Old Calendarists

Old Calendarists (Greek: palaioimerologitai), also known as Old Feasters (palaioeortologitai), Genuine Orthodox Christians or True Orthodox Christians (GOC; ), are traditionalist groups of Eastern Orthodox Christians that separated from mainstream Eastern Orthodox churches because some of the latter adopted the revised Julian calendar while Old Calendarists remained committed to the Julian calendar.'

Old Calendarists are not in communion with any mainstream Eastern Orthodox churches.

"Old Calendarists" is another name for the True Orthodox movement in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus.

Terminology

Mainstream Eastern Orthodox Christians that use the old (Julian) calendar are not what is designated by the expression "Old Calendarist", because they remain in communion with the Eastern Orthodox churches that use the new calendar (the Revised Julian calendar). Old Calendarists have severed communion with the mainstream Eastern Orthodox that follow the old calendar, because the latter maintained communion with Eastern Orthodox churches that had adopted the revised calendar. Thus, to be "Old Calendarist" is not the same thing as only following the old calendar. The Russian Orthodox Church, for instance, is not Old Calendarist, but follows the old (Julian) calendar.'

History

Background

Until 1924, the Eastern Orthodox Church universally used the Julian calendar, whereas the Roman Catholic Church, under Pope Gregory XIII, conducted a calendar reform resulting in the Gregorian calendar in 1582. The difference between the two calendars is 13 days between 1900 and 2100.

1923 Congress

In May 1923, the Pan-Orthodox Council of Constantinople, called by Patriarch Meletius IV of Constantinople, adopted the Revised Julian calendar. This new calendar was different from both the Julian and Gregorian calendars, but would not diverge from the Gregorian calendar for a further 800 years. The Revised Julian calendar replaced the tabular date of Easter of the Julian calendar with an astronomical date of Easter. The astronomical Easter was unpopular and hardly used at all, and for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter the Julian calendar was restored. Not all Eastern Orthodox churches were represented at the congress or adopted its decisions, and the Russian Orthodox Church and some other Eastern Orthodox churches have continued to use the Julian calendar liturgically to this day.

Birth

Greece

thumb|Apparition of the Holy Cross over the Greek Old Calendarist [[Monastery of St. John the Theologian in Hymettus, in 1925. Artist's rendition in a newspaper at the time.]]

In 1924, the Church of Greece adopted the Revised Julian calendar, also called 'New calendar'. "At first, resistance to the New Calendar was muted". The Old Calendarists in Greece were at first a small number of laymen, priests and monks, whose number grew over the years.

Before they were joined by bishops, the Old Calendarist movement in Greece was only composed of priests and laypeople, and also "several hundreds monks from Athos".

While the Greek Old Calendarists were "[o]riginally perhaps a million strong", they were severely persecuted by the State of Greece; Metropolitan Chrysostomos was imprisoned in Lesbos in 1951 as part of those persecutions. Later, a Holy Synod of the Romanian Old Calendarists was "formally established".

Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church adopted the revised Julian calendar in 1968. The Protection Convent near Sofia became a center of the resistance to this adoption. In 1993, of Triadista was consecrated bishop by the Cyprianite Old Calendarist Church to be hierarch of the Bulgarian Old Calendarists.

Demography

In 1999, it was estimated that "[t]here are probably over one million Old Calendarists in Romania, somewhat fewer in Greece, and considerably fewer in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and the [Eastern Orthodox] diaspora."