Vladimir_Djambov: The Church Calendar IS an Icon of Consecrated Time

27.05.2012 18:25

http://grigorsimov.blog.bg/politika/2012/05/27/kak-ni-natrapiha-papsko-masonskiia-kalendar-t-n-star-i-nov-s.959879

Translated from Bulgarian

How We Have Been Imposed Upon
The Papal-Masonic Calendar

zlatnavoda5 / 27 December 2014

- What is the so-called old and new [calendar] style,
within the Orthodox church calendar?

Author: Tatiana Machkovska

Why is it that while some Christians greet one another with Christ's Nativity, others are still fasting? It's about the willful anti-canonical change of the church calendar, which has torn apart the universal liturgical unity of Christians and has opened the way for practices and trends [that are] damaging for the Church. On February 1^st the Bulgarian Orthodox Church honored the memory of St. Great Martyr Tryphon. Winegrowers, however, shall make the ritual cutting of theirson the 14^th – the date on which the feast was celebrated prior to the so called calendar reform in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church [BOC]. It will be the same on May 24^th : state and society shall celebrate the St. brothers Cyril and Methodius, while the Church shall have done so 13 days earlier, hardly noticed by anyone. Divided all like this are the church and the civil celebrations on November 1^st, as well, the Feast of St. Ivan of Rila and , also, the Day of the Leaders of the Bulgarian National Revival, just as well as on December 8^th – the Students' Day [in Bulgaria] for no other reason but the fact of the church veneration of the patron of the Sofia University St. Clement of Ohrida.

Jesus Christ (The Spear of Destiny
or The Holy Lance of Longinus)

Why this confusion? Who profits from the Church isolation from public life, from the tearing asunder of the age-long bond between liturgical celebration of the saint and the folk feast in his honor? Why is it that while some Christians greet one another with Christ's Nativity, others are still fasting? This question opens up a wound bleeding for decades in the Orthodox Church, the so called "OLD [Calendar] style" and "New [Calendar] style". In fact, it boils down to a willful anti-canonical change of the church calendar, It's about the willful anti-canonical change of the church calendar, which has torn apart the universal liturgical unity of Christians and has opened the way for practices and trends [that are] damaging for the Church.

In 1572 Pope Gregory – ambitioned to raise up Vatican's shattered prestige, introduced a new system of chronology, moving dates forward with 10 days, in order to make up for the "lagging behind" of the then current Julian calendar. Later, additional 3 days were added and the gap between the two calendar today is 13 days. Should one delve in specialized literature, however, one will find out that the famous scientific advantage of the new Gregorian calendar is but a myth. This calendar is based on the long rejected by science geocentric system, according to which the Sun revolves around the Earth, and therefore the tropical year – it has adopted as a benchmark – is a conditional, imaginary value [quantity]. Conversely, the Julian calendar is cosmo-centric and its base – the Sidereal year is a real-term value equal to the total period of rotation of the Earth around the Sun. Therefore all astronomical and historical-and-chronological studies related to long periods of time, are made after it, and not after the New Calendar.

The history of the so called New [Calendar] style imposing is a string of intrigues and falsifications. The Papal reform was recognized even back then to be meaningless by the Sorbonne, the Vienna and other universities, as well as by a number of astronomers as Giordano Bruno and Galileo. Copernicus refused to take part in its preparations, and since his teaching threatened to expose its pseudo-scientificity, it was prohibited. But political pressure and adroit Papal (actually – Jewish! ed. Grigor Simov) propaganda had their say – andthe new calendar gradually conquered the world and its "scientific" advantage and accuracy are today implicit.

But if the world can live according to any kind of calendar system, the Church measures its liturgical time after rules consecrated by the Holy Tradition and conciliar experience, for which [purpose] the new calendar has proved completely unsuited. Under it the Christian Pascha [Passover] falls on many occasions not only together, but even prior to the Jewish, which is a gross violation of evangelical Events – we know that Christ resurrected after the Jewish Passover. Therefore Apostolic rules and canons prescribe excommunication [from the Church] of anyone who celebrates Passover togetherwith the Jews.

As early as in that same 1582 Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II – together with the Synod – condemned the Roman calendar innovation and convened a Church Council that anathematized anyone following it. In the following centuries, as well, the Orthodox patriarchs and hierarchs denounced as treason and pernicious apostasy the so called New [Calendar] style. To those who had accepted it, Ecumenical Patriarch Kirill – in the encyclical of 1756 – imposed terrible maledictions for both [their] temporary and eternal lives. Anathema was also proclaimed in the Epistle of the Ecumenical and Eastern Patriarchs Council of 1848. This is why – in Orthodox countries – the Gregorian calendar has been imposed only for civic life, while the local Orthodox churches continue to celebrate after the Julian calendar.

The breakthrough in this unity took place in the 1920s. In 1922, nominated for the post of Ecumenical Patriarch – under a number of offenses and political pressurizing – was the freemason Meletios Metaxakis, expelled from Jerusalem for "activities against the Holy Sepulcher" and even deposed by the Synod of the Church of Hellas [Greek Church]. As early as in the following year he convened an "All-Orthodox consultative assembly", which was not attended by more than half of the local Orthodox Churches – namely,the three major Eastern Patriarchates: those of Alexandria, of Antioch and of Jerusalem; the Russian Orthodox Church, and others. Nevertheless, and despite the dubious credentials of participants, that willful coven took a decision to adopt the "New [Calendar] style" as well as [adopted decisions] on a number of pernicious innovations in the Church that no one has ever dared introduce.

Due to widespread outrage and excitement among the Orthodox, who even besieged the Patriarchate in the days of "Congress", Meletios was toppled from the Ecumenical Throne. His deputy, however, imposed as early as in 1924 the so-called "Revised Julian calendar" – a transition to the Gregorian Synaxarion [Monthly Book of Needs] – while preserving the Orthodox Paschalia. The same was done by the Church of Hellas under pressurizing by the state and the Romanian [Church, too,] against which it received from Constantinople the dignity of a Patriarchate, which it had thus far lacked. Both in Greece and in Romania [our Northern neighbor country] there began major unrest and turmoil, as well as cruel persecutions of those who refused to accept the innovation – imprisonment and exile, defrocking [cutting the hair to indicate so] of monks, even killings of laymen. Despite this, in both countries today large masses of people continue to follow the so-called old [Calendar] style. In Russia the New Calendar was introduced very briefly and was abrogated because worshipers simply deserted the temples and refused to worshiping after it [the New Calendar, that is]. Due to the resolute popular resistance, the new [Calendar] style failed also in the Macedonian Church.

In Bulgaria the calendar reform took place unexpectedly and suddenly. With a "Message to the clergy and all the children of the BOC" of July 18^th, 1968, it was pronounced in the Church journal already as a fact to have taken place by "the common wish of both clergy and faithful." It decreed that celebrated after St. Nicholas' Day would be [the feats day of Hieromartyr] Ignatius the God-bearer, and the 13 days in between – together with the Saints celebrated then – were simply stricken out, thereby cutting short also the Nativity Fast. Never has the Church seen such a gross interference with the liturgical order – throughout its history. Moreover, one of the reasons [considerations] for the reform was pure gluttony – to avoid the fast of New Year's Eve. For that same reason [and for no other] the celebration of St. George's Day was left after the Old [Calendar] style. According to the New Calendar it sometimes falls within Lent, before Easter, and how is one to deprive oneself of roast lamb!

Where is the cunning of the "Revised Julian Calendar", which is being used [for liturgy] in Bulgaria? Indeed, it dares not violate the Orthodox Paschalia, which would mean falling out of the Church, although calls for common celebration of Easter with the Catholics are made more and more [often]. But it follows in full the [Roman-] Catholic Gregorian calendar for the Synaxarion /i.e. the fixed day holidays/, which is [thus] a gross breach of the ancient Typikon – the Statute of church worship [liturgizing]. St. Ap. Peter's fast is not only severely cut short, but it sometimes even completely disappears; distorted are a number of time limits and rules established by the Church. However, the calendar reform aims much further. The common dates of fixed holidays allow for concelebration with the Roman-Catholics, on which there is categorically prohibited by the canons, under pain of deposing. Today, however, this is being boldly practiced by quite a few Orthodox priests and hierarchs.

The New [Calendar] style breaches the logical bond between the various periods and holidays, due to which the church-goers lose the touch with the mystical spirit of the Church and the liturgizing. Currently the BOC Churches have services on that are pruned beyond recognition in result to willfulness and contemptuous attitude towards the Typikon – [which is] caused precisely by the calendar reform. No doubt the latter did an excellent job for the atheist government [regime]. Rural get-togethers have been deprived of religious content and have evolved into an excuse dining and wining; the great feasts of saints have been reshaped as the Day of shepherds, obstetricians, vine-growers, and students celebrate without ever coming to think of St.
Clement.

And if a secular organization may well change and modernize its statute – as much as it wants to – this does not apply to the Church, which is a heavenly-and-earthly institution led by the Holy Spirit. We, of course, as humans can revise its canons and decrees, but we shall then deprive them of the mystic power of the Holy Spirit – the blessed power, through which our salvation takes place. The Lord clearly gives His sanction through the peculiar actions of God's grace. To date the holy fire descends at the Holy Sepulcher on the Orthodox Holy Saturday only, not on the Catholic one. When the Jerusalem Patriarchate yielded and adopted the New Calendar, the fire did not descend and so the Old Calendar was quickly reinstated. It is also known that every year on [the feast Day of] Transfiguration [of our Lord] over the temple of the same name on Tabor – where that wondrous event did happen – there descends a wondrous cloud. And [this takes place] not on August 6^th, but on August 19^th, when the feast is according to the Julian calendar!

Today the Julian Church Calendar is observed by the majority of the Orthodox world – by the Churches of Jerusalem, the Russian, the Serbian, the Georgian, and the Macedonian Churches, and by Mount Athos. Worshiping according to it are thousands of Greeks and over 2 mln. Romanians. In Bulgaria the calendar reform has been opposed by only two archimandrites who found shelter in the Knyazhevo convent, the only continuator – at the cost of many hardships and risks – to serve after the Old [Calendar] style. After the democratic [political] changes, their spiritual children withdrew into a church community of theirs – the Orthodox Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria, whose followers numbers are growing.

In Latin "calendar" means a "book of debts". We owe the Lord the earthly time donated to us, which is also a God's creation. The Lord sanctifies it, by making it in communion with heavenly life through the divine liturgy. In this sense, according to many theologians, the Church Calendar IS an icon of consecrated time. And any encroachment on it is sacrilege against a sacred thing.