Old Calendarists

Old Calendarists are groups of Orthodox Christians who are in various levels of "resistance" against the mainstream Orthodox churches, identified mainly by their insistence on the use of the Julian calendar. They are to be distinguished from the mainstream churches which simply follow the Old Calendar yet remain in communion with most of world Orthodoxy. Many Old Calendarists today say that their concerns about ecumenism are more significant than calendar issues.

Some Old Calendarist groups are styled as True Orthodox or Genuine Orthodox.

Churches "in resistance"

These churches refrain from concelebration with the mainstream Orthodox churches, but do not consider themselves schismatic, nor have they declared a break in communion with the mainstream churches. They will also commune the faithful of those churches.

• Holy Synod in Resistance ("Cyprianites")
• Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Romania
• Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria

Churches which are "walled off"

These churches refrain from both concelebration and communion with the mainstream Orthodox churches, regarding the hierarchies of the official churches to have apostasized and placed themselves outside Orthodoxy. The view of these Old Calendarists, commonly self-designated as "True Orthodox" towards official Orthodox priests and laity varies.

The Church of Greece

In 1924, the Bishops of the Church of Greece implemented the calendar change discussed at the pan-Orthodox congress. In protest, the former Primate of the Church of Greece, Germanos of Demetrias, retired in protest. Lay groups and brotherhoods formed to keep the use of the Orthodox calendar alive, despite state persecution (Greece was an Orthodox country, and the Church enjoyed certain privileges from the state) and finally, in 1935, three Bishops, certain that waiting for a reversal of the calendar change was irresponsible to their flocks, immediately declared their separation from the official Church and declared that the calendar change was a schismatic act.

A great deal has been written on the True Orthodox Church of Greece, as it came to be called, and some of the writings available on them will be listed at the end of this paper. We will define the major groupings within the True Orthodox Church of Greece below.

The Florinite/Matthewite Schism. By the 1940's, two parties had formed within the Church of Greece: the Florinites (under Metropolitan Chrysostom of Florina) and the Matthewites (under Bp Matthew of Bresthena). The issue had been the former's vacillation on whether the mysteries of the State Church were still grace-filled. Both sides had their respective justifications for their positions, and both were violently persecuted by the state. In actual fact, the Matthewites were holding the Church's position consistently. That they labelled the Florinites as a whole as opportunists who were trying to ingratiate themselves with the state was unfortunate, and not altogether true for the followers of Metropolitan Chrysostom, and so the parties became psychologically distinct.

In the end, a real physical division was formed, whereas a real doctrinal division ended: Bishop Matthew singlehandedly consecrated another Bishop, and together they made more new Bishops. After the death of Bishop Matthew, however, Chrysostom of Florina reaffirmed the decision of 1935 declaring the New Calendar State Church as schismatic. (The reasons for this are unclear, and speculations give various answers.) In any case, the Matthewites proceeded to elect Archbishop Agathagelos to the rank of Primate of Athens in 1958.

We will deal first with the major divisions of the Florinites, since their divisions have generally been larger and more permanent in nature, and then the Matthewites.

Divisions within the Florinites

After the death of Metropolitan Chrysostom, the Florinites had no Bishops, and Metropolitan Chrysostom advised his flock to go under the protection of the Matthewite Bishops. Fearing the repercussions, however, the Florinites opted to seek a new hierarchy and appealed to Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR, see “Outside Russia