Question 10

If the Greek Old Calendarists are in the right, why have so many schisms occurred within their movement? Is this not reminiscent of the countless Protestant groups that developed after the Reformers’ departure from the Roman Catholic Church? Would not its numerous schisms indicate that the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece is in the wrong and not part of the Eastern Orthodox Church?

This is also one of the most common accusations hurled against the Greek Old Calendarists. Yes, there have been schisms within the Greek Old Calendar movement. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad became so upset with the inability of the two main factions—the Florinites and the Matthewites—to unite that it suspended liturgical concelebrations with the Greek Old Calendarists until these factions could heal the rift between themselves. But one ought not to think that schisms only occur in bodies already separated from the Church, as if the Greek Old Calendar movement experienced schisms precisely because its members were outside of the Orthodox Church; rather, the majority of heretics and schismatics have always appeared within the bosom of the Church Herself. Arios of Alexandria, Apollinarios of Laodicea (ca. 310–ca. 390), Nestorios of Constantinople, Dioskoros of Alexandria, Eutyches of Constantinople, and countless others, were once children of the One True Church of Christ before they broke off and created their own assemblies. Sects developed even during the Apostolic age, such as “the Nicolaitans,” followers of “Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch,” who was one of the seven Deacons Ordained by the Holy Apostles but who fell into delusion and separated himself from the Apostolic Church….