The Old Calendar

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Table of Contents

1- What is the Old Calendar?

The Old Calendar, also known as the “Julian” or “Patristic” calendar, is the cycle of church feasts that is celebrated every year. The cycle comprises fixed feasts (those that occur at the same time every year, such as Christmas and the Dormition) and moveable feasts (those that occur at different times from year to year, such as Easter and Pentecost).

2- What does the calendar have to do with religion?

The Jews in the Old Testament were commanded to observe certain feasts that had been ordained by the Lord, such as the Atonement and Passover, as well as the weekly Sabbath. After the coming of Christ and the fulfilment of the Mosaic Law, the Church replaced these feasts with new feasts commemorating the major events in the life of Christ and the history of the Church. Thus, the calendar provides structure to the Church’s worship of God and connects the faithful to the events of the Gospel and the lives of the saints.

3- Why should we care about the calendar?

The Church Fathers did not only establish the Church’s dogmas, but also created canons for its proper governance and discipline. The calendar is part of this outward discipline that was bequeathed to us by the Apostles and their disciples, and so it must be respected. For as it says in Scripture, “remove not the ancient boundaries which thy fathers have set.” (i) And as Saint Symeon of Thessalonica teaches, “what tradition has appointed never violate, even if it seems slight.” (ii)

The church calendar provides the means for all Christians to worship in unison, and thereby to make their inner spiritual unity manifest. As such, it is directly connected to the Ninth Article of the Creed: “I believe in ONE, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” Furthermore, the date of Easter was officially fixed at the First Council of Nicaea in the year 325 AD. According to the canons of the Church, all those who set aside the decree of Nicaea on the date of Easter are to be excommunicated. For all these reasons, the Church calendar is not something we can ignore.

4- Why is there division among the Orthodox on the issue of the calendar?

In March 1924, under political pressure from the dictatorial regime of the time, the Church of Greece and the Patriarchate of Constantinople decided to start celebrating all fixed feast days 13 days earlier than prescribed by the Patristic Calendar. This decision violated all previous tradition, introduced many liturgical anomalies, and was done unilaterally without the consent of the other churches. Approximately one million faithful and several bishops in Greece refused this change and continued to celebrate the feast days according to the old calendar. For this they were subjected to violent persecution for three decades. A similar situation transpired in Romania where the persecution was even more violent and lasted for sixty years. Following similar political pressure, the calendar reform was later introduced into the Patriarchates of Alexandria (1928) and Antioch (1948). The churches of Serbia, Russia, and Jerusalem refused the change.

5- Why did some Orthodox churches change the calendar?

The reason for the change was to align the Church calendar with the Gregorian calendar in use in the Western Church.

6- What is the Gregorian calendar and how does it differ from the Julian?

The Gregorian calendar was a calendar created in 1582 on the initiative of Pope Gregory XIII of Rome, who believed that the old calendar was inaccurate and needed to be reformed. The main difference between the two calendars is that the Gregorian calendar tries to fix the date of the spring equinox on March 21st whereas the date of the equinox on the Julian calendar varies. In order to achieve this alignment with the equinox, the New Calendarists decided to jump ahead by 13 imaginary days. The day immediately after March 9th, 1924 was declared to be March 23rd! As a result, all of the traditional feast days fell out of sync. For example, when it is December 12 on the Old Calendar, it is already Christmas on the New Calendar, and when it is Christmas on the Old Calendar, it is January 7th on the New Calendar.

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7- What is the equinox and what does it have to do with the Church?

The equinox is the day of the year at which the number of hours of sunlight is equal to the number of hours of night. There are two equinoxes, one in the spring, and one in the fall, marking the transition of the seasons. The spring equinox is important to the Church because it is related to the calculation of the date of Easter. Easter derives from the ancient Jewish feast of Passover. Since the Jews celebrated Passover using a lunar calendar, this feast would fall on different days every year. In order to avoid the mistake of celebrating Passover twice in the same year, the Jews determined that they would celebrate it on the first full moon of spring. The beginning of spring was decided by a combination of factors, the most important being astronomy. The ancients held that spring began when the sun entered into the constellation Ares (between the 18th and 21st of March). Consequently, the Jews adopted the date of March 21st as the basis for their calculation of Passover. In the third century, Saint Anatolius of Laodicea used the Jewish system of calculation to create a cycle of 19 years which predicted when the Passover would occur every year. This cycle was then officially adopted by the Council of Nicaea in 325 and has been in use ever since to set the date of Easter. (iii)

However, because the cycles of the sun and moon are incommensurate (that is, they are impossible to synchronize perfectly), the time of Passover has progressively shifted further from the astronomical equinox over the centuries. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the Jews today to celebrate their Passover on the second full moon of spring rather than the first. This is unavoidable, because any fixed cycle one creates to be accurate with regard to the lunar calendar will be inaccurate with regard to the solar calendar and vice versa. However, this does not pose a problem for Christians, as the strict keeping of astronomical phenomena in no way affects the holiness of our feasts. In fact, it can even hinder it, as the Greek Philological Association of Constantinople wrote in 1903:

“Those who celebrate in a manner pleasing to God are not those who seek exactness in the keeping of times but those who are exact in piety and purity of soul, those who, according to the Apostle, celebrate ‘not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’ According to the same Apostle, to seek after days and times and seasons and new moons demonstrates immaturity in the faith and by the same token a relapse from the life-giving spirit of Christ to the killing letter of Judaism and Phariseeism.” (iv)

The Council of Nicaea had two goals in creating a Paschal Canon: two avoid celebrating Easter twice in the same year, and to avoid relying on the calculations of the Jews. (v) Both of these goals were perfectly satisfied by Saint Anatolius’ Cycle. However, in the 16th century, Pope Gregory and the Western Church broke this Cycle and replaced it with a complex mathematical formula (vi). As a consequence, the Western denominations often celebrated Easter a full month before the Jewish Passover.

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8- Isn't the Gregorian calendar scientifically more accurate than the Julian?

The idea that the Gregorian calendar is more accurate than the Julian is a myth. In fact, some of the greatest scientists of modern times, such as Michael Maestlin (d. 1631), Joseph Scaliger (d. 1609), and Simon Newcomb (d. 1909) preferred the Julian calendar over the Gregorian. (vii) In 1899, the Russian imperial government created a specific scientific commission to study whether the country should adopt the Gregorian calendar, but the commission declared in favour of the Julian. Vasily Bolotov, one of the professors present, remarked:

“As formerly, I remain a decisive reverer of the Julian Calendar. Its extreme simplicity constitutes its scientific advantage over every reformed calendar. I think that the cultural mission of Russia regarding this question consists in retaining the Julian Calendar in existence for a few more centuries and through this means facilitate for the Western peoples a return to the unspoiled Old Style from the Gregorian reform, which is not needed by anyone.” (viii)

A similar decision was reached in 1903 by a committee of Greek scholars in Constantinople. (ix)

9- Can’t the Church decide to change the calendar if it so wishes?

It is a principle in the Church that customs that prevail over a long period of time obtain the force of law. To cite Patriarch Germanos IV of Constantinople:

“With regard to common and ecclesiastical affairs, it is not right to alter with innovations those things that are well established to the common benefit and stability of the Church, but one ought to preserve them faithfully and maintain them inviolate. With respect to those things which harm and endanger the Church, however, it is both fitting and necessary to change, modify, and forbid them.” (x)

In what way did a calendar that was in use for nineteen centuries “harm and endanger the Church?” Furthermore, the Gregorian calendar has explicitly been condemned by no less than seven orthodox synods:

In 1582, a local council in Constantinople attended by Patriarch Jeremias II and Sylvester of Alexandria said that “it is not possible to alter the divinely-wise and rightly-determined order and rule about Easter and the other feasts which was created by the Holy Fathers and made sure by the divine Spirit.” (xi)

In 1593, a pan-Orthodox council in Constantinople attended by all four Patriarchates and representatives of all the dioceses of the eastern church said that anyone who changes the Paschal canon adopted by the Holy Fathers at Nicaea is to be excommunicated and is “already judged to be foreign to the Church.” (xii)

In 1720, Patriarch Jeremias III of Constantinople issued a synodical letter to the Orthodox Christians of Messina in Sicily, who had asked him if it was possible to celebrate Easter according to the western date. In response, Jeremias wrote that “it is not customary among us, nor usual for the Easterners to displace eternal boundaries which the Fathers, moved by the Spirit, have established and firmly fixed.” (xiii)

In 1827, the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople under Agathangelus I “unanimously rejected” a proposal by certain members of the Academy of St. Petersburg to introduce the Gregorian calendar in Russia. (xiv)

In 1904, after an extensive consultation with the other churches, the Holy Synod of Constantinople issued an encyclical which stated that it is “not possible” to change the Church’s Easter rule and that any reform of the Julian calendar would be “inopportune…and completely useless.” (xv)

In 1918, the Holy Synod of the Russian Church under Patriarch Tychon, after studying the calendar question and receiving presentations from leading scientists, concluded that “it is incorrect to believe that the Gregorian Calendar is better suited for ecclesiastical use” and “resolved to maintain the Julian calendar.” (xvi)

On March 14, 1924 (Old Style), the Church of Alexandria synodically condemned the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in Greece, writing to the Archbishop of Greece that "it is not wholly accurate for Your Eminence to maintain that such a correction by You would have no dogmatic or canonical impediments...Our most holy brothers were seized with sadness seeing that, without any real reason...the brotherly convocation and deliberation of the four apostolic thrones, which have for centuries maintained the struggle for truth, was rejected, and that a correction of a regulation in use by the whole Orthodox Church (and so not restricted to the Church of Greece) was proposed unilaterally as ecclesiastical law." Consequently, the Church of Alexandria wrote that "our Holy Synod rejects the correction...though she is prepared to examine this matter in an appropriate time and place together with the most holy sister churches." (xvii)

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Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople (left) and Saint Meletius Pegas of Alexandria (right), the New Calendar’s fiercest opponents.

Changing the calendar is not an insignificant affair. It would be an admission that the Church which is supposed to be guided by the Holy Spirit has been celebrating its feast days incorrectly for most of its history, inducing people to call into question all its other dogmas. This is exactly what the scholars of the prestigious University of Paris (the Sorbonne) told Pope Gregory in 1582 when he asked them for their opinion on his proposed reform. (xviii) Unfortunately, the Pope did not heed their warnings.

The calendar also possesses an iconic function: just as a wooden board becomes more than a simple board when one paints the image of the Saviour or the Saints on it, so does a secular calendar become more than a simple calendar when the feast days of the Church are applied to it. In such an instance, the calendar truly becomes an icon of sacred time, and to change it is tantamount to an act of iconoclasm. This fact has not been lost even on secular observers. As one modern researcher writes, “in the longer term, the repeated calendar reforms of early modern Europe and the various quarrels they generated contributed to an increasingly secular perception of calendrical time. Once stripped of its former lustre as a divinely ordained and therefore unchanging representation of sacred time, the calendar became a malleable tool of controlling and organizing social life, fit to change along with the political and confessional tides.” (xix)

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10- Is the calendar really something we should excommunicate people over?

The Holy Fathers certainly thought so. The 150 Fathers who gathered in Constantinople for the Second Ecumenical Council declared the following:

“As for those heretics who join themselves to Orthodoxy and to the lot of the saved, we receive them according to the following order and custom: Arians, Macedonians, Sabbatians, Novatians, Quartodecimans or Tetradites, and Apollinarians we receive when they present statements of faith and anathematize every heresy which does not hold as does the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God; and ﬁrst of all, we anoint them with holy Chrism on their forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ears, and in sealing them we say: ‘The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” (Canon 7)

The Quartodecimans were Christians who celebrated Easter on the date of the Jewish Passover. Though this detail might seem “trivial” to modern worldly sensibilities, the Fathers thought it was serious enough to classify them in the same category as Arians, heretics who denied the divinity of the Son of God. Besides, the calendar innovation of 1924 was part of the larger heresy of ecumenism, so even if it were harmless in itself (which it is not, since it breaks the unity of the Church’s celebrations), it is clearly heretical in its intent.

11- What is ecumenism?

Ecumenism is a heresy that holds that all Christian denominations are part of the One Church irrespective of their different dogmas. Ecumenism is a heresy because it blurs the distinction between truth and falsehood for which the Holy Fathers fought and the martyrs gave their lives.

12- What is the relation between the new calendar and ecumenism?

Τhe new calendar was adopted as a means to facilitate the Orthodox Church's communion with Western Christians. In January of 1920, the Patriarchate of Constantinople issued a heretical encyclical addressed “To the Churches of Christ Wheresoever They Be.” The encyclical claimed that communion between the churches “is not prevented by the doctrinal differences existing between them” and called all Christians, irrespective of denomination, “fellow-heirs and members of the same body.” The very first proposal made by the 1920 Encyclical to foster closer communion between the Orthodox and the Westerners was “the acceptance of a uniform calendar for the simultaneous celebration of all the great Christian feasts by all the Churches.” (xx) Later in that same year, Archbishop Chrysostom Papadopoulos of Greece, the author of the calendar change, played an integral part in the proceedings of the “Faith and Order” summit in Geneva which laid the foundations of the future World Council of Churches.

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In 1923, a year before the introduction of the new calendar in Greece, the modernist Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis—a close friend of Papadopoulos—held a synod in Constantinople to discuss various changes to Orthodox practices. During the council's fifth session, the Anglican delegate Charles Gore expressed his wish that Anglicans and Orthodox might be able to celebrate the major Christian feasts together, to which Meletios responded: “I would ask Your Reverence to inform the Archbishop of Canterbury that we are well disposed to accept the New Calendar which you in the West have decided upon.” (xxi) The connection between the new calendar and ecumenism is therefore undeniable. Incidentally, among the other proposals discussed at the infamous 1923 synod was the second marriage of priests, marriage after ordination, the marriage of bishops, the shortening of services and fasts, the lessening of the number of holidays, and the abolition of clerical rassa.

13- Aren't there many modern grace-filled elders who have supported the new calendar?

Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer says that “every one that teaches anything beyond what is commanded, though he be worthy of credit, though he be in the habit of fasting, though he live in continence, though he work miracles, though he have the gift of prophecy, let him be in your sight as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, labouring for the destruction of the sheep.” (xx) Christ himself warned us that in the last times there will arise false Christs and false prophets who will try to “deceive if possible even the elect.” (xxii) Therefore, we must be extremely cautious when it comes to interpreting “signs and wonders.” If we hold fast to the canons of the Church, we will never go wrong.

If you are looking for a miraculous confirmation of the truth of the Patristic Calendar, it is a well-known fact that on the eve of September 14, 1925 (Julian), a luminous cross appeared in the night sky on the outskirts of Athens during the vigil of the Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross which was being celebrated by the traditionalist faithful who had rejected the New Calendar. This miraculous event was witnessed by thousands of people, including the police officers who had been sent by the Archbishop to break up the celebration and arrest the priest. It constituted a “validation from on high” of the correctness of the calendar struggle.

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14- Has the Old Calendar Church produced any saints?

Of course! You need only look at such examples as Elder Kallinikos the Hesychast of the Holy Mountain, Elder Moses the Clairvoyant of Corinth, Saint Seraphim of Sofia, Elder Matthew of Bresthena, Saint Chrysostom the New of Florina, Saint John the New Hozebite, Saint John of Amphiale, Saint Ieronymos the New of Aegina, Elder Habbakuk the Barefoot of the Great Lavra, Eldress Myrtidiotissa of Klissoura, Saint Philoumen of Jacob's Well, and Saint Glicherie of Romania.

In addition, many traditionalist figures who are well-respected in New Calendarist circles such as Saint Nikolai Velimirovic, Philotheos Zervakos, and Joseph the Hesychast were intimately connected to the Old Calendarist movement during their lifetimes. Saint John Maximovitch and Saint Philaret of New York considered the Old Calendarists a “sister church” and concelebrated with them. We could go so far as to say that everything wholesome and traditional that has existed in the Orthodox world in the past century has been due to the influence of the Old Calendarists who provided a check against the ever-worsening modernism and heresies of the state churches and the Patriarchates. Though few, they have not betrayed the faith, ever mindful of the words of Christ: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (xxiii)

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References

(i) Proverbs 22:28.

(ii) Patrologia Graeca 155, col. 868. Compare a similar remark by Saint Photius the Great: “even the slightest rejection of tradition allows contempt to fall upon the whole doctrine.” (Φωτίου ἐπιστολαί, ed. Ioannis Valettas [1864], Letter 4.1, pp. 168-169)

(iii) Saint Ambrose, in his letter to the Bishops at Aemilia written in AD 386 (about sixty years after the Council of Nicaea), writes: “That to settle the day of the celebration of Easter requires more than ordinary wisdom, we are taught both by the Holy Scripture and by the tradition of the Fathers, who, when assembled at the Nicene Synod, in addition to their true and admirable decrees concerning the Faith, formed also for the above-mentioned celebration a plan of nineteen years with the aid of the most skillful calculators, and constituted a sort of cycle to serve as a pattern for subsequent years. This cycle they called the nineteen years cycle, their aim being that we should not waver in uncertain and ungrounded opinions on such a celebration, but ascertain the true method to ensure such concurrence of the affections of all, that the sacrifice for the Lord's Resurrection should be offered everywhere on the same night.” (Patrologia Latina 16, col. 1026-1027, trans. Oxford: J. Parker, 1881)

(iv) Μητροπολίτου Βιζύης Ἀνθίμου, Τὸ ἡμερολογιακὸν ζήτημα (Constantinople: 1922), pp. 25ff.

(v) This is clearly expressed in Saint Constantine’s Letter to the Bishops who were Absent from the Council:

“The commemoration of the most sacred paschal feast being then debated, it was unanimously decided, that it would be well that it should be everywhere celebrated upon the same day. What can be more fair, or more seemly, than that that festival by which we have received the hope of immortality should be carefully celebrated by all, on plain grounds, with the same order and exactitude? It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival…For how can they entertain right views on any point who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. Hence it follows that they have so far lost sight of truth, wandering as far as possible from the correct revisal, that they celebrate a second Passover in the same year.” (Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, Book I.9)

Apostolic Canon 7 says: “If any bishop, presbyter, or deacon, shall celebrate the holy day of Easter before the vernal equinox, with the Jews, let him be deposed.”

Saint Proterius (d. 457), the Patriarch of Alexandria, in his letter to Pope Leo of Rome writes further:

“Our most blessed Fathers, once they had determined the nineteen-year cycle with great certainty—which it is impossible to violate, being, as it were, the basis, foundation, and rule—appointed this very nineteen-year calculation not according to the current unlearned and flawed manner of the Jews nor the supposed and false wisdom of the Gentiles, but inspired by the grace of the Holy Spirit.” (Patrologia Latina 67, col. 511)

(vi) Francesco Vizza, “Aloysius Lilius Author of the Gregorian Reform of the Calendar,” 16 October 2018, pp. 30-31. Accessed on philsci-archive.pitt.edu

(vii) The German Michael Maestlin, one of the leading astronomers in Europe and the teacher of the famed Johannes Kepler, called the Gregorian calendar the “conflux of all errors” (colluvium omnium errorum). The renowned French chronologist Joseph Scaliger wrote against the Gregorian calendar at length, saying that “nothing more clumsy, more absurd, and more childish could have been conceived” (quo nihil ineptius, absurdius, puerilius excogitari potest). Even Giuseppe Valdagno, the Veronese astronomer who was part of the 1582 papal commission, recognized that the Gregorian calendar’s leap year rule was inaccurate and favoured the Julian system. In more recent times, the famous British astronomer Simon Newcomb boldly asserted that the Gregorian reform had been a “mistake.”

The main difficulty lies in the fact that the Gregorian calendar assumes that the length of the tropical year is constant, when in fact it varies by up to half an hour from year to year. Due to this phenomenon, any calendar one wishes to create to stay in step with the equinoxes will always be inaccurate because it is impossible to approximate the irregular motion of the equinoxes with a fixed leap-year formula. In addition, the Julian calendar actually keeps better time on the lunar calendar than the Gregorian does. This is why when the mathematician Aloysius Lilius was creating new lunar tables for Pope Gregory in 1582, he used the Julian year as the basis for his calculations.

(viii) “Minutes of the 8th Session of the Commission on the Question of the Reform of the Calendar” (in Russian), 21 February 1900.

(ix) Μητροπολίτου Βιζύης Ἀνθίμου, op. cit. The committee was made up of Professors G. Lianopoulos, B. Antoniadis, A. Spatharis, and E. Balsamakis. They examined a proposal to reform the calendar made by the Smyrnaean mathematician Epaminondas Polydoros, who proposed that the Church adopt the Gregorian calendar and a new Paschal Canon to ensure that Easter would always occur the first Sunday after the modern Jewish Passover. Both components of the reform were rejected.

(x) Tῶν γὰρ κοινῶν καὶ ἐκκλησιαστικῶν πραγμάτων, ὅσα μὲν καλῶς καὶ πρὸς κοινὴν τῆς Ἐκκλησίας ὠφέλειαν καὶ εὐστάθειαν καθεστηκότα τυγχάνουσιν, ἐπὶ τούτων οὐδέν τι προσήκει μετακινεῖν καινοτομοῦντας, ἀλλ’ ἐμμένειν εἰς τὸ ἀκριβὲς ἀπαράβατα φυλάττοντας· ὅσα δὲ ἐπιβλαβῶς καὶ ἐπικινδύνως ἔχουσι τῇ Ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἐπὶ τούτων καὶ μετακινεῖν προσήκει καὶ μεταβάλλειν καὶ διακωλύειν χρεών. (1842 Tome, in: Κανονικαὶ Διατάξεις τῶν Ἁγιωτάτων Πατριαρχῶν Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, Emmanuel Gedeon, ed. Volume 2 (1889), p. 346)

(xi) Ἡ μετριότης ἡμῶν...διασκεψάμενη συνοδικῶς, παρόντος καὶ τοῦ μακαριωτάτου ἁγιωτάτου Πατριάρχου Αλεξανδρείας...γράφει πρὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ ἐν Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι ὑφειγεῖται καὶ διατάττεται...ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν ἀσύστατον τὸ παρ’ ἡμῖν Πασχάλιον καὶ Ἑορτολόγιον...καὶ οὐδέποτε ἀθετηθήσεται...οὐκ ἔξεστι μεταποιεῖν τὴν καλῶς καὶ θεοσόφως παρὰ τῶν Ἁγίων Πατέρων γεγονυίαν τάξιν καὶ ὁροθέτησιν περὶ τοῦ Πάσχα καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν κατασφαλιζομένην τῷ θείῳ Πνεύματι. (Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 2014 (1), pp. 246-249)

(xii) Ἀσάλευτον διαμένειν βουλόμεθα τὸ τοῖς πατρᾶσι διορισθὲν περὶ τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ σωτηρίου Πάσχα· ἔχει δὲ οὕτως: ἅπαντας τοὺς τολμῶντας παραλύειν τοὺς ὅρους τῆς ἁγίας καὶ οἰκουμενικῆς μεγάλης συνόδου, τῆς ἐν Νικαίᾳ συγκροτηθείσης ἐπὶ παρουσία τῆς εὐσεβείας τοῦ θεοφιλεστάτου Βασιλέως Κωνσταντίνου περὶ τῆς ἁγίας ἑορτῆς τοῦ σωτηριώδους Πάσχα, ἀκοινωνήτους καὶ ἀποβλήτους εἶναι τῆς Ἐκκλησίας, εἰ ἐπιμένοιεν φιλονεικότερον ἐνιστάμενοι πρὸς τὰ καλῶς δεδιδαγμένα· καὶ ταῦτα εἰρήσθω περὶ τῶν λαϊκῶν, εἰ δέ τις τῶν προεστώτων τῆς Ἐκκλησίας ἐπίσκοπος, ἢ πρεσβύτερος, ἢ διάκονος, μετὰ τὸν ὅρον τοῦτον τολμήσειεν ἐπὶ διαστροφῇ τῶν λαῶν καὶ ταραχῇ τῶν Ἐκκλησιῶν ἰδιάζειν καὶ μετὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐπιτελεῖν τὸ Πάσχα, τοῦτον ἡ ἁγία Σύνοδος, ἐντεῦθεν ἤδη ἀλλότριον ἔκρινε τῆς Ἐκκλησίας· δεῖ γὰρ στοιχεῖν τῷ τῶν πατέρων κανόνι μέχρι καὶ σήμερον Θεοῦ χάριτι· ὅν, καθὸ δὴ καὶ τὰ λοιπά, ἡ Θεοῦ Ἐκκλησία διαφυλάττει. (Δοσιθέου Ἱερουσαλήμ, Τόμος Ἀγάπης (1698), p. 547)

(xiii) Οὐ γὰρ ἡμῖν εἴθισται, οὔτε ἴδιον τοῖς ἀνατολικοῖς μετακινεῖν ὅρια αἰώνια, ἃ οἱ πατέρες πνευματοκινήτως θεμελιώσαντες ἑδραίως κατεστήριξαν. (Συνοδικὴ πρὸς Μησυναίους Ἐπιστολή, 5 Νοεμβρίου 1720, in: Manuel Gedeon, ed. Μελετίου Πηγᾶ, Ἐπιστολὴ πρὸς Σίλβεστρον Πατριάρχην περὶ Πασχαλίου, Athens: 1924, pp. 42-46)

(xiv) Ἐπὶ τῆς Αὐτοκρατορίας Νικολάου τοῦ Α ́ τῷ 1827 προεβλήθη παρά τινων Ἀκαδημαϊτῶν τῆς Πετρουπόλεως πρόβλημα περὶ παραδοχῆς τοῦ Εὐρωπαϊκοῦ ἡμερολογίου (καλενδαρίου). Τὸ πρόβλημα παρὰ τῆς Κυβερνήσεως ἐστάλη εἰς τὴν Σύνοδον, ἡ Σύνοδος ἐψήφησεν ἵνα ἐπικριθῇ ὑπὸ τῆς κοινῆς τῶν ὀρθοδόξων μητρὸς τῆς Μεγ. Ἐκκλησίας· ἐπεκρίθη καὶ συμφώνως ἀπεβλήθη. (Κωνσταντίνου Οἰκονόμου ἐξ Οἰκονόμων, Τὰ σωζόμενα ἐκκλησιαστικὰ συγγράμματα, Volume 3, Athens: 1866, pp. 556-557)

(xv) Περὶ δὲ τοῦ καθ’ ἡμᾶς ἡμερολογίου τοιαύτην ἔχομεν γνώμην· αἰδέσιμον εἶναι καὶ ἔμπεδον τὸ ἀπὸ αἰώνων μὲν ἤδη καθωρισμένον, κεκυρωμένον δὲ τῇ διηνεκεῖ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας πράξει Πασχάλιον, καθ᾽ ὃ τὴν Λαμπροφόρον τοῦ Κυρίου Ἀνάστασιν ἑορτάζειν δεδιδάγμεθα τῇ πρώτῃ κυριακῇ τῇ μετὰ τὴν πανσέληνον τῆς ἑαρινῆς ἰσημερίας, ἢ συμπιπτούσῃ ἢ μεθεπομένῃ, ὡς οὐκ ἐξὸν περὶ τοῦτo καινοτομῆσαι…Ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ μεταρρυθμίσαι τὸ Ἰουλιανὸν ἡμερολόγιον, ὡς δῆθεν ἐπιστημονικῶς ἀνακριβὲς καὶ τὸ μέσον πολιτικὸν ἔτος καταστῆσαι οὔτω συμφωνότερον τῷ τροπικῷ, πρόωρον, το γε νῦν καὶ ὅλως περιττὸν ἡγούμεθα· ἡμεῖς τε γὰρ οὐδαμῶς ἀπὸ ἐκκλησιαστικῆς ἀπόψεως ὑποχρεούμεθα μεταλλάττειν ἡμερολόγιον, καὶ ἡ ἐπιστήμη ὥς γε παρ’ εἰδικῶν ἀνδρῶν βεβαιοῦται, οὔπω ὁριστικῶς ἀπεφήνατο περὶ τῆς ἀκριβείας, μεθ᾽ ἧς τὸ τροπικὸν λογίζεται ἔτος. (Ἡ Περὶ τῶν Σχέσεων τῶν Αὐτοκεφάλων Ὀρθοδόξων Ἐκκλησιῶν καὶ Περὶ Ἄλλων Γενικῶν Ζητημάτων Πατριαρχικὴκαὶ Συνοδικὴ Ἐγκύκλιος του 1902 καὶ εἰς Αὐτὴν Ἀπαντήσεις τῶν Ἁγίων Αὐτοκεφάλων Ἐκκλησιῶν καὶ ἡ Ἀνταπάντησις τοῦ Οἰκουμενικοῦ Πατριαρχείου, Constantinople: 1904, p. 79)

(xvi) Vladimir Moss, “The Russian Church and the New Calendar,” September 26/ October 9, 2003.

(xvii) Οὐκ ἐν πᾶσιν ἀκριβὴς ὁ ἰσχυρισμὸς ὁ ἐν τοῖς γράμμασι τῆς Ὑμετέρας Μακαριότητος εὐθὺς ἐν ἀρχῇ ἀναγεγραμμένος, καθ' ὃν τάχα Δογματικῶς καὶ Κανονικῶς ἀκώλυτος ἂν εἴη ἡ ὑπ' αὐτῆς ἀναιτίως ἐπισπευδομένη διόρθωσις...Συνέσχε θλῖψις τοὺς Ἱερωτάτους ἀδελφοὺς κατειδόντας, ὅτι ἄνευ αἰτίας πραγματικῆς...ἡ ἀδελφικὴ σύστασις καὶ παράκλησις τεσσάρων ἀποστολικῶν θρόνων, ἐξ' αἰώνων ὑπὲρ τῆς ἀληθείας τὸν ἀγῶνα βασταζόντων καὶ μονομερῶς εἰς νόνον ἐκκλησιαστικοῦ τύπου ἀνενεχθῆναι, προτείνεται διόρθωσις καθεστῶτος ἐν χρήσει τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Ἐκκλησίας πάσης καὶ ἄρα οὐ τῆς ἐν Ἑλλάδι μόνης...Ἀνακεφαλαιοῦντες δὴ τὰ ἀνωτέρω, Μακαριώτατε ἀδελφέ, γνωρίζομεν τῇ Ὑμετέρᾳ Μακαριότητι ὅτι ἡ καθ' ἡμᾶς Ἱερὰ Σύνοδος, τὴν μὲν διόρθωσιν...ἀποκρούει, ἐτοίμως μέντοι ἔχουσα συνεξετάσαι τὰ κατ' αὐτὴν ἐν προσήκοντι χρόνῳ καὶ τόπῳ μετὰ τῶν ἀδελφῶν ἁγιωτάτων ἐκκλησιῶν. (Letter of Patriarch Photios of Alexandria to Archbishop Chrysostomos of Athens, April 20 1924, protocol no. 226)

(xvii) Ferdinand Kaltenbrunner, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Gregorianischen Kalenderreform,” Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Volume 97 (1880), p. 26.

(xviii) Philipp E. Nothaft, Scandalous Error: Calendar Reform and Calendrical Astronomy in Medieval Europe, Oxford UP: 2018, pp. 301-302.

(xix) “Unto All the Churches of Christ Wheresoever They Be” (1920).

(xx) Πρακτικὰ καὶ Ἀποφάσεις τοῦ ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει Πανορθοδόξου Συνεδρίου 10 Mαΐου-8 Ἰουνίου 1923, ed. Dionysios Batistatos, Athens: 1982, p. 88.

(xxi) Patrologia Graeca 5, col. 912.

(xxii) Matthew 24:24.

(xxiii) Luke 12:32.

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