Here’s another example of a Greek EO Church that regards those following the New Calendar as heretics and schismatics, rather than genuinely Orthodox, and forbids its own faithful from entering those other Churches and from taking Holy Communion there. But this particular Greek Old Calendar EO Church is very similar to ROCOR, because both reject the New Calendar and ecumenism.
Quote from
hotca.org/documents/152-encyclical-regarding-holy-communion :
Encyclical Regarding Holy Communion
Fr. Anastasios Hudson
December 5/18, 2002
E N C Y C L I C A L
To the Holy Clergy and Pious People
Of the Holy Metropolis of the Genuine Greek Orthodox
Old Calendar Church of America
Beloved Fathers and Brethren:
“May the blessings of God always be with you.”
1.The beloved Disciple of our Lord, the Evangelist St. John, writes in his First General Epistle: “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard the antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (I John 2:18-19).
In other words, St. John the Theologian warns us saying: My children, now is a critical time: today’s season is full of dangers. As you have heard from the evangelical preaching, the antichrist will come. At this time, many heretics have manifested themselves; they are forerunners of the antichrist. From this we learn that our times are critical.
Heretics have separated themselves from us Christians and have left the Church. In any case, they never were a part of us. They were never TRUE members of the Church. For if indeed they were of us and TRUE members of the Church, they would have remained with us. However, they left the Church so that it might be shown to be that all of them were not of us. They were not TRUE Christians. (P. Trembelas, The New Testament with Short Interpretation, page 995).
2.The Word of God, the Gospels which contain the above-mentioned words of the Evangelist St. John, teaches us of the dangers faced by true Christians should they leave the Church of Christ. Such are heretics and various schisms.
The Franks have ever used the most cunning, deceptive, and dishonorable means to entangle the Orthodox in error and false belief, seeking to make them Franks. One of the means used by the Franks was the papal calendar that they sought to impose upon the Orthodox Church in the 16th century. However, the Orthodox Patriarchs, with three Local Synods, held in 1582, 1587 and 1592, condemned the New Calendar. The Patriarchs preached that those Orthodox who would follow it, would be cut off from the body of the Church and cease to be Orthodox.
Unfortunately, in Greece in 1924, Archbishop Chrysostomos (Papadopoulos) along with his bishops, desired to accommodate the Orthodox faithful to the errors of the Franks. The people of God, the genuine Orthodox, resisted, and thereby did a large portion of them remain faithful members of the Church of Christ, that Church of Christ being “the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic” Orthodox Church, She to Whom, by the grace of God, we genuine Orthodox Christians belong.
First, the Orthodox Christians must seek this Grace, which exists only in the Holy Mysteries, and especially the Divine Eucharist, which exist only in the “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”, which is the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians, and
Second, he who wishes to receive the Grace of salvation must be a genuine member of the Orthodox Church. He must not be a heretic or a schismatic.
For this reason, the genuine Orthodox Christians are not permitted to enter the churches of heretics or schismatics to receive communion, for such is a very serious sin. The person, who does so, cuts himself off from the Orthodox Church. For this same reason, the Fathers of the Church forbid to heretics or schismatics communion of the blameless Mysteries in our Churches, since by so doing, instead of salvation, they receive “a consuming fire,” (Hebrews 12:29) that is, a fire, which burns up all those who dare to partake of it.
5.Our times are the times of the antichrist, as the Evangelist St. John tells us. The antichrist labors so that iniquity, sin, apostasy, error, and false teaching may spread throughout the world.
Ecumenism, which today has captivated many people, is the result of all this. It is the work of the antichrist and of his followers. This Ecumenism would swallow up the very last lambs of Christ, that is us, the genuine Orthodox Christians, if it could. This is why Ecumenism is a pan-heresy.
In the face of this great danger, as your Bishop and Shepherd of the Orthodox Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of America, who am charged by God to protect His flock from the heretics and schismatics who have placed themselves outside the Church, I call upon the faithful children of our Church not to enter the churches of schismatics and heretics to take communion. You should communicate only in churches that belong to our Church, which here in America are only the churches of the Holy Metropolis (GOC) of America. You should have the permission of your spiritual father, who himself should be a clergyman of our Holy Metropolis, and should have confessed and fasted correctly prior to Communion. Those who do not have an Orthodox faith and confession, that is heretics, ecumenists, false old calendarists, etc., will not be permitted to be imparted the Holy Mysteries in our churches, even as the Holy Synod of our Church has directed.
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Orthodox monasteries are not organized into orders. The true Orthodox monastics who follow the rule of saint Basil live in discrete houses and do not constitute a separate organization outside of the diocese. They are as integral to a diocese as a parish or mission and follow the direction of religious superiors confirmed for them by the appropriate bishop.