The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad & The Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece: A History

by Fr Nektarios Harrison

Paperback: 120 pages

In 1924, the Holy Orthodox Church was shaken when a small minority of Orthodox Churches abandoned the traditional Church calendar for the Gregorian calendar of the Roman Catholic and Protestant confessions. At the instigation of Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis of Constantinople, this single hierarch unilaterally and without the universal consensus of all the local Orthodox Churches adopted the new calendar intending to bring the Orthodox Church into closer union with the various heterodox confessions of the world. The cost of this innovation would be a great division among those in the Church of Greece who rejected this non-canonical act that would ultimately give rise to the old calendarist movement and the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece.

These Orthodox Christians, who walled themselves off from the state Church of Greece through historical circumstance and God’s providence, found themselves in communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and its Synod of Saints. In this largely unknown story of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, this detailed historical account unravels the complicated history of the relationship between these two Orthodox Churches through the examination of historical documents, synodal minutes, and the very words of the Church Fathers of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The reader will be presented with the true history of the relationship between these sister churches and dispel many common misconceptions that have surrounded the Old Calendarist Orthodox Christians since 1924.