Greek Old Calendarists

Greek Old Calendarists (Greek: Παλαιοημερολογίτες, Paleoimerologites), sometimes abbreviated as G.O.C., are groups of Old Calendarist Orthodox Christians that remained committed to the traditional Orthodox practice and are not in communion with many other Orthodox Churches such as the Orthodox Church of Greece, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, or the Church of Cyprus.[1] The split began with a disagreement over the abandonment of the traditional Church Calendar (also called the Julian Calendar) in preference to the adoption of the Papal Gregorian Calendar and over other liturgical reforms that were introduced.[2]

History

Until 1923 the Eastern Orthodox Church universally used the Julian Calendar, whereas the Roman Catholic Church, under Pope Gregory XIII, conducted a calendar reform and adopted the modern Gregorian calendar in 1582. The difference between the two calendars is 13 days between 1900 and 2100.

For civil and governmental uses, the Julian Calendar remained the official calendar in most Orthodox Christian nations until the early 20th century. The Gregorian calendar was adopted for civil uses by Bulgaria in 1916, the Ottoman Empire in 1917, Soviet Russia in 1918, Romania and Yugoslavia in 1919. Greece officially adopted the Gregorian calendar on 16 February 1923, which became 1 March, and was the last major country to do so.

In response, in May 1923, the controversial Pan-Orthodox Congress of Constantinople, called by Patriarch Meletius IV of Constantinople, adopted the Revised Julian calendar, designed by Serbian astronomer Milutin Milanković, an altered form of the Gregorian calendar that both maintained the traditional Julian calendar Paschalion for calculating the date of Pascha and all of the moveable feasts dependent on it, but adopted a system of dates which will agree with the Gregorian Calendar ("New Calendar") dates until 2800, when the two will start very slowly to diverge, due to slightly different methods of calculating leap years. Not all Orthodox Churches were represented at the Congress or adopted its decisions, and the Russian Orthodox Church and other Orthodox Churches, governing a majority of Orthodox Christians, have continued to use the Julian calendar liturgically to this day. In 1924, the Synod of Bishops of the Church of Greece voted to accept the Revised Julian Calendar.

The calendar change was not without controversy. Dissent arose from among both clergy and laity, encouraged by countless priests and monks from all over Greece and Mount Athos who traveled throughout Greece preaching in churches and serving as confessors, or spiritual guides, to thousands of Christians. On Mount Athos the Julian calendar is used to this day. In 1935, three Bishops from the Church of Greece returned their dioceses to the Julian calendar, consecrated (ordained) four like-minded clergy to Episcopal dignity, created the church of the "Genuine Orthodox Christians" (Greek: Εκκλησία των Γνησίων Ορθοδόξων Χριστιανών - Γ.Ο.Χ.), and declared that the official Orthodox Church of Greece had fallen into schism. By 1937, the movement split within itself over the question of whether or not Orthodox jurisdictions that had adopted the Revised Julian calendar were still Orthodox.

After a largely successful grassroots effort to resist the Greek state's new doctrine and the Gregorian calendar that originated in Western Christendom, the popularity of the Old Calendar was attacked. The Church of Greece is the official state church and resorted to the use of state power to suppress the movement. By the 1960s and 1970s, the ecumenical activities of a number of Orthodox leaders infused the Old Calendar Church with new followers in Greece, particularly in 1965–72 when the monasteries of Mount Athos broke communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Old Calendarists were relatively more successful in the United States, where religion is not regulated by the state.

The Old Calendarists went their own way without further official recognition from the broader Orthodox communion until 1960, when the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) consecrated new Bishops for one of the two major Old Calendarist jurisdictions. ROCOR recognized the other major jurisdiction in 1971, consecrating bishops for them as their apostolic succession had previously been through a single bishop (Matthew) which is dubious in the Orthodox Church. However, excepting for groups split-off from ROCOR, no official inter-communion exists between the Greek Old Calendarists and ROCOR at the present day, due to the recent reunification of ROCOR and the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).

Cathedral in New York built by the Genuine Orthodox Church

In 1998, plagued by moral and financial scandals, two bishops that had broken off from the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians in the United States were re-baptized and re-ordained by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and put under the leadership of the Greek Orthodox Church in the U.S. (which uses the Revised Julian calendar). In exchange, the few priests that went with them were accepted as Orthodox priests, and their churches were allowed to maintain their use of the Julian calendar. Later these parishes were then forced to switch to the Revised Julian calendar although allowed to remain using their more traditional liturgy.

In the present day, there are three major Old Calendarist divisions present in Greece, all of which have parishes in many other countries. The first one is the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece (GOC), the second are generally known as "Matthewites" as they derive from Archbishop Matthew, and the third and smallest are called the Makarians (formerly called the Lamians) who broke off from the GOC in 1995. Relationships between the Matthewites and GOC are warming but the Makarians are not accepted by either of these Orthodox Churches.

Doctrine

Greek Old Calendarists adhere to traditional Greek Orthodox practices. While they are called (and might informally call themselves) "Old Calendarist," many maintain that they have not separated over a mere calendar. Instead, the calendar is a symptom of what has been called "the pan-heresy of ecumenism." Old Calendarist Orthodox Christians hold that the participation of many local Orthodox Churches in the modern ecumenistic movement is theologically problematic. Some have argued that even the calendar is a matter of dogma since it has historically manifested the unity and catholicity of the Church and that the reformation of the Church Calendar in 1924 was unilaterally adopted and was connected with the beginning of Orthodox participation in the modern ecumenical movement. The adoption of the Gregorian calendar has been anathematized by three Pan-Orthodox Councils in the 16th century. Some Old Calendarists maintain that they have "walled themselves off" from larger Orthodox jurisdictions to protect Orthodoxy from heretical innovations in practices and doctrine.

Other than the calendar issue, Old Calendarists generally maintain the rites and beliefs of the Church of Greece, although there are other important differences on Baptism and the Oriental Orthodox. Each church rejects the leaders of the other. Some accept baptisms performed by the other church. Officially, however, each side usually receives the members of the other through chrismation (confirmation).

See also

References

  1. ↑ Traditional, Old Believers and New Generation Orthodox Churches, Retrieved 2014-01-16
  2. ↑ "Old Calendarist testimony". Archived from the original on 2012-09-07.
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