Protoevangel why do you have a photo up of Fr Seraphim Rose given that his attitude was radically opposed to your own?
"Large movements of protest opposed the reformers in both the Russian and Greek Churches, producing the deep divisions which exist until now in the Orthodox world. In the Russian Church, Sergianism was decisively rejected by very many of the bishops and faithful, led by Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd; this "Josephite" movement later became organized to some extent and became known as the "True Orthodox Church." The history of this illegal "Catacomb" Church of Russia is, to this day, veiled in secrecy, but in the past few years a number of startling evidences of its present-day activities have come to light, leading to stern repressive measures on the part of the Soviet government. The name of its present chief hierarch (Metropolitan Theodosius) has become known, as has that of one of its ten or more bishops (Bishop Seraphim). In the Diaspora, the Russian Church Outside of Russia committed itself from the very beginning of Sergianism in 1927 to a firm anti-Sergianist position, and on numerous occasions it has expressed its solidarity with the True Orthodox Church in Russia, while refusing all communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. Its uncompromisingness and staunch traditionalism in this and other matters were not to the taste of several of the Russian hierarchs of Western Europe and America, who were more receptive to the "reform" currents in 20th-century Orthodoxy, and they separated themselves at various times from the Russian Church Outside of Russia, thus creating the present "jurisdictional" differences of the Russian Diaspora.
In Greece the movement of protest, by a similar Orthodox instinct, likewise took the name of "True Orthodox Christians." From the beginning in 1924 (when the calendar reform was introduced), this movement has been especially strong among the simple monks, priests and laymen of Greece; the first bishop to leave the State Church of Greece and join the movement was Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Florina, and today it continues its fully independent life and organization, comprising about one-fourth of all the Orthodox Christians of Greece, and perhaps one-half or more of all the monks and nuns. Although popularly known as the"old calendarists," the True Orthodox Christians of Greece stand for a staunch traditionalism in Orthodox life and thought in general, viewing the calendar question merely as a first stage and a touchstone of modernism and reformism."
Fr Seraphim Rose.
"In recent years, the Russian Church Outside of Russia has also given support and recognition to the True Orthodox Christians of Greece, whose situation also has long been exceedingly difficult and misunderstood. In Greece the first blow against the Church (the calendar reform) was not as deadly as the "Declaration" of Metropolitan Sergius in Russia, and for this reason it has taken longer for the theological consciousness of the Orthodox Greek people to see its full anti-orthodox significance. Further, few bishops in Greece have been bold enough to join the movement (whereas, by contrast, the number of non-Sergianist bishops in the beginning was larger than the whole episcopate of the Greek Church). And only in recent years has the cause of the old calendarists become even a little "intellectually respectable," as more and more university graduates have joined it. Over the years it has suffered persecutions, sometimes quite fierce, from the State and the official Church, and to this day it remains disdained by the "sophisticated" and totally without recognition from the "official" Orthodox world. Unfortunately, internal disagreements and divisions have continued to weaken the cause of the old calendarists, and they lack a single unanimous voice to express their stand for patristic Orthodoxy. Still, the basic Orthodoxy of their position cannot be denied, and one can only welcome such sound presentations of it as may be seen in the article that follows."
Fr Seraphim Rose.
"We are "old believers", but not schismatics, for we have never cut ourselves off from the true Church of Christ.
We are in union with our Head, Christ the Savior, with His holy Disciples and Apostles, with the Apostolic Fathers, with the great Fathers and Teachers of the Church, and with the great luminaries and pillars of the faith and piety of our Fatherland, Holy Russia. But you are in union with some sort of innovating, self-appointed teachers, whom you advertise everywhere so unlawfully and obstinately, disparaging and at times even daring to criticize the genuine luminaries of our Holy Church, who have pleased God and been glorified in many ascetic struggles of piety and miracles throughout the course of her two thousand year history.
This being the case, which of us is really the schismatic?
Of course it is not those in the spirit of traditional Orthodoxy, but those who have apostatized from the true faith of Christ and rejected the genuine spirit of Christian piety; even though all the contemporary patriarchs, who have altered our age-old, patristic Orthodoxy, may be on the latter's side, as well as the majority of contemporary, so-called Christians.
Indeed, Christ the Savior did not promise eternal salvation to the majority, but, quite to the contrary, He promised it to His "little flock", which will remain faithful to Him to the end, in the day of His Glorious and Terrible Second Coming, when He will come "to judge the living and the dead."
"Fear not, little flock," He said, painting the frightening picture of the last times of apostasy from God and persecution of the Faith before our mind's eye, "For it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom" (Lk. 12:32).
This is why all we have said above prompts us to re-examine the terminology that has been accepted up to the present. It is insufficient in our time to say only "Christian"now it is necessary to qualify this by saying "true-Christian". Similarly it is insufficient to say "Orthodox"it is essential to emphasize that one is not referring to an innovating modernist "Orthodox", but to a True Orthodox.
All genuine zealots of the true faith, serving Christ the Savior alone, have already begun to do this, both those in our Fatherland, enslaved by ferocious enemies of God, where zealots depart into the catacombs like the ancient Christians, as well as in Greece, our brother nation, where the "Old Calendarists" not only refuse to accept the new calendar, but also reject all innovations of any kind. They have a special veneration for that champion of Holy Orthodoxy, St Mark of Epheseus thanks to whose steadfastness the impious Union of Florence with papal Rome in 1439 failed."
Archbishop Averky, friend and mentor of Fr Seraphim Rose.
