with the world. When Bishop Kyrill of the Bulgarians under ROCOR did just this in the 1970s, ROCOR told him to go back to the Old Calendar, “or else.” When he did not comply, they cut him off from communion, at which point he went to the OCA.

Anastasios Hudson is an Orthodox Christian author, speaker, and web developer living in Reston, Virginia. He is the author of Metropolitan Petros of Astoria: A Microcosm of the Old Calendar Movement in America (2014). Your purchase of this book, which is available at the low price of 7.99 (print) and 4.99 (eBook) will help him support his family! His personal website is AnastasiosHudson.com and his Facebook page is located here.

Thoughts on Halloween

Example of sensationalistic, Fundamentalist Nonsense

I don’t celebrate Halloween, out of obedience to my bishop and because my conscience does not permit me to engage in anything that makes light of the dark powers (which, when I was involved with occultic things as a teenager, I witnessed with my own eyes).

That being said, a few points:

1) A lot of the anti-Halloween stuff is derived from Protestant Fundamentalist nonsense, and should not be taken seriously or used in Orthodox arguments against Halloween. We really don’t know what Druids did, what their religion was like, or what the pagans of the British Isles really did on Samhein, apart from a few unreliable testimonies of the Romans, who deliberately fabricated and hyped them up to justify their annexation of Britain and destruction of the British people’s traditional social structure. Recall that the Romans were just as pagan as the British were, but had an “enlightened” form of paganism, so the more inchoate and natural paganism of the Druids and Celts was seen as backward and uncivilized. But the real fact is that the Druids were powerful in that society, and their power needed to be broken.

2) Things like trick-or-treat have their antecedents in Christian people going door to door and getting soul cakes and praying for the dead members of the household. To Protestant Fundamentalists, this is paganism (because they are unable to nuance spiritual and religious practices they disagree with, instead oversimplifying and lumping things together). What I am saying is that even if you are a Protestant who does not believe in praying for the dead, you can state your objections based on the Christian sources, and respond to the Christian and Jewish sources we use to defend the practice, without saying incorrectly that we are engaging in paganism. So by adopting the line that trick or treat is some kind of pagan demonic thing whereby if you didn’t get what you wanted, you would engage in mischief, is to perpetuate a Fundamental error which in its essence is anti-Orthodox (and anti-Catholic).

So I still don’t think we should be celebrating Halloween, but let’s refrain from celebrating it for mature spiritual reasons, and not nonsensical fantasy reasons which, once our kids realize are untrue, could cause them to question other foundational tenets of our faith.

3) If you are Orthodox and are going to do it anyway, which I know some of you will based on seeing your Facebook pictures, then at least have the decency to:

a) Not dress your kids up like demons, witches, devils, ghosts, skeletons, vampires, or zombies.

b) Not post your pictures with public settings or for all friends–use the “custom” privacy setting Facebook provides to hide it from your fellow Orthodox Christians who might be scandalized or bothered.

I’m not judging anyone and I have my own sins which perhaps I have been too open with online in the past; we all are on a journey and trying to grow in Christ. I just want people to be careful. I don’t want people to believe in hyped up Fundamentalist distortions, nor do I want people to give in to a temptation to view the dark powers as fun–because from personal experience, I can say they are scary as &*$%.

Anastasios Hudson is an Orthodox Christian author, speaker, and web developer living in Reston, Virginia. He is the author of Metropolitan Petros of Astoria: A Microcosm of the Old Calendar Movement in America (2014). Your purchase of this book, which is available at the low price of 7.99 (print) and 4.99 (eBook) will help him support his family! His personal website is AnastasiosHudson.com and his Facebook page is located here.

A Response to Some Distortions by Archbishop Gregory Concerning the GOC

[PDF]
Introduction

Archbishop Gregory of Colorado

At the onset, I want to say that I have an extreme dislike for engaging in polemics. Nowadays, I normally do not engage in public refutations of false accusations; I spent too many hours of my life doing so in the 2000s, and it caused me a lot of consternation. Perhaps some good came out of it, but I found it impossible to answer every critic, and every argument. Nowadays, I don’t mind writing broadly in article or book format to address trends and events, but the point-by-point refutation style of responding so common online is something I do not have the stomach for anymore.

That being said, yet another person has contacted me and asked me about the accusations found on the website of the soi-disant Archbishop Gregory of Colorado pertaining to the GOC (referred to there as “GOC Kallinikos”).[1] I was preparing to respond in private, when I decided that if this individual has these questions, and others like him have had these questions in the past, then there are probably yet still more who wonder, but have not expressed their doubts. For this reason, I am going to write a public response, in point-by-point fashion.

Point-by-Point Refutation

For the purposes of this refutation, the original text on Archbishop Gregory’s website will be produced in indented quotation style, in italics. Quotations from other sources will be reproduced in indented quotation style, but with normal text. I will refer to Archbishop Gregory by his title of archbishop, despite the fact that he is not recognized as such by the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians or its sister Churches, for the sake of politeness and to avoid confusion.[2] The text begins:

The GOC Kallinikos is a group that fell into schism in 1994 when it was led by Archbishop Chrysostomos II Kiousis. His successor at the present time is Archbishop Kallinikos of Achaia.

First of all, the schism he is talking about in the Lamian schism, which happened in 1995, not 1994.[3]

What is ironic is that then-Archimandrite Gregory left the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) after the December 1995 concelebration of its first-hierarch Metropolitan Vitaly with the first-hierarch of the Synod in Resistance, Metropolitan Cyprian, whom he considered to be a deposed heretic.[4] He applied to the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians (GOC) under Archbishop Chrysostomos II, and was received in March 1996. He remained a part of the GOC until 1997, when he was excommunicated by the GOC.[5]

By now claiming that the GOC fell into schism in 1994 (1995), he must admit that by his reasoning, he became a schismatic and was outside the Church from 1996 to 1997, the period that he was in the GOC. Wishing to whitewash this episode, he simultaneously tries to champion this move to the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece in general in 1996, while simultaneously claiming that he specifically joined the Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos II out of ignorance of its true positions—absolving him of guilt for picking the “wrong synod” and justifying his later moves to be under Metropolitan Kallinikos of the Twelve Islands,[6] and finally the breakaway Lamians, at a later date.

Finally, the present successor of Archbishop Chrysostomos II, who reposed in 2010, is Archbishop Kallinikos of Athens (not Achaia—he was previously the Metropolitan of Achaia, before his elevation to Archbishop).

As the leader of his church, Archbishop Chrysostomos broke the unity of the Synod into two factions, and with half of his bishops supporting him, set up with them a secret parallel Synod and incorporated it under the same name, in order to funnel Church funds into this shadow corporation. In this way, he attempted to appropriate all church and monastery property to himself and to run the Church in a totalitarian way. When the shadow corporation was discovered, the Synod split. Kiousis was the cause of this schism due to his breaking of the cannons[sic].

People who do not have an understanding of Greek property, ecclesiastical, and non-profit law are naturally going to have a hard time following arguments about this issue. The GOC was not legally recognized as a church before 1986, and as such, the church and monastic properties were registered in various ways—under associations, by private individuals, etc. In 1995, there was an attempt to rein in the existence of two separate corporations each controlling church properties, dating back to a division in the 1980s which was resolved by a fantastic and God-pleasing union, wherein the factions reunited and the period of divisions (1974-1984) mostly ended. Archbishop Chrysosotomos II was elected to shepherd the newly-re-united church, precisely because he had remained aloof from the nonsense occurring in this period (he did not attend synod meetings for eleven years).

Even after the reunion, however, there were still problems regarding property, and these issues simmered until 1995, when six bishops left the GOC Synod and formed a counter-synod, known colloquially as the Lamians. Out of these six bishops, two quickly returned to the GOC in repentance, two went on their own way and eventually fell into the heresy of Ecumenism, and the remaining two ordained more bishops. In 2004, these two elected one of these newly-ordained bishops, Bishop Makarios, as their Archbishop of Athens, which is why this group is called the “GOC Makarios” on Archbishop Gregory’s website. Archbishop Gregory formerly was a big fan of them, until they joined with his arch-nemesis HOCNA in 2013.

Historical minutiæ aside, the fact is, one cannot spilt from his Synod over reasons other than of faith…a property dispute is not a valid reason to set up a separate church synod— ever. Those who left were therefore the schismatics.[7]

His faction began to stray permanently from the Faith due to what occurred in 1998, when his “synod” endorsed and consecrated a bishop, Archimandrite Paul of Astoria, N.Y. He believed and implemented the Cyprianite heresy of communing New Calendarists. Metropolitan Paul of Astoria, now the so-called ‘Metropolitan of North and South America’, held and still holds to this day, heretical beliefs and practices the of giving communion to Ecumenists (see World Orthodoxy). Consequently, the Kiousite schism also bears the taint of having endorsed Cyprianism, and falls under the 1983 Anathema which condemns the heresy Ecumenism [sic].

Those who become familiar with Archbishop Gregory and his writings will note that he displays a disproportionate and curious animus against the group of Old Calendarist bishops which formerly constituted the Synod in Resistance (SiR), headed by Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Phyle (whom he generally refers to as the “Cyprianites”).[8] This was due to the SiR’s views concerning New Calendarists held at the time, which Archbishop Gregory unbelievably and quite hyperbolically considered as a form of Ecumenism![9] This is quite ironic, given the tireless efforts the SiR dedicated toward exposing the heresy of Ecumenism, and witnessing to Orthodox tradition.

Archbishop Gregory also has been extremely antagonistic over the years toward Metropolitan Pavlos (Stratigeas), the retired former Metropolitan of America, who at that time was the chancellor of the Diocese of Astoria for Metropolitan Petros. Archbishop Gregory’s charge against him is the same as with the former SiR: accusations of being crypto-ecumenist, and that New Calendarists were given communion (in this case, at St. Markella’s Cathedral, in Astoria, New York).

The truth is, however, that it was a known fact that Metropolitan Petros not only communed New Calendarists, but thought that they still possessed grace—although he was not a subscriber to the ecclesiological views of Metropolitan Cyprian, as I explain in my book, Metropolitan Petros of Astoria: A Microcosm of the Old Calendar Movement in America.[10] Archbishop Gregory knew the truth about Metropolitan Petros’s views and practices, and joined the GOC anyway.

At any rate, before the GOC Synod eventually elected and ordained Fr. Pavlos a bishop, there certainly were some concerns that he was soft on Ecumenism, due to a newspaper interview he gave in 1994 which seemed to suggest that he believed that Patriarch Bartholemew was ultimately the canonical leader of Orthodoxy. Fr. Pavlos repented of the interview soon after it came out, and stated that he did not believe some of the things that were later attributed to him on account of his “thinking out loud” approach during the interview.[11] Again, this did not stop Fr. Gregory from entering in to communion with Metropolitan Petros and Fr. Pavlos in 1996; it was only when it came time for a new bishop to be elected that there suddenly was a problem.

In part as a result of the interview, the GOC Synod made certain demands of Fr. Pavlos, should he be ordained a bishop, such as that he stop communing New Calendarists at St. Markella’s Cathedral and reiterate his Orthodox confession of faith, which he did. He made several good faith efforts to stop the communing of New Calendarists at St. Markella’s, such as promulgating a 2002 Encyclical[12] which forbade the practice.

There were some serious pastoral concerns, however, which mitigated a vocal and public approach at St. Markella’s. The preferred approach at the cathedral was to address these concerns in private. There were also some people who continued to slip through the cracks here and there, but what is clear is that these were exceptions in some cases and mistakes in others (such as when people misrepresented themselves, and were not properly investigated by the clergy beforehand).[13] Metropolitan Pavlos retired in 2013, at any rate, and his successor Metropolitan Demetrius has made it clear that any vestigial exceptions to policy occurring at the cathedral should and must cease. At his enthronement in May 2014, a clear message was read before Holy Communion that to approach, one must be a member of the Holy Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos, or one of our sister Churches.

That being said, even intentionally communing New Calendarists would not be a heresy. It is an abuse, a canonical violation, and a sin, but not a heresy. Metropolitan Pavlos did not believe that New Calendarists are “ailing members of the Church,” as the former Synod in Resistance opined in some of its publications (but which they rejected during their dialogue with the GOC), nor did he think it was okay for them to stay in the New Calendar Church. I asked him directly if he thought that New Calendarists have grace, and his response was, “I sure hope so, for their sake…but I don’t see how Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochians can be an Orthodox bishop.” One can see in his measured words a hope for the best, while concurrently accepting the reality of the situation. The fact is, over the decades since the Calendar change, there have been different opinions about the status of the New Calendarists, especially as some of them seem to move back toward Tradition, while others move forward toward Ecumenism. The mistake of the reposed Metropolitan Cyprian was to overly qualify these hopes and wishes into an ecclesiological position paper, but these opinions still never constituted heresy, and have been withdrawn by his successors.

Metropolitan Pavlos, as did his uncle, instead believed that a lenient approach would bear fruit in getting people, who were often ignorant of these things, into the Church—their concern was therefore not one of trying to curry favor with the New Calendarists, as Archbishop Gregory has insisted, but rather one of trying to find the best way to bring these people in to the GOC![14] St. Markella’s is a unique case in the American Orthodox scene; it is one of the only places left where when the church bell rings, people walk down the street from their homes to attend the services. It is one of the last remaining “neighborhood” Orthodox parishes. Many of these people go to St. Markella’s precisely because it is traditional and like their village parish in Greece, but are unaware of the problems of Ecumenism, the New Calendar, etc.

The soft approach was directed at these people. There are, in fact, numerous families in St. Markella’s who were brought over by the gentle approach of Metropolitans Petros and Pavlos. The intent was never to give out the Holy Mysteries willy-nilly to anyone, but rather to not chase people away from the Church before giving them a chance to truly encounter it. Different people had different approaches to the pastoral problem of bringing New Calendarists into the Church; eventually, the Synod ruled on the matter, and the practice at St. Markella’s was gradually brought into line. That is how conciliarity works in real life.

After Kiousis acomplished [sic] the ordination of Paul of Astoria, he proceeded to ordain five other young bishops known as the “baby bishops”, because, they were all cononically[sic] under age; two of them were his nephews and one of these two was even in his twenties! He did this not only to fill the ranks of the bishops who were lost due to his schism, but also to maintain complete control of the synod by installing those who would always vote to support him.

First of all, the canons do not specify the canonical age for ordination to the episcopacy. They do state that a subdeacon must be 20,[15] a deacon 25,[16] a priest 30,[17] and that a deaconess must be 40,[18] but they do not state that a bishop must be 35, as I have seen Archbishop Gregory state elsewhere.

In The Rudder, a collection of canons compiled by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite with commentary in the 19th century, and translated into English in 1957 by D. Cummings, there is a footnote which states:

The bishops when ordained must be of advanced age, that is, not less than fifty years old, except only where a small province is involved wherein one of advanced age cannot be found, according to Ap. Inj. Bk. II, ch. I, and according to the 52nd epistle of St. Cyprian, or even above the thirtieth year, according to Justinian’s Novel 137.[19]

What this footnote demonstrates is that the canons themselves do not state a canonical age for ordination to the episcopacy, and as such, other authorities have given their opinion or ruling depending on circumstances. There is therefore no basis at all to the allegation that the so-called “baby bishops” were below the canonical age.

At this point, it behooves us to take a broad look into the nature of the Canonical Tradition. In seminary, we were taught to use the term Canonical Tradition, as opposed to Canon Law, because the canons are not laws, but rather spiritual guidelines that must be applied to the individual and by circumstance. By guideline, we not imply that the canons are optional, but rather that the spiritual truths underlying them must be applied in a context, by a competent spiritual authority. This is made clear by Canon 102 of the Council of Trullo, which states:

Those who have received from God authority to bind and loose must take into consideration the quality of the sin and the willingness and readiness of the sinner to return, and thus offer a treatment suited to the sin in question, lest by employing an immoderate adjustment in one direction or the other, they fail in compassing the salvation of the one ailing. For the diseases called sin are not simple affairs, but on the contrary, various and complex, and they produce many offshoots of the injury, as a result whereof the evil becomes widely diffused, and it progresses until it is checked by the power of the one treating it. So that a person who is professing the science of treating ailments as a spiritual physician ought first to examine the disposition of the sinner and ascertain whether he tends to health, or on the contrary, provokes the illness to attack him by his own actions; at the same time bearing in mind that he must provide against any reversion, and considering whether the patient is struggling against the physician, and whether the ulcer of the soul is being aggravated by the application of the remedy; and accordingly to mete out mercy in due proportion to the merits of the case. For all that matters to God and to the person undertaking pastoral leadership consists in the recovery of the straying sheep, and in healing the one wounded by the serpent. Accordingly, he ought not to drive the patient to the verge of despair, nor give him rein to dissoluteness and contempt of life, but, on the contrary, in at least one way at any rate, either by resorting to extreme and stringent remedies, or to gentler and milder ones, to curb the disease, and to put up a fight to heal the ulcer for the one tasting the fruits of repentance, and wisely helping him on the way to the splendid rehabilitation to which the man is being invited. We must therefore be versed in both, that is both the requirements of accuracy and the requirements of custom. In the case of those who are obstinately opposed to extremities, we must follow the formula handed down to us, just as sacred Basil teaches us outright.[20]

The canons are thus spiritual medicine for the soul, which can be modified through leniency (economia)or through strictness (akriveia) by the one with authority to apply them, not immutable rules and regulations to be forced onto someone, with no regard for what it might do to him.

Lest anyone think that this canon only applies to penances, and not canons about discipline, it should be emphasized that disciplines such as the age of the clergy at ordination are precisely spiritual concerns—so that the candidate is prepared himself for the office, and so that the people under his charge will be under the care of a competent spiritual physician. For this reason, the bishops have the right to ordain someone when they are younger than the canonical age, if needed, and they have the right to make a candidate wait longer if he is not prepared.

In the history of the Church, there have been numerous examples of clergy ordained below 30 years old to the priesthood, or 25 years old to the diaconate. Even assuming that the canons were inflexible regulations for the sake of the argument, the violation of them would not amount to heresy. If it did, then the entire Orthodox world would be in heresy, and there would be no more Church left on Earth, because of the numerous times this and other canons have been violated (whether the violation be real or imagined) over the centuries. The fact is, canons are flexible, and the breaking of a canon by a bishop is not reason enough to break from him, because the situation must be judged by a synod. There must be a divergence in faith, not solely in practice, for an individual to leave a bishop, or a bishop to leave a synod, unilaterally.

One final point to make is that in other cultures, one’s age is counted by the year one is in, so a baby is in his “first year” and someone who is going to turn 17 is in his “eighteenth year” which, upon turning what we consider 18, will then be in his “nineteenth year.” That is common in Greek. As such, the bishop that was ordained allegedly “in his twenties” was ordained at the age of 29, a few months before he turned 30, and was thus in his “thirtieth year.”

In regards to the assertion that Archbishop Chrysostomos II ordained these bishops to fill the ranks of those lost, it is obvious that the Archbishop and Synod would want to ordain bishops for widowed dioceses, but the fact is that of the departing six bishops:

Two (Metropolitans Justin and Stephanos) had quickly returned to the Synod, certainly before the ordinations of the “baby bishops”;
Two had departed into schism and later heresy (Metropolitan Paisios and Bishop Vikentios), and Metropolitan Pavlos had been assigned their diocese;
The two remaining (Metropolitans Kallinikos of Lamia and Euthymius) did not take their entire dioceses with them when they departed.

In reality, Archbishop Gregory has no way of knowing whether the candidates ordained were pliable, and whether Archbishop Chrysostomos II ordained them with that intention in mind.

To the present day, this synod of Archbishop Kallinikos[21] has the reputation of being Cyprianite in their [sic] ecclesiology by the administration of the Holy Mysteries to the Ecumenist New Calendrists [sic] of both Greece and the United States.

Having a “reputation” of being something does not mean that someone is, in fact, that thing. Accusations against clergy, especially bishops, must be documented, proven, and judged by a competent authority. The Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos II condemned what Archbishop Gregory refers to as “Cyprianism” in the 1980s when it first originated, and everything that Archbishop Gregory knows about the subject ultimately comes from them, yet he would have us believe that a mere decade after condemning so-called Cyprianism, the Synod suddenly and completely changed course and now espoused it.

Again, then-Archimandrite Gregory joined the GOC under Archbishop Chrysostomos II in 1996, when Metropolitan Petros was part of the Synod, and it was well-known that he openly gave communion to New Calendarists, yet we are supposed to believe that it was only when his successor Fr. Pavlos was ordained bishop, that the Synod fell into heresy, even though Metropolitan Pavlos was the one who actually started to put the brakes on his predecessor’s policy, at the Synod’s direction?

As I touched upon above, Metropolitan Petros did not subscribe to what is referred to as “Cyprianism,” even though he gave communion to New Calendarists, because in his mind, the two things were not the same. Furthermore, the so-called Cyprianites, or more properly, the Synod in Resistance, itself forbade the communing of New Calendarists in a synodal decision. ROCOR itself at various times communed New Calendarists, and gradually stopped the practice. As such, one cannot claim that by communing New Calendarists, one is therefore a “Cyprianite.”

In March of 2014, this schismatic synod of the G.O.C. of Greece under Archbishop Kallinikos and the heretical synod of the Cyprianites, the Synod of Resistors, entered into union with each other. This was accomplished with no repentance from either side. Two illegitimate and schismatic groups united to form one synod led by Kallinikos.

Because of all of the above uncanonical actions, this group finds a place on this site with schismatics and heretics.

The union of March 2014 was really a fantastic event in the life of the Church. Many of the beliefs which Archbishop Gregory finds issue with were laid to rest by the humble actions of the bishops of the Synod in Resistance, who dismantled their synod and completely joined the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians under Archbishop Kallinikos.[22] This also brought the GOC into communion with the Romanian Old Calendar Orthodox Church, and that portion of the ROCOR that did not enter communion with Moscow in 2007, headed by Metropolitan Agafangel (more commonly referred to by the acronym ROCA: Russian Orthodox Church Abroad; both this and ROCOR were used historically). For the first time in decades, the Genuine Orthodox of Greece, Russia, Romania, the United States, and elsewhere are united in one common Church, manifesting opposition to the heresy of Ecumenism together. Glory to God for all things!

Final Thoughts

There is always a risk in replying to people like Archbishop Gregory of getting dragged into an Internet war. There is also the risk of giving more credence to someone than is due. The conclusion of following Archbishop Gregory’s line of reasoning is to end up in a dark place—a place of suspicion, constant “heresy hunting,” spiritual fatigue, and either prideful delusion or despair. I have known several people who have gone through his jurisdiction, who have ended up burning out altogether from Genuine Orthodoxy, and who are now in New Calendar jurisdictions. Others are not even Orthodox any longer.

Archbishop Gregory is a talented individual, in terms of iconography, assembling a team of people to publish books and print calendars, and he has established a beautiful monastery in Colorado. He is prodigious about visiting prison inmates, and has a strong missionary drive. All of these things are vital for the furtherance of Orthodoxy in America. However, his separate church, disparagement of others, and the isolation he creates among his followers corrode his witness.

We must pray for Archbishop Gregory and his small flock, that they will come out of their isolation and return to the Church, from which they are unfortunately in schism. They have backed themselves into an untenable corner, and anyone who takes seriously the exaggerated and often slanderous claims that Archbishop Gregory puts on his website—mostly hearsay or restating of half-truths—will end up in the same place. Please! For the love of God, stop this nonsense! It is not too late, either for the inquirer, or for Archbishop Gregory himself, to change his trajectory! There is another way!

Endnotes

[1] GOC Kallinikos, accessed October 7, 2014.

[2] The GOC and its sister Churches would consider Archbishop Gregory to still be an archimandrite (priest-monk), as that was the last rank he held before being excommunicated in 1997 and departing into sundry other jurisdictions. He was ordained a bishop and elevated to archbishop by the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC), whose first-hierarch was deposed by ROCOR, albeit for political reasons. While we have not re-ordained at least one cleric I know of coming from the ROAC, we can only consider the status of someone who has departed from us in the context of his repentance and application to return, not per se as he currently exists apart from us. In addition, the ROAC removed Archbishop Gregory in 2004, so he is essentially a vagante bishop at this point.

[3] Vladimir Moss, Thirty Years of Trial: The True Orthodox Christians of Greece, 1970-2000, Surrey, United Kingdom, 2005, accessed October 9, 2014.

[4] Anonymous, The Life Story of Archbishop Gregory, Chapter 35: Father Gregory Joins the Greek Old Calendar Church, accessed October 9, 2014.

[5] Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians, “Protocol 507,” October 17, 1997, accessed October 9, 2014.

[6] Metropolitan Kallinikos of the Twelve Islands was one of the bishops who sided with the Archbishop in 1995 against the Lamians, but whom Archbishop Gregory’s Life Story attempts to portray as having been later removed by the Synod for opposing Fr. Pavlos Stratigeas’s elevation to the episcopacy in 1998. The fact is that Metropolitan Kallinikos of the Twelve Islands issued statements that were Apollinarian in nature, and was condemned for this—as surprising as it may sound in the 21st century. Fr. Gregory went under this Metropolitan, but later left him and went under the Lamians. His brief soujourn under Metropolitan Kallinikos of the Twelve Islands is omitted from his Life Story, but is proven by the fact that books published during this time bear the name of this Metropolitan as having given his blessing for their publication.

[7] I personally pointed this out to Archbishop Gregory on the telephone, on June 6, 2013, when he had called me trying to convince me to join his church.

[8] The Synod in Resistance reunited with the GOC in March 2014.

[9] The Synod in Resistance did not condemn the New Calendarists as without sacramental grace and many of its bishops held an opinion that considered the New Calendarists part of the Church—albeit a sick part. While the GOC would agree with Archbishop Gregory that these views were incorrect, Archbishop Gregory took his disagreement to an unhealthy extreme, frequently denouncing the SiR vocally, despite the fact that they were a small minority of the total population of Genuine Orthodox Christians, and had little if no contact with him in the past. To label them as ecumenist for not denying the grace of the New Calendarists’ sacraments is to turn an opinion into an article of faith, and to ignore the SiR’s prodigious work in the area of anti-ecumenism and traditionalism. The bishops of the former SiR gave up any teachings which conflicted with the teaching of the GOC when they united with it in March 2014, and signed a joint ecclesiological statement, The True Orthodox Church and the Heresy of Ecumenism: Doctrinal and Canonical Issues, accessed October 10, 2014.

[10] Anastasios Hudson, Metropolitan Petros of Astoria: A Microcosm of the Old Calendar Movement in America. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.

[11] One must appreciate the strong attachment Greeks have towards the institution of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which was the locus of Hellenic identity throughout the Turkish occupation. The fall of the Ecumenical Patriarchate produced mixed feelings in the hearts of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, which continues to produce tension between their ecclesiastical and cultural sensibilities. In the interview, Fr. Pavlos spoke about the institution of the Patriarchate in positive terms, but gave the impression that he supported its incumbent, who is an active Ecumenist. Fr. Pavlos later clarified his intentions in private letters, which I have copies of, and this satisfied his ecclesiastical superiors at the time.

[12] Metropolitan Pavlos of America, “Encyclical Regarding Holy Communion,” December 5/18, 2002, , accessed October 10, 2014.

[13] Part of the confusion is that Metropolitan Petros and Metropolitan Pavlos allowed the use of economy at St. Markella’s, and received New Calendarists generally by confession and profession of faith in private, versus the synodically-approved practice of chismating them. This is certainly within the prerogative of the local bishop, as I will explain below in my comments on Trullo Canon 102. However, for those who have a black-and-white view of Orthodoxy, the fact that these people were not chrismated means to them that they never really converted; hence, it was easy to claim that New Calendarists were being communed at St. Markella’s. In some cases, children were given communion without being questioned, and these children turned out to be of New Calendarist parents. On Pascha, over 3000 people show up at the Cathedral, most of whom leave after they get the fire (an unfortunate modern Greek practice among the lax), so anyone staying until 3:30 am when communion is distributed is presumed to be a member of the parish, which is when other New Calendarists might have “slipped through the cracks” and been communed. These examples are illustrative of the types of exceptions and mistakes that occurred at the cathedral during the tenure of Metropolitan Pavlos, who inherited one situation from his uncle, while having to deal with contrary demands from the Synod in Greece. It was difficult to maneuver, he did the best he could, and he will ultimately give account for his decisions; but in any event, they were not indicative of heresy on his part. For the record, Metropolitan Pavlos did on occasion chrismate New Calendarists, and ordered me to do so when I served as his priest from 2008-2013.

[14] It should be noted for completeness’ sake that elsewhere, Archbishop Gregory insists that Metropolitans Petros and Pavlos communed New Calendarists in order to get their money. I can testify that the passersby and occasional visitors to St. Markella’s do not donate large sums of money. It is the core Old Calendarist families—those whose families never abandoned the Old Calendar, and those who have returned to the Old Calendar—who support the Church. Any desire to get more people into the Church is in order to save their souls, not get a few extra bucks.

[15] Council in Trullo, Canon 15. The Rudder, D. Cummings, ed., Chicago: Orthodox Christian Education Society, 1957, p. 308.

[16] Council in Trullo, Canon 14. The Rudder, p. 307.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] The Rudder, p. 3. N.B.: The footnotes of The Rudder are from the English translation, and not part of the original text of St. Nikodemos.

[20]Council in Trullo, Canon 102. The Rudder, p. 409.

[21] For clarification purposes, Archbishop Kallinikos is the successor to Archbishop Chrysostomos II, who reposed in 2010.

[22] For documents pertaining to the union, please see The True Orthodox Church and the Heresy of Ecumenism, previously cited, and The Ecclesiastical Union of the Orthodox Community in Resistance with the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece: Objections, Concerns, and their Resolution, available online at http://www.hotca.org/news/miscellaneous/585-the-ecclesiastical-union-of-the-orthodox-community-in-resistance-with-the-church-of-the-true-orthodox-christians-of-greece-objections,-concerns,-and-their-resolution for a discussion of what was discussed, how it was handled, and what was agreed upon in order to form this union.

Anastasios Hudson is an Orthodox Christian author, speaker, and web developer living in Reston, Virginia. He is the author of Metropolitan Petros of Astoria: A Microcosm of the Old Calendar Movement in America (2014). Your purchase of this book, which is available at the low price of 7.99 (print) and 4.99 (eBook) will help him support his family! His personal website is AnastasiosHudson.com and his Facebook page is located here.

Why Bishop Christodoulos Is Being Forced Off Facebook

Bishop Christodoulos of Theoupolis

Those active in Orthodox Christian “corners” of Facebook have likely heard of or interacted with His Grace Bishop Christodoulos of Theoupolis, who joined the site as soon as it became open to the public in 2006 (in fact, I joined Facebook when he invited me). Bishop Christodoulos, a vicar bishop in the GOC, quickly reached the Facebook limit of 5000 friends, and while he primarily used it to interact with his spiritual children and promote videos on the YouTube Channel Greek Orthodox Christian Television, he also used it to become one of the most accessible Orthodox Christian bishops online, fielding questions about the Orthodox faith, and directing people to the nearest Orthodox Christian parish.

This week, however, his Facebook page was suddenly deactivated by Facebook, because of its recent decision to more strictly enforce its policy requiring users to use their real names in Facebook profiles. This has always technically been a Facebook policy, but was largely ignored by Facebook staff until recently. Interestingly, the most vocal opponents of this stricter enforcement have been , who are generally only known in public by their alter ego. It is unknown how many clergy are presently being affected by this change in enforcement.

There is some speculation that the reason that the change in enforcement is being pushed now is to encourage users to create fan pages (mine is here). Fan pages allow the use of a stage name, but there’s a clear downside: posts on Fan pages do not receive the same coverage as posts made to someone’s personal page. Greg Seals comments:

Some believe that the action isn’t a bigoted one, but one driven by monetary gain. If the site forces performers to migrate to fan pages, they’ll have to start dolling out cash to Facebook for higher billing and promoted posts on fans News Feeds. In a post encouraging performers to purchase sponsored posts Facebook admits a non-promoted post only reaches about 16 percent of fans on average.

I can offer my own experience; posts which I only post to my Facebook fan page receive about 1/8 to 1/9 the traffic that posts receive when I subsequently share them on my own personal page.

One of the issues here is that no one knows Bishop Christodoulos by his birth name. It’s not a big secret, and can be found by googling, but it’s not who he is. Much like last names were forced on people during the Middle Ages through the Enlightenment period, ostensibly as part of process of cataloging people as the state’s centralized power grew and populations grew—requiring national censuses for purposes of taxation and military drafts—we are now witnessing a renewed interest in labeling and categorizing people for purposes of data collection, in this case for advertising revenues. This is after the inital days of the Internet, where we were encouraged to adopt a pseudonym and not reveal personal details about ourselves!

While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with advertising, there is a problem when people are forced into a template in order to serve the data. Advertising, products, and the like should serve their customers; customers should not serve the companies that make the products.

Sure, Bishop Christodoulos is free to forgo further participation in Facebook, and this is his intention, he tells me (he may come back under his legal name in order to point people to a new place online where he can be located; he is not sure yet). However, in a world where people are increasingly driven by corporations and entities that seek to profit off people, and where people are being steadily forced into more rigid categorizations that easily permit their categorization and labeling, I think it’s important for the rest of us to admit that our “freedom” to opt out of some things is becoming increasingly more difficult, and places an undue burden on us, due to the direction in which society is headed. We should be wary of attempts by Facebook to tell us that the name on our driver’s license is who we are.

Anastasios Hudson is an Orthodox Christian author, speaker, and web developer living in Reston, Virginia. He is the author of Metropolitan Petros of Astoria: A Microcosm of the Old Calendar Movement in America (2014). His personal website is AnastasiosHudson.com.

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Priests Who Hold Back

In my article Just One More Step, I addressed the phenomenon of people who have given up a great deal in order to convert to Orthodoxy, but who refuse to follow their conscience and become a part of Genuine/True Orthodoxy because of social stigmas, isolation, or other practical concerns. Far from being the concern solely of laypeople, I have personally seen the example of priests who also realize the truth, but cannot commit to it, for various non-theological reasons. I will illustrate just one example here.

There is a priest whom I have known since 1998, who is a convert to New Calendar Orthodoxy from Protestantism and who was caught up in the fervor of the 1987 crop of 2000 Evangelicals who embraced New Calendar Orthodoxy via the Antiochian Patriarchate. Soon after his conversion, he learned of the Old Calendarists/Genuine Orthodox, joined them, became burned out, and returned to the New Calendar Church, which he has served faithfully from that time.

This priest had often made cracks against Traditionalists, especially against the rasso and the skoufos (i.e., traditional Orthodox priestly attire), which he claimed would be a barrier to ever converting “Billy Bob to Orthodoxy.” During one meeting, I went on to disabuse him of this notion, explaining that I had successfully baptized several Protestants in Eastern North Carolina while maintaining a rasso and skoufos, but he seemed to just file the information away and continue on with his bias. Another time, this priest remarked that American Orthodoxy was not about English liturgies, but going further and having hamburgers and hot dogs at potluck, not falafel. I wondered why we could not have both? There seemed to be a strong identify crisis going on.

Delving deeper, and prodding more than I usually do, I got this priest to admit that he knew that the Old Calendarists were right—but he admitted that he simply could not handle all the fasting and other requirements. He quickly followed up by saying that now he could, some 20 years later, but he is not sure that he would want to. This was during the time of the Antiochian bishops’ crisis, where Metropolitan Philip “demoted” his ruling bishops to auxiliaries, and he remarked that he threw most correspondence from the Archdiocese in the trash. It didn’t affect his parish, he reasoned, so it didn’t matter. Still, he said, if they forced him to take sides, then he would reconsider returning to the Old Calendarists.

This conversation was truly one of the more bizarre ones which I had during my five year tenure as a priest (2008-2013). I had met a friend of this priest’s, and remarked that said friend sent his greetings. The priest in question admitted that he could not talk to his friend anymore, because it bothered him to see that that fellow had returned to the Old Calendar and stayed there, and he could not handle the debates. Keep in mind that I was only about 30 years old at this time, and talking with someone in his 50s, an elder in the generational sense, and yet I could not shake my feelings that this was really all a series of excuses.

This individual continues on as a priest, while I have subsequently failed in my ministry and personal life and resigned. Perhaps this weighs in to his thought process, and he considers that I am proof that joining the Old Calendar Church is a recipe for personal instability. Such could not be further from the truth, and such thoughts are clearly temptations. I pray fervently for this priest, that he will someday realize that he more than anyone else is called to give everything to be part of the truth. Let him and us not come so close to the edge, and not jump over it and immerse ourselves in the depth of the fullness of Orthodoxy, because we are afraid of personal concerns.

 

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I’m Sorry, but I Hate Fall

Autumn…Did You Know It’s a Symbol of Death?

I’ve always hated Fall. Autumn. The changing of leaf colors. The cold breeze. The way the sunlight seems to cast down upon us differently. Longer hours of darkness. Wet rain. Back to school. Hardly anything interesting on the church calendar. The stupid “holiday” of Halloween. The death of my best friend Roberto (+11/19/2008). Sweaters, long pants. Unpredictable weather: mornings cold, afternoons hot. Animals going away. Heating bills increasing. Seemingly more tired.

Fall in 2012 was when I had to come to terms with the destruction of my first marriage. Fall of 2013 was when I had to deal with the stresses of a new relationship and a new baby, and the reactions of everyone who knew me. Seasonal affective disorder, maybe? Who knows. But I hate the Fall.

I actually prefer the Winter, because even though everything by wintertime is dead, you get snow which is pretty, and the holiday season (yes, literalists, I realize that Fall ends on December 20th), visits with family, and Winter vacation to spend time with your kids…

Bishop Christodoulos came to visit us in Raleigh in the Fall of 2007, along with Fr. Savvas Anastasiou and Fr. Lawrence Girard (may he rest in peace), and he preached a sermon which solidified my hatred of the Fall, because of precisely how it reflects the Fall of Man (Fall Reflects the Fall). The changes of the leaf colors are symbolic of death. This is not what God intended for man.

I don’t mean to depress anyone, but amongst the crowd of people talking about how pretty the leaf changes are and how nice it is that Starbucks has brought back the Pumpkin Spiced Latte, I will say what I know a segment of the population feels, and I will affirm that it is okay to feel this way.

But rest assured, just as Adam brought death upon mankind, soon we will experience the Spring Resurrection and the Summer of blessedness, courtesy of Our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Excerpt from Upcoming Book: Finding the True Orthodox Church

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Finding the True Orthodox Church. The book consists of a series of chapters which address various objections to True Orthodoxy. This is the introduction to a chapter which addresses the question, “Are True Orthodox Vagantes?” This charge is sometimes leveled against the True Orthodox, by comparing them to various pseudo-churches with no legitimate heritage, in an effort to paint the True Orthodox as pretend clergy and poseurs. The chapter will explore the differences between True Orthodox and Independent Orthodox (i.e. vagante) groups, to demonstrate that the two movements have nothing in common, despite the fact that some Independent Orthodox groups call themselves True Orthodox.

Introduction

Orthodox Christians living in the West have benefited from certain relative freedoms available to them which were not available in the Old World. However, with these new opportunities came new challenges. Especially after the confusion of the October Revolution in 1917, the Orthodox Church in the West became jurisdictionally fragmented, and in the midst of this disorder arose competing bishops and jurisdictions—a canonical irregularity and a serious scandal to all conscientious Christians. With no governmental authority to intervene, and given the chaos that was prevalent in many of the Old World patriarchates due to war and upheaval, the reality of an unhealthy situation was accepted as unavoidable. Out of this confusion arose bishops who were no longer affiliated with any established Orthodox synod or local church, and dozens of independent parishes.

An equally serious setback for Orthodoxy occurred in 1924, when the Church of Greece unilaterally altered the Festal Calendar, replacing it with a hybrid system which maintained the Orthodox Paschalion while replacing the fixed feasts with the Gregorian Calendar reckoning. The schism that these bishops created was exported to other local churches, which divided their flocks by introducing this so-called “New” Calendar. This change was a precursor to further degradations of Orthodoxy, which are now referred to under the common headings of “Ecumenism” and “Modernism.” A notorious example of such was the Lifting of the Anathemas, promulgated under Patriarch Athenagoras in 1965, which led to St. Philaret of New York responding with his Sorrowful Epistles. Those who resisted these changes to the faith were the ones who remained Orthodox, but to distinguish themselves from the innovators—who were in positions of power and continued to use the term Orthodox themselves—they adopted the name True (or Genuine) Orthodox.[1] The innovating State Church referred to them derisively as “Old Calendarists.”

The origins of these Independent Orthodox communities on the one hand, and True Orthodox Churches on the other, were thus distinct. However, from the beginning, there were examples of the Independent Orthodox appropriating the True Orthodox identity in their attempts to distinguish themselves from the “official” Churches, without, however, adopting a concomitant True Orthodox ecclesiology.[2] This was partly natural in some cases; for instance, some communities did not join the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America when it was established in 1922, and consequently they never adopted the New Calendar. Some of these communities began to call themselves Old Calendarists, while having no communion with the Old Calendarist hierarchy which was reestablished on May 13, 1935, when three bishops of the State Church returned to the Patristic “Old” Calendar. Many of these communities were eventually incorporated in to the Greek Archdiocese[3], while others were incorporated in to the Holy Synod of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece.[4] Some simply ceased to exist.

While the original Independent Orthodox communities were on the decline by the 1950s, two new groups of people began to augment their ranks. The first were simply clerics of the “official” Orthodox Churches who were deposed for various reasons, and began to operate as Independent Orthodox. Some even engineered their ordinations to the episcopate by the remnants of the various Independent groups.   A notorious example of this would be “Metropolitan” Pangratios (Vrionis), a priest of the Greek Archdiocese deposed after accusations of immorality, who was allegedly ordained a bishop by offshoots of the Independent groups mentioned above.[5] The other group consisted of Roman Catholics and Anglicans who had separated from their own Churches and received ordination from episcopi vagantes—wandering bishops with no real diocese—who apparently having grown tired of the label Old Catholic, began to see the word “Orthodox” as fresh and fashionable.[6] Thus emerged a plethora of false Churches incorporating any number of variations on the terms, “Orthodox,” “Catholic,” “Apostolic,” “Byzantine,” and “Western Rite.”[7] In this paper, the argument which allows Western Christians to justify becoming “Orthodox” clergy without having been ordained by Orthodox bishops, namely the theory of the indelible mark of priesthood, and the reliance on a mechanical interpretation of apostolic succession[8], will be addressed. It would be impossible, and indeed fruitless, to address all of the permutations of this phenomenon of Independent bishops[9]; we will instead use representative examples that are culturally familiar to most readers.

Our focus here will be on addressing those aspects of Orthodox faith and ecclesiology which distinguish True Orthodox Churches from Independent Orthodox groups, without engaging in a comprehensive study of the Independent Orthodox considered per se. The aim of this study will be assisting the inquirer in assessing any group calling itself True Orthodox or claiming some affiliation with True Orthodoxy, in the hopes that such inquirers will not be misled. This can happen in two ways—in the first instance, someone seeking out True Orthodoxy may stumble across one of the Independent Orthodox groups that claims to be True Orthodox, and thereby mistakenly become part of the wrong church; in the second, someone investigating True Orthodoxy is confronted by an apologist for a New Calendarist or Ecumenist jurisdiction, who lumps True Orthodox together with the Independent Orthodox groups in order to create the illusion that all churches and jurisdictions not part of the “official” patriarchates is a counterfeit, non-canonical pseudo-church masquerading as Orthodox. By highlighting some of the more egregious examples of non-Orthodox practices found in some Independent Orthodox circles, and lumping True Orthodox together with such groups, the illusion is created that True Orthodox claims are not even worth investigating, because the groups are hopelessly divided and their leaders cranks and charlatans.

Our hope will also be that those already in the Independent movement will realize their error and convert to the Orthodox Church, but experience has shown that this does not often happen, and when it does, the conversions are often incomplete. We will never lose hope that it is possible, however, and we pray earnestly for those who are currently members of Independent Orthodox churches.

A Note on Terms
Vagante and Independent Orthodox

The Latin term episcopi vagantes technically refers to wandering bishops, which in Latin Catholic theology would be “validly ordained” but without “jurisdiction” since they are not tied to a diocese and canonically invested. In modern English discussions on such bishops, the word vagante has been coined, which refers to any bishop, clergy, or church which is Independent, self-appointed, ahistorical, or seen as inauthentic. It is a term that is often used as a pejorative. While we do not agree in principle with the Independent movement as it stands, we will refrain from using the term vagante to refer to them in the interest of maintaining a civil tone and being precise, since the term episcopi vagantes has a historical context which is not always applicable to today’s Independent Orthodox. Our use of the term “Independent Orthodox” does not imply that we believe such individuals are part of the canonical Orthodox Church, but is used because such individuals self-identify with Orthodoxy (as opposed to those Independents who identify with Roman Catholicism or Anglicanism, for instance).

True Orthodox

Those who resisted the change in the calendar in 1924 were derisively labelled “Old Calendarists,” but referred to themselves as True (or Genuine) Orthodox in order to distinguish themselves from the innovators. There were also legal reasons for doing so—there was (and still is) no separation of Church and State in Greece, and so the True Orthodox could not simply refer to themselves as “Orthodox” in the registration of their properties and associations, because the State Church had rights over this name. That being said, the True Orthodox consider themselves to be the Orthodox Church, not a part or branch thereof. They believe that the innovating State Church separated itself from the Orthodox Church in 1924 when it adopted the New Calendar as part of its program of modernization and ecumenical relations. The title True Orthodox will be used in this chapter for purposes of clarity, but the reader should keep in mind that the term is not intrinsic to the self-identity of the True Orthodox Christians.

World Orthodoxy

The “official” patriarchates which have joined the World Council of Churches and which participate in ecumenical dialogues and joint prayers have fallen into the heresy of Ecumenism, which first reared its head in an encyclical dating from 1920.[10] In addition, some of the local Orthodox Churches have further adopted the New Calendar, in contradiction to the councils held in the 16th century which anathematized this papal innovation. Finally, the fruits of Ecumenism and the adoption of the New Calendar is the phenomenon of Modernism, which seeks to adapt Orthodoxy to the changing times. These three issues are closely intertwined.

In order to refer to the communion of “official” patriarchates and local churches which have fallen into these heresies as one unit, the term “World Orthodoxy” has been employed by some True Orthodox. This term is not one which the present author favors, but it will be used with reticence in this chapter in order to identify those whose innovation have led them away from the fullness of the faith. It is necessary to use such a term, because while all of the patriarchates and local Churches are Ecumenist in one way or another, not all of them are New Calendarist; and among the local Churches are those who oppose Ecumenism, yet remain in communion with their fallen hierarchs. For this reason, the terms World Orthodox and World Orthodoxy will be employed, but for lack of a more preferred term.

 

[1] Cf. “True Orthodoxy.” Archbishop Averky. Orthodox Christian Witness.[finish citation]

[2] Which would regard such “official” churches as schismatic and eventually heretical.

[3] Such as St. Nicholas Church in New York City, which was destroyed during the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001.

[4] Archimandrite Petros (Astyfides) contributed towards bringing several of these communities in.

[5] There have been doubts raised that Pangratios was ordained a bishop at all, but one account states that he was ordained by Bishop Theophil (Ionescu) and Christophoros (Rado). cf. https://listserv.okstate.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9906D&L=ORTHODOX&P=R5585&1=ORTHODOX&9=A&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4, accessed September 26, 2014.

[6] There were several antecedents such as Mar Julius and the Western mission under Metropolitan Platon, but none of these is really connected to later adventurers.

[7] For a catalogue of these groups, there was a site (long outdated) at http://www.ind-movement.org. It can still be accessed via the Internet Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20070915000000*/http://www.ind-movement.org, accessed September 26, 2014.

[8] i.e. Hands-on-heads, divorced from the community of faith and communion with other bishops professing the same faith.

[9] Peter Anson tried; but his work, while only 50 years young, is almost completely unhelpful for identifying any currently-existing group. cf. Peter F. Anson. Bishops at Large. New York City: October House Publishing, 1963.

[10] To the Churches of Christ, Wherever They May Be, 1920.

The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine Routis

+November 15/28 1927

Originally published by the Ta Patria Periodical

Saint Catherine Routis

THE HOLY NEW MARTYR Catherine Routis was born in 1900 in a small Greek village called Mandra in Attica Greece to poor but pious parents.

Like her parents — John and Maria Peppas — Catherine was a pious child, offering to help family and neighbors in any way possible.

At the age of 22, Catherine Peppas married Constantine Routis from the same village. Christ gave them two children, Christos and Irene.

The devout Routis family joined the resistance of the True Orthodox Christians, participating in all the services and public demonstrations for their Faith, even when this was perilous — all for the sake of the traditions of the Holy Fathers.

On the eve of the feast of the Heavenly Powers, on November 7, 1927, some pious women from Mandra, together with the brave Catherine, had cleaned the church and prepared it, so that nothing was lacking for the awaited festival.

They had also done everything that they could to find a faithful priest, faithful to the calendar of the Fathers, for at that time such few clergyman were in great demand by the faithful. The faithful at Mandra had therefore welcomed Fr Christopher Psallidas with enthusiasm.

Vespers started quietly, and in peace. But at the beginning of Matins, the police had appeared with evil intent and surrounded the church. What was it that the police so insistently wanted?

They were only obeying the orders of the schismatic Archbishop of Athens, Chrysostomos Papadopoulis, namely to arrest the priest and scatter the “mob” of the faithful.

The parents of Catherine Routis have attested to the fact that after Vespers her husband suggested that they go home because he feared an incident. But this was impossible for Catherine to stay at home.

When Catherine’s sister told her of the increased dangers that the faithful were facing in the church, besieged by the police, she left home and rushed in among the combatants. Catherine Routis literally, ran to her martyrdom!

The police then struck the doors with their rifle butts, trying to knock them down. They broke the window panes. But the faithful continued to pray inside.

It was nearly dawn. Inside the church most of the faithful received Holy Communion and were about to take Fr Christopher the priest out safely so that he could rest in a villager’s house.

The faithful had just received all the strength they needed, Holy Communion, to face the police who had surrounded the church outside. A living wall of pious women surrounded the endangered priest. The police sprung on them and like rapacious wolves, demanding the women to surrender the priest into their hands.

“You will arrest our priest only over our dead bodies!” one of the courageous women cried out. Whose voice was it that cried out with such holy boldness? It was none other than the voice of the young mother of two children, Catherine Peppas Routis.

The police, failing to break through the human cordon, started to shoot with their rifles to frighten the faithful. A few faithful moved away, but the human wall remained intact around the priest. They were taken aback by the savagery of the police.

A bullet struck the ever-memorable Angeliki Katsarellis in the temple. Meanwhile, Catherine Routis did not flinch, courageously denouncing the forces of the schismatic New Calendarists.

But then the holy new martyr, and mother two young children, saw a policeman raise his rifle-butt to strike the priest, Fr Christopher Psallidas.

Without hesitation, Catherine Routis covered Fr Christopher with her body and received the mortal blow to the back of her head.

Catherine fell — staining the floor of the church with the blood of her martyrdom. Again, Christ’s holy blood was shed again, filling up the afflictions of Himself in the flesh of the holy new martyr, Catherine Peppas Routis, as Catherine whispered, “Most Holy Theotokos…”

The anxious, weeping, pious women took up Catherine’s bloodied body and rushed her to Annunciation Hospital in Athens. The pious Angeliki was also taken at the same time, and thankfully released after a few days.

Catherine, motionless upon her hospital bed, suffered enormously for seven days. Unable to speak, Catherine gestured for a paper and pencil, to write a note to her husband, to commend to his care their two little children, one 4 years old, and the other only a few months old.

On November 15, 1927, according to the Old Calendar that Catherine shed her martryic blood for, on the first day of the Nativity Fast — Catherine Peppas Routis gave her martyric soul into the hands of her Master, Christ, Who crowned her.

Catherine’s was no ordinary funeral, but a procession of thousands of the faithful, also willing to resist unto blood, the trampling by the New Calendarist Greeks, upon the traditions of the Holy Fathers!

Saint Catherine of Mandra was officially glorified as a saint by the Holy Synod of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians on September 6/19, 2014.

Journey Into the Heart of ROCOR

Today I was talking to a historian friend on Facebook. He mentioned how he loves pouring over reams of historical data, something which bores other people to tears. I told him I share his passion. That sparked a memory of a most curious and interesting event that occurred during the writing of my thesis on Metropolitan Petros of Astoria: my journey into the heart of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR).

While a seminarian at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in nearby Yonkers, New York, I became interested in the Greek Old Calendarists, much to the chagrin of some of my professors and fellow students (one fellow student, seeing an issue of Orthodox Tradition with my name on it in the mail room, dramatically exclaimed to me, “tell me this is not where your heart is!” while a professor walking by me in the library and seeing me reading the same remarked, “you don’t really believe that s*t, do you?!”) . After investing hundreds—if not thousands—of hours researching the Old Calendarists, I decided to do my thesis on Metropolitan Petros of Astoria, the first legitimate Greek Old Calendarist bishop in America, ordained by ROCOR bishops in 1962.

As part of my research for the thesis, I realized I would need access to the ROCOR Synodal Archives, where many documents pertaining to the ROCOR and its relations with the Greek Old Calendarists were kept. One of my fellow seminarians was a ROCOR monk who had recently returned from a monastery in Europe to continue his studies, and was given a blessing to attend St. Vladimir’s Seminary to do so. When not at the seminary, he resided at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, where Metropolitan Laurus (+2008) lived as well. He spoke with the Metropolitan, who granted me permission to do research in the archives, located at the ROCOR Synodal headquarters.

ROCOR Synod Headquarters

ROCOR’s international headquarters, often colloquially referred to as simply “Synod,” is located at 75 E 93rd Street in New York City. This building is part of The George F. Baker Houses, an iconic family compound of houses right off of Park Avenue in Manhattan, and was acquired by the ROCOR Synod of Bishops in 1958. It houses the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign (which was formerly the mansion’s grand ballroom), administrative offices, a kitchen, an apartment for the resident bishop (at that time, Bishop Gabriel lived there), and many individual rooms, some of which are inhabited by people who work at Synod, such as the tireless musician, translator, and composer Isaac Lambertsen.

On the appointed day, I arrived at Synod to meet my monastic friend. An older gentleman manned the door, dressed in a suit and tie, reading a Russian newspaper, and occasionally answering the phone. The lobby was immaculately clean, although the lighting was dim—what would become a recurring theme. I announced who I was, and he phoned my friend, who promptly came downstairs and greeted me. He then proceeded to give me the tour.

Synod was sort of like something similar to Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion. It’s a huge building, half empty, with numerous winding hallways and staircases. But as one transects the numerous floors, instead of encountering ghosts doing various tasks as in Disney World, one instead would find various individuals quietly going about their business. Some were working, while others were sitting around conversing in low voices. If this were a Greek Orthodox operation, the noise level would be five times higher, and the various hangers-around would be more welcoming and animated, but as Synod is a fully Russian institution, the result was a rather low key experience where one had the distinct impression that people were at best indifferent and perhaps even mildly hostile to the presence of strangers.

In the kitchen, older women cooked, which is something that happens in all Orthodox institutions where there are kitchens. I recall being offered soup or something likewise hearty. My friend and handler then took me to a small door with a small pane of glass. Opening it, there was a bricked in wall. Visions of someone being bricked in as a medieval punishment came to mind, but a far more tame explanation was offered: the original owners were so rich, that they had their own subway stop for the workers to use daily, but as New York modernized and reorganized its subway system, such perks for the rich were gradually phased out, and the stop was bricked in. Adventurers would love to go into those abandoned tunnels, I’m sure.

Going to one of the upper levels, we sought out Isaac Lambertsen’s room to greet him. Isaac and I had communicated a few times by email, and have a mutual friend in common. As I recall, the hallways were not straight, but rather formed something akin to an L-curve or perhaps a V-curve. The hallways were again dimly lit, and I admit that were I living there, I would be afraid to walk those halls at night, for fear of whatever person might have made it past the old man guarding the door and then laying in wait in one of the many empty rooms! Well, now I am being dramatic—I am sure they have a security system Nevertheless, there is something romantic about walking around narrow, dark, dimly-lit hallways in a mansion in Manhattan off Park Avenue, and it’s a memory that will stay with me forever.

Finally, we arrived at the archives. At the time, Fr. Seraphim Gan was the archivist, and after the appropriate introductions, I was allowed access to the eight boxes on Old Calendarists. Boxes 1-7 were chronologically-organized, while box 8 was solely focused on one individual who has been in the center of some controversies in the history of the Old Calendarists. About half the material in that box was supportive, and the other half not-so-much.

Beyond the Old Calendarist materials, there was a filing cabinet labelled in Russian, “Their Graces in Schism,” which was locked. I was told it pertained to those bishops whom ROCOR considered to be schismatic at the time, such as Metropolitan Valentine of ROAC. Also, there were filing cabinets with archives from Synodal meetings. All of the earlier material was solely in Russian. My friend pulled out one document from the 1950s, where Bishop John (Maximovitch)—now St. John—voiced support for the Old Calendarists and ordaining bishops for them, but when I asked if I could copy said document, I recall being told it was, “outside the purview of my blessing” or something to that effect. Indeed.

We Americans do not have old castles or palaces. What we do have are old estates. Mt. Vernon, Monticello, and the like are all famous places where one can go and see a glimpse of life from a different age. ROCOR’s headquarters is also an estate; an urban estate and an oasis in the midst of the great hustle and bustle that is New York City. It clearly was in decline at the time I visited in 2005, but the people there had dignity nonetheless, and carried on their duties faithfully. I had mixed emotions about my visit: respect seeing a venerable religious institution; admiration of a work of American architecture; dismay at seeing the decline of what was probably once a vibrant community of co-laborers for the Gospel living in community; and a profound sadness that ROCOR would soon be reuniting with the Moscow Patriarchate, despite the serious reservations of many (for those who did not follow this course, see here). I was also grateful that I was able to see something that most people would never be able to see. Being a historian—even an amateur one—is something that opens up doors and contextualizes life.

I was able to copy several hundred pages of documents from the ROCOR archives, which formed the nucleus for my work on Metropolitan Petros. In the process, I had a lot of fun exploring this intriguing and mysterious place, as well.

Are You a Convert? Tell Your Story!

Anastasios Hudson Baptized, July 2006 (o.s.)

Are you a convert to the GOC under Archbishop Kallinikos, our sister Russian Church (the ROCOR under Met. Agafangel), or our sister Romanian Church?  Would you be willing to share you conversion story?  If so, please contact me at anastasios At anastasios.hudson DOT com.

I will be editing a collection of conversion stories and would love to have your contribution.  You can help others sort through the issues and make the decision to join our Church!

In Christ,

Anastasios