RTOC Receives Greek Clergy; Declares It Must “Restore True Orthodoxy” To Greece After GOC-K / SiR Union
August 11, 2015 (Source)
At the Bishops’ Conference, which took place on 06/19 until 07/20 in June of this year, with the participation of Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia, President of the Synod of Bishops of the RTOC, Archbishop Benjamin of Chernomorsk and Kuban, Vice-Chairman of the Synod, and Bishop Stefan, of Trenton and North America, and which was held at the Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection in the City of Worcester, MA, USA, the Synodal Podvorie of the RTOC in North America, and after interviews and careful study of the petitions and personal documents submitted by certain clergy of the True Orthodox Church of Greece, having determined their motives to come under the temporary omophor of the Synod of Bishops of the RTOC, in terms of their confession of Faith, and until the restoration of the hierarchy of the True Orthodox Church of Greece, a decision was made regarding the acceptance of said petition of the Greek clergy.
In fulfillment of this decision, on 08/21 of June of this year, during the Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection, in the City of Worcester, MA, USA (the Synodal Podvorie in North America), the following clergy were received under the omophor of the RTOC:
- Archimandrite Philaretos (Klimatikis), Athens, Greece
- Archpriest Sotirios Prasinos, Rhodes, Greece
- Priest Savvas Pizanios, Sydney, Australia
Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia, along with Archbishop Benjamin of Chernomorsk and Kuban, and clergy from Russia, North America, Greece and Australia.
In this manner, the Synod of the RTOC has made a step in the restoration of the True Orthodox Church of Greece, of which the current hierarchy has departed from the unadulterated confession of Faith following its union with the Greek Synod in Resistance on March 10/23, 2014.
Protopresbyter Victor Melehov, Secretary Synod of Bishops
Russian True Orthodox Church
What does the RTOC think about the Matthewites? Soooooo, the RTOC thinks that there is not one single Orthodox synod of bishops in all of Greece? To quote Hieromonk Seraphim of Platina:
Such “purity” is so difficult to attain in our days… Perhaps there are only ten or twelve people left in the world who are perfectly “strict” and “pure” in their Orthodoxy — this I really don’t know; but it simply cannot be that there are really only ten or twelve Orthodox Christians left in the world with whom one can have true oneness of faith, expressed in common communion. I think that you can see that there is some kind of spiritual dead-end here; even if we had to believe such a narrow view of Orthodoxy according to the letter, our believing Christian heart would rebel against it. We cannot really live by such strictness; we must somehow be less “correct” and closer to the heart of Orthodox Christianity.”
My heart rebels against the RTOC delusion that there are no Orthodox in Greece.
The bad news is that True Orthodoxy is still so disjointed that there is no final court of appeal, like how the Church gave to Rome and then Constantinople. There is no way out of this.
But, then, who judges the judges?
In Greece the situation is pretty much irresolvable no matter what; it is nothing short of hopeless, no matter how it is cut. It could possibly resolve in a satisfactory manner, assuming the world continues for another 300 years.
Who knows what they think of the Matthewites; they’ve probably never had an official position. The RTOC subsists as a descendant body of the ROCOR outside of Russia and in Russia. As regards their ‘outside’ of Russia stream, this is from Metropolitan Vitaly (though, he, I think, didn’t like some of them; but, that’s not really saying anything new about Met. Vitaly); the other stream, the main component, consists of parishes, clergy, missions, monks, etc, organized by the reposed Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko), who had joined ROCOR in the 1980s and was consecrated a bishop, in secret (in a single hand consecration), in Russia by a ROCOR bishop.
Perhaps they should declare what they think before they come into Greek territory. They are restoring True Orthodoxy in Greece to me that they believe that there is no canonical Church there. If there was, they would be guilty of schism and fall under canonical censure, although there is no one to enforce them.
Oh, there may well be one. Just no one bold enough to do it yet.
At first this sounded like a decent idea, but as it seems they’re basing it on “the True Kallinikites” it actually sounds pretty horrible.
Dear Deacon Joseph,
Our profile is not associated in any way with Bishop
Nikandros.
We are a group of people who have been touched by Vladyka
Daniel of Erie of blessed memory.
As orthodox Christians who reside in Australia and knowing persons who had studied with Savas Pizanias in the theological college in Sydney we know the following:
He was expelled from the Theological College in Sydney
He has been defrocked from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in
2001 because he abandoned his Deaconess and his position as a deacon at the Metropolis of Kalymnos
That he was married for a 2nd time in 2004
That from 2001-to 2004 he was a layperson working in Sydney
That in 2010 he went under a very small group of Old
calendar from Greece and here in Australia he was serving liturgy with the new calendar (until very recently) and now he talks about the Old Calendar.
We also know that he has been defrocked recently By the
synod of GOX of Parthenios and one of the reasons for his defrockment was that he was collecting money to send to Congo for Missionary work but could not give a receipt to the donors when they asked to see if the money got there. After all this is all in the letter which was requested to be removed from Savas from your site. Which naturally you have the prerogative of removing.
We understand completely that George Palivos is Savas
Pizanias. One of the reasons is because the last name he uses appears to be a variant of Bishop Nikandros last name which can be seen here from a biography of this bishop. http://www.greekorthodox.org.au/general/aboutus/assistantbishops
We respect those people who truly believe in Genuine
Orthodoxy and we are writing all these things so that we can help inform people who truly believe in the Old Calendar of possible threats from defrocked pseudo clerics. Especially those gallivanting from group to group and those who when they were with Old Calendar Churches in Greece and Ukraine would serve with the New Calendar in Australia.
Dear ‘Danilo’, Giorgos Palivos is spot on, we have all seen your comments and attacks elsewhere. your emails and ip address is exactly the same. stop your slander and lies and look after your ecumenist clergy. if you want us to post all the emails and messages from danilo- daniel erie we will. enough rubbish.
One must say that it is a sad state of affairs when one contacts
the Secretary of the RTOC making him aware of Mr Savas Pizanias’ actions and
does not get a reply instead an announcement (above) is released accepting
people like Pizanias and Prasinos in their “synod.” Mr Savas Pizanias
who apart from being married twice, has been defrocked 3 times, from the
Ecumenical Patriarchate (once) and from 2 Pseudo Old Calendarist groups from
Greece. He recently was also removed from Bishop Chrysostom Bakomitros’ Church
in Greece (under the Juristiction of Filaret – Kiev Patriarchate, 4th time defrocked?). He had set up a “parish” in Sydney under Filaret’s Jurisdiction. He was last
defrocked recently by Parthenios’s group in Greece mainly because of his
fraudulent diversion of parishioner monies.
It is really sad as I had a different view for the Russians of the Diaspora. I thought they were more serious about Genuine Orthodoxy. To insinuate (above) that these three are the saviors and redeemers of the True (Genuine) Orthodox Church of Greece is so ridiculous I do not know whether to laugh or to cry. I mean all one needs to do is to ask how many times Mr Prasinos has been defrocked from the various GOX Churches in Greece to ascertain the level of seriousness this group should be paid.
Appointing people with such dubious reputations in going to push the Greek Old Calendarists back in the 80s and 90s when there were was nothing but chaos.
dear Marion Scott, the only dubious person here is the fake ‘danilo’, who is actually a new calenderist ecumenist bishop as already mentioned in my reply to the fake profile ‘danilo’.
Danilo: I deleted the unredacted document as we received a complaint from Fr Savas saying he didn’t want his personal address published. It’s considered best practice to blot the addresses of living persons. Thank you.
dear ‘danilo’ first of all please tell everyone here who you really are???? yes we know exactly who you are. Why are you using a fake profile??? why do you also like using the name ‘daniel erie’ who us anti-ecumenist and old calanderists all know was one of our Russian abroad bishops for the old believers who has past away years now. What is a New Calanderist ecumenist bishop of the Greek Archdiocese of Australia commenting on our site here who are in your eyes ‘schismatics’ ‘graceless’ and fakes’. You who called St Philaret Voznesensky a fake and schismatic devil and preach that in your churches!!! Yes for all reading this ‘danilo’ is the Ecumenist Bishop Nikandros assistant bishop of the ecumenist Greek Archdiocese of Australia and his associates. Danilo or should we say (Nikandros and associates), spread your lies and slander elsewhere. We can all see from your DISQUS account that for months on end now you have been saying the same things over and over again lies & slanders about Fr Sotirios and Fr Savas & others, on greek ecumenist ecclesiastical sites you have association with and have an agreement with. Why is it ‘Danilo’ that we can’t respond back to your slanders and postings on those sites but the editors block our responses and postings back to you???? To be defrocked by ecumenists such as the EP is a blessing for anyone especially when they are immoral ecumenist bishops. As for defrockments you mention of unrecognised non existent ‘old calendarist’ synods of a Parthenios Vezireas who as we all know is unrecognised by no other Old Calanderists and we all know was a nude famous greek model & singer who made himself the Greek Old Calendar Archbishop of Greece, who even to this day is constantly in the greek press after saying publicly he agrees as ‘archbishop’ with GAY MARRIAGES is also to laugh at. ha ha ha, along with the immoral peculiar characters he has made ‘bishops’????? These are the people you work with Danilo & your archdiocese???? We all know that Fr Savas on the 18th of January 2015 Publicly announced and published his ‘walling off’ from this fake ‘synod’ for reasons of faith and after being exposed to the truth about these immoral, dubious and peculiar characters claiming they are the genuine greek synod of greece. Also ‘Danilo’ you are forgetting to mention the most important thing, your lies, slander, fake documents and dirty game you have been playing for months mean NOTHING!!!! Why? It is quite simple the Holy Synod of RTOC accepted all the priests after careful investigations of all, and Fr Savas was ORDAINED priest by Archbishop Tikhon and Benjimans hands. From the moment RTOC ordained Fr Savas as priest again by their own hands accepting him him first as a deacon through ‘xeirothesia’, no other priest ordination or defrockment is recognised or valid. Stop playing games mr ‘Danilo’ and tend to your ecumenist flock, and leave the old calanderists alone. here is the ‘archbishop of athens’ and also Fr Savas public ‘walling off’ for all to see.
Further to my comment original comment here is evidence of the type of people the RTOC are using to set up their “Greek Church” Its shameful to think that these people can be considered to be seen as the successors of such saintly persons like Philaret Voznesensky the great defender and confessor of Genuine Orthodoxy.
This is the kind of behavior that has decimated relations between Traditionalist synods of all kinds for the past fifty years. The precedent that clergy can shuffle around synods like football players in the transfer market has opened the door to mutual recrimination and flight from ecclesiastical/canonical justice with impunity. The GOC (K) had done this in the past when receiving clergy fleeing from ROCOR under St. Philaret and his predecessors, and now the RTOC is doing it with clergy fleeing the GOC (K). Take into stock the incident with the Serbian TOC and the RTOC’s intervention therein, and the picture is abysmal. This meddlesome behavior needs to stop on all sides, and while synods may have their differences, the precedent that clergy from one may simply jump ship to the other as liberally as has been done in Traditionalist Orthodoxy in the past is unacceptable. We must heed the calls to both mutual respect and unity in truth.
First let us test whether the accusations are valid (how the Fathers who wrote canons on testing accusations would turn in their graves if they realized how quickly we accept accusations now!)
Forgive me, but I would like to suggest a couple of clarifications regarding the above article: If the clergy who were received in the RTOC under Metr. Tikhon of Omsk, came from the Unia Synod of Metr. Kallinikos that united with the Kyprianites, then I believe the correct official name is not, “The True Orthodox Church of Greece” (which is the legal name of the Synod of the Matthewites), but it should correctly read “The Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece”. At least that is my understanding. If I am incorrect, forgive me. On another point, I am quite sure that Fr. Philaretos Klimatikis was not received from the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece but from the synod of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) and that he was under obedience to his bishop, Archbishop Andrei Maklakov who resides in the United States. The article, if I read it correctly and did not miss anything, seems to suggest that he left the Kallinikites (G.O.X.) over their unia with the Kyprianites. This it would seem is not exactly the case.
Novice Matthew,
Whatever the case, the above is simply the statement by the RTOC Secretary of the Syond, Fr. Victor Melehov. It’s not really an ‘article’. It’s merely posting the official RTOC statement. You could direct an email to Fr. Victor Melehov asking for further clarification of the matter.
In Christ,
Fr. Enoch
That is a good point of clarification on the nature of the article. Thank you Father Enoch.
Unless we get information that can be confirmed, I’m deleting things that look like slander.
I’ve removed unsourced claims. They’ll be restored with sources or documents.