Milica Yaksich

This year Roman Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox are all celebrating Pascha on the same day and some would say, "Finally we are all on the same page! Why can we not celebrate all the feasts together as Christians?" Why are some of the churches on the Gregorian (New) Calendar, some on the Julian (Old) Calendar, and some on the 'New (Revised) Julian' Calendar? Perhaps some of you do not even know what the 'New (Revised) Julian Calendar' is.

The subject is very complex and initially all the more confusing because there is so much data about the various calendars and the science, history, relative accuracy and inaccuracy of each one. The calendar question actually has little to do with science. The 12 month Julian Calendar replaced a 10 month Roman calendar in 45 BC and was the calendar in use at the time of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. These councils established the Canons of Orthodoxy, cleansed the Church of heresy and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit carefully and wisely prepared the typicon, the schedule for fasting and feast days and how to determine Pascha. On February 24, 1582 (after the east - west schism in 1054) Pope Gregory XIII via the papal bull Inter gravissimas decreed that the new calendar (named after him) be adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and to make a 'correction' dropped 10 days so that the last day of the Julian calendar (in the west) was Thursday, October 4, 1582 immediately followed by the first day of the Gregorian Calendar, Friday, October 15, 1582. At that time in history there were still many in the west who did not immediately adopt the new calendar. The English and American colonies did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until the middle of the eighteenth century. Interestingly, the Gregorian calendar is useless for astronomy because it has that ten-day hiatus (the days dropped in 1582). For the purpose of calculating positions backward in time, astronomers and computer programmers use the Julian Date. So much for accuracy! Copernicus and other astronomers were opposed to the calendar change and even at the beginning of the 20th century the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences found no scientific or astronomical reasons for adopting the Gregorian calendar. (ref to:*Scientific Examination of the Orthodox Church Calendar, Hieromonk Cassian).

The "Revised Julian Calendar" is what the new calendarists in the Orthodox Church use. It is the Gregorian calendar with the traditional Paschalion. What we have now is something as tragic and flawed as Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein monster". Like the "monster", piecing together parts from different sources does not make for a successful or harmonious result, and forcing two different and incompatible calendars together does not necessarily meet all the needs of correctly celebrating the Divine Services in the Liturgical Year. The traditional "old" Julian Calendar "integrates the Menaion cycle with the Paschal cycle by synchronizing the lunar Jewish Calendar and the solar Julian Calendar."(* Hieromonk Cassian) This unique harmony is not mirrored in the "new" Revised Julian Calendar. By keeping the old Julian Paschalion it is, essentially, like using the "old" Julian Calendar for the period of Great Lent and Pascha (movable feasts), while changing to the Gregorian for the 'fixed' calendar feast days. The Typicon is rendered useless, and the Holy Fathers are shaking their heads in heaven in disbelief! The alternative of adopting the "New Gregorian Paschalion" (what Rome and the Protestants use) would mean a break with the seventh Apostolic canon and the decisions of the First Ecumenical Council, which the Antiochian Council refers to. The celebration of the Lord's Pascha is categorically forbidden on the same day as the Jewish Passover in these canons. Following the Gregorian Paschalion, the Resurrection of Christ sometimes falls on the same day as the Jewish Passover, and often before it (also forbidden). According to the resolution of the Holy Fathers of the Council of Antioch, those who violate the decisions concerning the celebration of Pascha must be excommunicated from the Church.

In traditional Orthodoxy the preservation of canonical order in the Divine Services requires that all aspects of these Services be in correct relationship to the demands made by the Typicon, so that liturgical observances are correctly celebrated. 'The Typicon makes full provision for the various coincidences of immovable and movable Feasts, as well as the Fasts determined by them, stipulating an exact liturgical order with detailed instructions; and yet, the New Calendarists have practically destroyed the Typicon. As an example, let us consider that, following the "New Julian" Calendar, the Feast of the Annunciation can never take place during Great Week or coincide with Pascha. This latter occurrence, when Pascha falls on March 25 (Old Style), the Feast of the Annunciation, the Orthodox Church has celebrated from antiquity with special liturgical joy, calling it "Kyriopascha," "the Lord's Pascha".(*Hieromonk Cassian) Furthermore, the Apostles' Fast is often shortened or non-existent in the Revised Julian Calendar, which violates the fast.(incurs anathema - Canon 219 of the Nomocanon.)

Dr. Constantine Cavarnos points out in the conclusion of his article "The New Papal Calendar and its Fruits": "the New Calendar was introduced into the Orthodox Church not for the sake of astronomical correctness, but as the first step in achieving a forced, false union of the Orthodox Church with non-Orthodox New Calendarist Christian bodies [i.e., Roman Catholic, Protestant, etc.], for the sake of certain secular advantages which such a union was expected to have. This was to be the beginning of the Orthodox Church's participation in the 'Ecumenical Movement'-a movement which has further divided the Orthodox Church into mutually hostile parties: the Ecumenists and the anti-Ecumenists. All the Greek Old Calendarists are anti-Ecumenists, while some of the New Calendarists are Ecumenists and others are anti-Ecumenists. Thus, the evil fruits of the introduction of the New Calendar, which the Blessed Elder [Philotheos Zervakos] clearly foresaw, keep growing in number." Let us now look at the events and people that initiated these calendar reforms in the Orthodox Church

There was a growing climate of ecumenism that, in combination with other political, social and economic factors, deeply impacted the Orthodox Church (especially in Constantinople) near the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century. For a thorough yet concise explanation of this and more on the calendar reform refer to "The 70th Anniversary of the Pan-Orthodox Congress in Constantinople by Bishop Photius of Triaditsa **". The ecumenist stage being set by his predecessor, the newly elected (uncanonically, with the help of Greek Prime Minister Venizelos) Ecumenical Patriarch Meletius IV (1921-1923), declared in his enthronement speech, "I give myself over to serving the Church from its first Cathedra to develop, as much as possible, closer, friendlier relations with the non-Orthodox churches of the East and West and to advance the work of union between us." Before and after this, Meletius Metaxakis displayed an utter disregard for the Holy Canons of Orthodoxy and used secular and political forces to circumvent the synodal hierarchy in the Church. In 1921 he visited the U.S. and according to a message to the prefect at Thessalonica from the Greek Ambassador in Washington, Meletius "vested, took part in an Anglican service, knelt in prayer with Anglicans, venerated their Holy Table, gave a sermon, and later blessed those present." This was in clear violation of the 45th and 65th Apostolic Canons, which forbid clergy from praying with heretics (non Orthodox) under penalty that they be both deposed and excommunicated. "Despite the election, the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece deposed Meletius Metaxakis on December 29, 1921 for a series of infractions against canon law and for causing a schism. In spite of this decision Meletius Metaxakis was enthroned as the Ecumenical Patriarch on January 24, 1922. Under intense political pressure Meletius' deposition was uncanonically lifted on September 24, 1922." (pg.10 **) It is clear from this and other historical events from the early 1900's that certain branches of the Orthodox Church were being pressured by secular and political powers to the extent that the Church was not able to act freely and canonically. This brings us to the "Pan-Orthodox" Congress initiated by Meletius in 1923.

There is much evidence that, in addition to the questionable status of the gathering in 1923, there were no adoptions made, but only proposals. Some of this evidence is in the form of telegrams and letters written at that time by the Churches of Romania and Serbia, and the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Archbishop of Cyprus, rejecting "every addition or change of the calendar before the convocation of an Ecumenical Synod, which alone is capable of discussing this question". (refer to:Letter On The Calendar Issue, by a monk at Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston). Vladika Averky (Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville), wrote this concerning the late Metropolitan Anastassy: "... while still an Archbishop?, (Vladika Anastassy) courageously and resolutely opposed the innovations calculated to overthrow the sacred canons, such as the introduction of the new calendar, a married episcopate, twice-married priests, the abolition of fasts, shortening of the divine services, permission for the clergy to wear secular dress, and so on, proposed by the 'All-Orthodox Congress' in Constantinople, under the presidency of the Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios IV, (Metaxakis) of sorry memory. This decisive action on the part of the then Archbishop Anastassy evoked the warm admiration of all lovers of Orthodoxy, beginning with the Patriarch of Antioch who expressed it in a special letter to the President of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia." ("Orthodox Life", July-August, 1956, p. 6).

There is not enough room here to quote all the Holy Canons that forbid the innovations proposed in 1923, including the new calendar. The new calendar was declared anathema three times, as in the Sigillon of 1583: "That whoever does not follow the customs of the Church as the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils decreed, and Holy Pascha, and the Menologion with which they did well in making it a law that we should follow it, and wishes to follow the newly-invented Paschalion and the New Menologion of the atheist astronomers of the Pope, and opposes all those things and wishes to overthrow and destroy the dogmas and customs of the Church which have been handed down by our fathers, let him suffer anathema and be put out of the Church of Christ and out of the Congregation of the Faithful." A quote from the Seventh Holy Ecumenical Synod: "If someone sets aside any tradition [of the Church], written or unwritten, let him be anathema." St. Augustine, states: "Let there be no innovations, because innovations defile antiquity. For the Bridegroom and His Bride, the Church, are without blemish". At the1930 Council of Vatopedi, the Serbian and Polish Churches asked for a separate chapel. When the Greeks insisted that they all celebrate together the slavs refused, excusing themselves by saying that the language was different, as well as the typicon, and that there would be confusion. In fact, to the end of the Council, the two did not concelebrate, and it became clear that the Slavs considered the calendar issue important enough at the time to separate themselves from the Greeks. At this council Bishop Nicholaj of Ochrid strongly defended the old calendar. The Serbian Church even supported the old calendarist movement in Greece by secretly sending them Chrism across the border.

There have been many miracles to support that God is well pleased with the one true Orthodox Church and the traditional "Old Julian Orthodox Church Calendar" as was witnessed at the church of St. John the Theologian in suburban Athens in 1925, on the eve, of the feast of the Exaltation of the All-Honourable and Life-giving Cross of our Saviour, September 14, according to the old Orthodox Church calendar. In Jerusalem at the Holy Sepulchre the Miracle of Holy Fire only occurs on Pascha according to the Old Calendar and only by the invocation of an Orthodox Archbishop.

The calendar controversy has destroyed the unity of the church and resulted in errors, transgressions and heresy. It is our duty to preserve the purity and unblemished sanctity of the Orthodox Church and, to maintain a standard of love promoted by the Holy Fathers with regard to heretics. If we do not maintain our Father's house, there will be nothing to come home to. I pray you have a blessed Pascha and leave you with the words of St. Maximos the Confessor, "I write these things not wishing to cause distress to the heretics or to rejoice in their ill treatment-God forbid; but, rather, rejoicing and being gladdened at their return. For what is more pleasing to the Faithful than to see the scattered children of God gathered again as one? Neither do I exhort you to place harshness above the love of men. May I not be so mad! I beseech you to do and to carry out good to all men with care and assiduity, becoming all things to all men, as the need of each is shown to you; I want and pray you to be wholly harsh and implacable with the heretics only in regard to cooperating with them or in any way whatever supporting their deranged belief. For I reckon it misanthropy and a departure from Divine love to lend support to error, that those previously seized by it might be even more greatly corrupted" (Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 91 col. 465c). Christ is Risen!