Metropolitan Nikitas, Bishop Ilia Report on Astoria Monastery

Metropolitan Nikitas of the Dardanelles and Bishop Ilia (Katre) of Philomelion have visited the Ecumenical Patriarchate to report their findings at St. Irene Chrysovolantou's Monastery in Astoria, New York, concerning the activities of its former abbot, Metropolitan Paisios of Tyana. The Ecumenical Patriarchate is expected to issue a final decision on the status of the Monastery and Metropolitan Paisios in the near future.

At Bishop Ilia's direction the Monastery, which was received into the Constantinopolitan Orthodox Church with the guarantee of its right to follow the Julian calendar, will be celebrating its feast day this year according to the Gregorian calendar. More (in Greek) here.

Estonian Apostolic Church Adopts Revised Julian Calendar

The Estonian Apostolic Church of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a breakaway from the Estonian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate, has switched from the Julian calendar to the 'revised Julian' calendar. The change will take place in 2012, but will not include parishes near the Russian border that desire to remain on the church calendar. The mainstream Orthodox Church in Estonia remains on the Julian calendar. More (in French) here.

Astoria Monastery Changed to New Calendar

It appears that the formerly Old Calendrist Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. Irene Chrysovolantou in Astoria, New York, has been switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian since the assumption of its administration by Bishop Ilia (Katre) of Philomelion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. When the Monastery was received into the Church of Constantinople as a stavropeghial institution it was with the understanding that it and its dependencies would be free to maintain their traditional life and the traditional calendar, but that is apparently no longer the case (at least in the Monastery itself).

Festal Services in Ukrainian Orthodox Parish in Romania

Bishop Lucian (Mic) of Caransebes celebrated Annunciation today in a parish in Zorile, Romania. (More on that here.) This wouldn't be particularly noteworthy were it not that this parish is a Ukrainian Orthodox community in Romania (and therefore under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Bucharest, whose canonical territory Romania is) and on the Julian calendar, whose Romanian Orthodox faithful were persecuted and cast out of the Church of Romania from the 1920s onwards.

Were all the Orthodox to follow the principles being adopted by the Bucharest Patriarchate outside Romania, then the Zorile parish would be under Moscow or perhaps Kiev, whilst others in southwestern Romania would be under the Pech Patriarchate and still more in southern and southeastern Romania would be under the Sofia Patriarchate. Perhaps in the near future the Bucharest Patriarchate will transfer its non-Romanian parishes in Romania to their "rightful" Churches so that 'there is Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, for all are divided in Christ Jesus' as the Scriptures say...

Elder Cleopa of Sihastria on the Calendar Controversy

Some interesting comments from Elder Cleopa (Ilie) of Sihastria in Romania on the calendar controversy and the schisms that have come from it can be found here (the site links to the Romanian-language original as well). I certainly agree with Elder Cleopa's comments on the unhealthiness of the Old Calendrist movements' oftentimes sectarian spirit, but conversely I find it troubling that he does not mention the persecution the Old Calendrists suffered at the hands of both the state and, at times, the world Orthodox Churches in Greece and Romania at the time of the calendar change.

As with so many schisms, there may well be more gray involved than either we in the mainstream Orthodox Churches or those in the various Old Calendrist synods would like to believe. Hat tip to Mystagogy for posting a link to a link to a link to the original of this ;-). Some of the comments on Mystagogy's posting are worth the read while others, especially one regarding the decision of Patriarch Meletius (Metaxakis) of Constantinople to recognize the "Living Church" as the true Church of Russia in the 1920s, are most definitely not...

Macedonia Upholds Church Calendar

The schismatic Macedonian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox Church in the Republic of Macedonia, has refused to switch to the Gregorian calendar as many Orthodox (constituting a majority of the Local Orthodox Churches, but a minority of the world's Orthodox Christians) have done and will continue to celebrate the feast of the Lord's Nativity on the traditional date (currently 7 January on the Western calendar). More here.