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1935 PASTORAL ENCYCLICAL OF THE GENUINE ORTHODOX
CHURCH OF GREECE Unjustly condemned by the schismatic synod to deposition and a five-year imprisonment in monasteries, and seized by force by the government (which has become the executory arm of the [New Calendar] Archdiocese, which by a mere word has placed itself above the divine canons, the [Church’s] Charter, and the Constitution of Greece) because we had the courage and the spiritual strength to raise the glorious and venerable banner of Orthodoxy, we consider it our pastoral duty before we depart [for prison] to direct the following admonitions to you that adhere to the Orthodox festal calendar of our fathers: While faithfully following the Apostle’s admonition, “Stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or by our letter,” do not cease from struggling by every lawful and Christian means for the strengthening and triumph of our sacred struggle, which looks to the restoration of the patristic and Orthodox festal calendar within the Church; only this can re-establish the diminished Orthodox authority of the Greek Church and bring back the peace and unity of the Orthodox Greek people. By the judgments which the Lord knows, the majority of the hierarchy of the Greek Church, under the influence and initiative of its president, has placed the blot of schism upon what up until now had been its pure and truly Orthodox countenance, when it rejected the Orthodox festal calendar — which has been consecrated by the Seven Ecumenical Councils and ratified by the age-long practice of the Orthodox Eastern Church — and replaced it with the Papal Calendar. Of course, this schism of the Orthodox Greek people was created by the majority of the hierarchy, which forgot its sacred and national mission and the old Greek [revolutionary] slogan: “Fight for Orthodoxy and for Greek liberty,” and which, without the agreement of all the Orthodox Churches, introduced the Papal festal calendar into our divine worship, thereby dividing not only the Orthodox Churches, but also the Orthodox Christians into two opposing camps. In assuming the pastorship of the Orthodox Greek populace that follows the Orthodox festal calendar of our fathers, and being conscious of the oath of faith that we took that we would keep all that we have received from the Seven Ecumenical Councils, we abjure every innovation and cannot but proclaim as schismatic the State Church, which has accepted the Papal festal calendar which has been described by Pan-Orthodox Councils as an innovation of the heretics, as a global scandal and as an arbitrary trampling underfoot of the Divine and Sacred Canons of the ecclesiastical traditions. On account of this, we counsel all who follow the Orthodox festal calendar to have no spiritual communion with the Schismatic Church and its schismatic ministers, from whom the Grace of the All-holy Spirit has departed, since they have set at nought the resolutions of the Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils and all the Pan-Orthodox Councils that condemned the Gregorian festal calendar. The fact that the Schismatic Church does not have grace and the Holy Spirit is confirmed by Saint Basil the Great, who says: “Even though the schismatics have not erred in doctrines, yet because Christ is the Head of the Body of the Church according to the divine Apostle, and from Him are all the members quickened and receive spiritual increase, the [schismatics] have been torn from the consonance of the members of the Body and no longer have the grace of the Holy Spirit abiding with them. And how, indeed, can they impart to others that which they have not?” While the Schismatic Church imposes oppressive and intolerable measures in order to violate our Orthodox conscience, we exhort you to endure all things and to preserve the Orthodox heritage intact and unstained, even as we received it from our pious Fathers, having us as luminous and fortifying examples, seeing we were not afraid — even in the waning years of our lives — to withstand with boldness and dignity the bigoted and medieval measures of our exile and imprisonment in monasteries, as it were in prisons. Esteeming this as honor and glory and joy, according to the Apostle, who enjoins us to rejoice and boast in our sufferings in behalf of Christ, we counsel you also to have endurance and persistence in these grief's, and afflictions, and evils, and outrages to which you will be subjected by a Church that is Schismatic; and ever hope in God, Who will not permit that you be tried above what you are able to endure, and Who, in His infinite and unfathomable long-suffering, will be well-pleased to enlighten those who, out of innocence, have been led astray and follow the Papal festal calendar; and in the end may He grant you the triumph of Orthodoxy and the unity of those who bear the name of Christ, the Orthodox Greek people, for whom we struggle to the glory of Christ, Whose grace and infinite mercy be with you all.
+Chrysostom , formerly of Florina +Germanos of the Cyclades Islands
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1950 ENCYCLICAL OF THE GENUINE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE
To the most reverend priests of our most Holy
Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians in Greece Beloved Children in the Lord, Grace and peace be unto you from God, and prayer and blessing
from us. In the year of our Savior 1935 we proclaimed the Church of the innovating New Calendarists to be schismatic. We reiterate this proclamation and in consequence ordain the enforcement of the First Canon of St. Basil the Great that the sacraments celebrated by the New Calendarists, in that the latter are Schismatics, are deprived of sanctifying grace. Therefore no New Calendarist must be received into the bosom of our Most Holy Church or be served without a prior confession by which he condemns the innovation of the New Calendarists and proclaims their Church Schismatic. As regards those who have been baptized by the innovators, they should be Chrismated with Holy Chrism of Orthodox origin, such as is found in abundance with us. We take this opportunity to address a last appeal to all the True Orthodox Christians, calling on them in a paternal manner to come into union with us, which would further our sacred struggle for patristic piety and would satisfy our fervent desire. In calling on you, we remove the scandals which have been created by us through our fault, and to that end recall and retract everything written and said by us since 1937, whether in announcements, clarifications, publications or encyclicals, which was contrary and opposed to the Principles of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ and the sacred struggle for Orthodoxy conducted by us, as proclaimed in the encyclical published by the Holy Synod in 1935, without any addition or subtraction, and including the scientific definition 'Potentiality and Actuality'". These things we affirm this final time for the sake of the scandalized Christians, whose spiritual salvation we desire; and on this occasion we [again] proclaim that all of us must preserve intact even to the end of our days the confession we made in 1935, invoking God's mercy for every deviation. Therefore, let us stand well.
The Sacred Synod.
The President
The Members +Germanos, Metropolitan of the Cyclades Islands +Christopher, Metropolitan of Christianopolis +Polycarp, Metropolitan of Diavlia (May 26, 1950) |
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1974
ENCYCLICAL OF THE GENUINE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE
Protocol Number 1191
Athens, June 5, 1974
TO THE SACRED CLERGY OF OUR CHURCH
Grace,
mercy and peace be unto you from God, and prayer and blessing from us. The celebration of a Mystery and the giving of Holy Communion to New Calendarists was forbidden from the time that the Schism created by the State Church began. Therefore, it is necessary that you uphold this position without deviation, in obedience to the understanding of all that has been handed down to us in the Church. Should any from the New Calendar desire to ender our ranks, it is absolutely necessary that they make a Confession of Faith in regard to all that has been transmitted unto us by our God-bearing Fathers, and that they renounce and condemn every heresy and innovation, among which is the New Calendar in the Greek Church, which became Schismatic from its acceptance thereof in 1924 until the present, according to the very confession of the innovator, Archbishop Chrysostom Papadopoulos, and, as a consequence, its mysteries are deprived of sanctifying Grace. Also, regarding those who have been baptized in the aforementioned Church and have not returned to piety, it is necessary that, according to the First Canon of Saint Basil the Great, they be re-Chrismated with Holy Chrism of canonical provenance. As a consequence of the above, we enjoin that, in conformance with the Holy and Sacred canons, you henceforth cease any sacramental ministrations you might have tendered anyone coming from the New Calendar Church, unless the above-mentioned procedure is first implemented, since, otherwise, the sanctions predetermined by the sacred canons will be imposed upon those who transgress it. |
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The Sacred Synod
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CHURCH OF GENUINE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS OF GREECETHE HOLY SYNOD
Protocol Νo.69. Athens, 18/31, March, 1997 ORTHODOX CONFESSION
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One and Triune and worshiped Divinity, the Homoousios and Life-giving Trinity, One God of ours. By this our Holy Synod expresses it’s believe to the brothers, begging for that. We believe, preach and wholeheartedly acknowledge everything, that One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church has always believed and still believes in, teaches and gives a memorable description in deeds as well as our Lord Jesus Christ and those, who from the very beginning saw and ministrated Him, as well as the Saints of all Seven Ecumenical Councils and as divinely inspired assembly of our blessed Fathers have expressed it and passed on to us. We preserve all that as an inestimable treasure even to the last iota and keep it strictly to the last word. What did they accept and confirm, we too adopt and confirm, and what did they repudiate and anathematize we too repudiate and anathematize, without any addition or belittling. We also repudiate and blame a newly appeared heresy – pan-religion of Ecumenism that preaches dogmatic indifference and free unity between the Orthodox and unrepented heretics, between the piouses and the impiouses or the heterodox into one assembly, so-called “church”. In the same way we blame and detest as a betrayal of the Truth and the Orthodox Church of Christ everything that assumes the godless pan-heresy of Ecumenism, which recognizes salvation of the heterodoxies and heretics, who are outside of the Christ’s Orthodox Church (it is considered to be the godless doctrine of ancient heretic Apelles and non-Christians Themistos and Aberroes, against which the Anathema was pronounced by the Ecumenical Councils) and also blasphemous protestant so-called “branch theory”. Then we blame quite the heretic Encyclical no. 1928/1920 of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which represents a plan of ecumenistic development: the change of the Orthodox Calendar given by Fathers to fulfill the first point of this Encyclical; endless dialogues in the World Council of Churches and everywhere else among ecumenists; different heretical agreements of Constantinople, Chambesy, Balamand as soon as consequences of such a dialogues. Those who do it and those who commune them ecclesiastically, whatever Calendar they follow: either Patristic or the Papal one, have set themselves outside the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, which, according to the words of it’s Founder to Apostle Peter, is grounded on true Confession that was lost by all of them. Therefore we don’t have any ecclesiastical communion with such, until they come back to the principles of the Orthodox Church existed before 1920. According the decree of 1935 by the leaders of the Holy Struggle of the Orthodox in Greece, we receive those who convert to Orthodoxy into communion through profession of the Orthodox Faith, Chris mating them with the Holy Myrrh and performing heirothesia if they are clergymen as Holy and Apostolic Canons demand. Those heretics who come to Orthodoxy from churches, which rejected in their Baptism thrice immersion, should be baptized in the right way as if they had never been baptized before, according to the Divine and Holy low. Awful oaths and anathemas of our God-bearing Fathers hang over the renovationists and ecumenists. Those anathemas are pronounced against them annually and daringly on Sunday of Orthodoxy in our True Church together with all declared by the Holy Ecumenical Councils. In 1988 our Holy and Sacred Synod anathematized and brought to God’s anger new religious offspring of Freemasonry and Chiliasm as well as every iniquitous writing, which abuses and blames our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. In the same way we blame any sort of para-religious offsprings such as having developed in great Russia Sergianism, which subordinated the Christ’s Church to godless Communism and created new ceasar-papism according to the western model. Eternal and unforgettable memory is to all those beloved in Christ faithful Orthodox brothers, who, by God’s connivance, suffered from tortures of forcibly befallen antichrist Communism. Our Holy and Sacred Synod constantly tries to favor the reaching of unity of those true and faithful Orthodox people all over the world, who walled themselves off from Ecumenism, for the new triumph of Orthodoxy. It is especially important in Greece, where the Holy Struggle of the Orthodox appeared to be rather scattered. It is our main aspiration even towards those brothers Bishops whom we cut off from the ecclesiastical communion with us because of their numerous canonical transgressions and stiffing of our Holy Synod. This most accurate Orthodox Confession is officially proclaimed by us in the face of damned ecumenism through our present Encyclical. Thus do we believe, thus do we preach and thus do we confess with all our hearts, souls and thoughts, and with this blameless Faith of ours we shall by the Divine Grace finish our temporary existence and present ourselves to the Last Judgment, looking for remission of our sins, and find the salvation of our souls by the Mercy of our One worshipped God in the Holy Trinity. To Him be Glory and Power unto ages of ages. Amen. THE HOLY SYNOD OF THE CHURCH OF G.O.C. OF GREECEThe President: + Metropolitan Callinicos of Phthiotida & Thaumakos Members: + Euthymios of Thessaloniki + Makarios of Petra + Ambrosios of Philippos + Anthimos of Gardicion + Christophoros of Aegina. |
