Encyclicals
Confessional encyclicals
- Confessional encyclical (Proclamation) of 1935
- Confessional encyclical of 1950
- Confessional encyclical of 1972
- Confessional encyclical of 1997
- Confessional encyclical of 2002
- Confession of Faith of 2014 (pdf version here)
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.
June 21, 1935
+Germanos of Demetrias
+Chrysostom , formerly of Florina
+Germanos of the Cyclades Islands
1950 ENCYCLICAL OF THE GENUINE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE
13th Encyclical
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.
Taking into consideration reports that some of our most pious priests are negligent in fulfilling the duties on the basis of the canons and the confession [of faith] we made in the year of Salvation, 1935, the Sacred Synod of our Most Holy Church undertakes to remind all of the following:
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.
With fervent prayers,
The Sacred Synod.
The President
+Chrysostom, formerly Metropolitan of Florina
The Members
+Germanos, Metropolitan of the Cyclades Islands
+Christopher, Metropolitan of Christianopolis
+Polycarp, Metropolitan of Diavlia
(May 26, 1950)
1974 ENCYCLICAL OF THE GENUINE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE
32 Kanigos St., Athens
Protocol Number 1191 Athens, June 5, 1974
ENCYCLICAL
TO THE SACRED CLERGY OF OUR CHURCH
Most Righteous and Reverend Ministers of the Most High:
Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, and prayer and blessing from us.
By means of this present Encyclical we address ourselves to you, bringing to your remembrance of an imperative duty which should distinguish your course of action, in obedience to whatsoever was delivered unto us from of old by the God-bearing Fathers.
Thus, we enjoin you yet once again to limit your ministrations only to the members of our Church, lest you set a stumbling-block before the brethren and, as ones who do not believe those things that are professed by us, draw upon yourselves the criticism of the common people.
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.
The Sacred Synod
+ Archbishop Auxentios
+Akakios of Diavlia and Attica
+Gerontios of Piraeus and Salamina
+Paisios of Euripus and Euboea
+Chrysostomos of Thessalonica
+Kallinikos of Thavmakos
+Akakios of Canada
+Gabriel of the Cyclades Islands
+Anthony of Megaris
CHURCH OF GENUINE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS OF GREECE
THE 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 SACRED SYNOD OF THE CHURCH OF G.O.C. OF GREECE
The President:
+ Metropolitan Callinicos of Phthiotida & Thaumakos
Members:
+ Euthymios of Thessaloniki
+ Makarios of Petra
+ Ambrosios of Philippos
+ Anthimos of Gardicion
+ Christophoros of Aegina.
THE 2002 ENCYCLICAL OF THE GENUINE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE
Our Orthodox Confession of Faith
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the One tri-hypostatical venerable Godhead of the consubstantial and life-giving Trinity, the One worshipped God of ours.
Our Holy Synod provides this Confession of Faith to our brethren who requested it, as a proof of its faith. We believe, preach and with our whole heart confess everything that the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church has always believed and do believe, teach and actually confirm, as it was manifested and handed down to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, the first eyewitnesses and servants of the Word, the seven Holy and Ecumenical Synods and the God-enlightened assembly of our blessed Fathers. All these things do we guard as a priceless treasure, up until the last iota and last title. Whatever they accepted and sanctioned we do accept and sanction. And whatever they banished and anathematized do we anathematize, neither adding nor subtracting anything. We renounce and condemn the newly-appeared all-religious pan-heresy of Ecumenism which preaches dogmatic indifference and unconstrained union of Orthodox and unrepentant heretics, the pious with the impious and those of foreign religions into one gathering, which they call “the Church”. We also condemn and turn away from whatever is being propelled by the godless pan-heresy of Ecumenism, as foreign to the truth and to the Orthodox Church of Christ, among which are the recognition of salvation of those heretics and believers of other religions outside of the Orthodox Church of Christ (which is not distinct from the godless dogma of anathematized Apellos and of the adhering to foreign religions Themistios and Aberrois) and the blasphemous Protestant so-called “Branch Theory”. We also condemn and reject the entirely heretical encyclical number 1928/1920 of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which constituted the plan of action of the Ecumenical Movement, the change of the Traditional Orthodox calendar which was given down to us by our forefathers in the Faith in fulfillment of the first article of this encyclical, those endless “dialogues” which have taken place in the World Council of Churches and else where and condemn the various heretical agreements between the Ecumenists, the result of the “dialogues” of Constantinople, Balamand, Chambesy, etc.
All those involved in these acts, as much as those in ecclesiastical communion with them, whether they follow the Old [Julian] or Papal [Gregorian] calendar, have placed themselves outside the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, which, according to the words of its Creator to the Apostle Peter, is grounded on the good confession of faith, lost by all these above-mentioned, until they return to the established order of the Orthodox Church before the year of 1920. According to the Confessions of Faith by the leaders of our sacred struggle of the Orthodox in Greece made in the years 1950 and 1974, the Mysteries (sacraments) that are performed by the new calendarists, having actually been performed by schismato-heretics, lack sanctifying Grace.
Therefore we accept those from their ranks who come to Orthodoxy by an Orthodox profession and chrismation with the Holy Myrrh, according to the commands of the Canons of the Holy Apostles and Fathers concerning those who return from heresy. Their clergymen are received by the laying on of hands (cheirothesia). Those who come from the ranks of heretics who have abandoned the form of Holy baptism which requires three immersions according to the Holy and Sacred Rubrics, we canonically baptize as having never been baptized.
All the curses and anathemas of our God-bearing Fathers that are publicly read in our True Church every year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy (the first Sunday of the Great Fast), as well as all that is contiguous in the Holy Ecumenical Synods, are immediately brought against all these innovators, ecumenists, etc. Our Holy and Sacred Synod in 1988 anathematized and committed to the anger of God the new religious offspring of Masonry and Chiliasm (the so-called “Witnesses of Jehovah”) together with every ungodly writing which blasphemes and insults our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ. We also condemn every religious offspring, which today are so numerous, including the so-called “Sergianism” which developed in Great Russia which sought to subordinate the Church of Christ to godless communism and created a new caesaro-papism, according to the western models. We reverently beg the holy prayers of all those beloved in Christ purely Orthodox brethren, who with the stand of the Holy martyrs refuted the violent antichrist communists who appeared by the concession of God.
Finally, our Holy and Sacred Synod continually tries to play a role in achieving the unity of all those genuine and purely Orthodox Christian brethren all over the world who have walled themselves off against Ecumenism for a new triumph of Orthodoxy. Especially in Greece, where the holy struggle of the Orthodox happens to be very divided. This unity is our first pursuit, even with those hierarchs with whom we broke communion for the sake of their many anti-canonical violations and the complete stifling of the Holy Synod. We recently gave a more exact account of our Orthodox Confession in an official encyclical against the cursed Ecumenism. Thus do we believe; thus do we preach; thus do we confess from our whole heart, soul and mind and with this our spotless Faith, by the Grace of God, will we finish this short time of this ephemeral life, and stand before the formidable seat of the Judge and be made worthy – by the Grace of the One God, venerated in Trinity – of the forgiveness of sins and salvation.
May the glory and the Dominion be unto Him unto the ages of ages. Amen.
September, 2002
THE HOLY SYNOD
+ Metropolitan KALLINIKOS of Fthiotidos and Thavmakou, President
+ Metropolitan EFTHYMIOS of Thessalonika
+ Metropolitan ATHANASIOS of Archanon and Neas Ionas
+ Metropolitan CHRISTOPHOROS of Mesogaia and the Islands
+ Metropolitan PHILARETOS of France
+ Metropolitan NIPHON of Piraeus
+ Metropolitan ARETHAS of Crete
+ Bishop MAKARIOS of Petra
+ Bishop AMBROSIOS of Philippi
+ Bishop GHERVASIOS of Sardikis
+ Bishop VISARION of Tarsu
+ Archimandrite Dionysios Kalargiros, Protosyngelos
Confession of Faith
In the name of the Tri-hypostatic and Undivided Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit of our One True God. Amen.
Following statutes and guidelines given down to us by the Fathers, during these last times, it does not seem unfitting to refer to the words of St. Basil the Great the Revealer of Heaven who, speaking about the then ecclesiastical misery writes, “The dogmas of the Fathers have been disregarded, apostolic traditions have been debilitated, inventions of modern men are being mixed into the Church,”[1] and the Saint adds, ”the dogmas of the pious have been turned upside down, statutes of the Church are being confused.”[2] Therefore, as a matter of duty we should make clear our own ecclesiological stand and position.
We believe, preach, and profess, all that the most sacred Holy Apostles and God-bearing Holy Fathers decreed, ordered, and established in the Church, neither adding nor removing anything.
We also accept all of the Canonical Synodal decisions of the local Orthodox Churches that were made before 1923 (the calendar innovation). Through these decisions every novelty and deflection from the Orthodox Faith and patristic tradition is condemned.
We also agree with and faithfully follow the declarations of our predecessors in the Sacred Struggle for the Faith which were declared in the encyclicals of the years 1935, 1950, 1973 and also in the year 1997.
We condemn and turn from the heresies and innovations both of old and of recent times that attack the Orthodox Church: and specifically the damned Ecumenism through which the total and revelational truth of the Orthodox Church is abrogated and Sergianism which reduced the authenticity of the Church into a subordinate of the godless political system in Russia.
We renounce likewise the calendar innovation in the Orthodox Church which has been rejected and anathematized by the Synods of the years 1583, 1593, 1848. Through this innovation of the calendar began the distortion of our Orthodox Faith and the introduction of papal treacheries into the Eastern Church of Christ.
We also reject the newly-appearing of delusional teachings and heresies in the sacred camp of the Orthodox, and mainly the so-called “Cyprianism” which seeks to make a deterioration in the pious confessions of faith and announces an “Orthodox” Ecumenism; the condemned by synodal decisions[3] cacodoxy of the “Jesusians” or “Name worshippers” the deifiers of the name “Jesus”; likewise, the ecumenistic theory of “repentance in Hades”[4] which says that those who died outside of the Church as heterodox and heathen can be saved!
Those who wish to enter our resolute Orthodox Church are accepted by Holy Baptism if they are coming to us from a known heresy. [5] If they are coming to us from one of the so-called “Orthodox” Churches that partake in ecumenism, then we receive them through a confession of Faith and through chrismation with Holy Chrism as long as their baptism had been done with the correct form of the Orthodox Church, in other words, by three immersions and emersions in water. If however the form was insufficient, then we baptize these ones also. [6] As far as schismatic clergy goes, we receive these ones after their written application which must contain a confession of Faith and by heirothesia.
Also we receive through a confession of Faith those who come to us from Orthodox jurisdictions which have altered the confession of Faith and have wavered from the standard line of our predecessors in the Faith.
Proclaiming all of this, we magnify and piously commemorate all those of our reposed Fathers and Confessors of the Faith who endured all calamities and needs and were persecuted for the Faith and we cry out: “May their memory be eternal!”
We anathematize and condemn as enemies of the Church of Christ all those who shook the Church through heretical beliefs, blasphemies, and innovations and deviations from the Orthodox Faith and Holy Tradition.
Also, we assure that with the help of God we shall remain custodians of the Orthodox Faith, preserving it undistorted and without innovations so as faithful and beneficial soldiers of Christ we may reach unto the day in which we may say to the rewarding Lord, ”I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness….”
March, 2014
In Jesus Christ our Lord,
+ Metropolitan Christophoros
Archim. Germanos Tserpelis, protosygelos
Archim. Nikiforos Grοce
Archim. Philaretos Klimakitis
Archim. Pavlos Apostolopoulos
Archim. Nektarios Voriniotis
Archim. Nektarios Dikaios
Archim. Nikanor Kazafaniotis
Archim. Sosipatros Yusuf
Hierom. Moses Ginis
V.Rev. Lyudmil Petrov
Rev. Kleomenis Kefalas
Rev. Marian Agelov