The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Official

Avowal of Our Church’s Episcopal

Consecrations by the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad1
Introduction
The year 2019 saw the passing of fifty years since the official
recognition of the Episcopal Consecrations of the Hierarchs of
our Church by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad (roca), under Metropolitan Philaret the Confessor
(1903–1985), in 1969.
The Holy Synod of our Church of the Genuine (Old Calen-
dar) Orthodox Christians of Greece (goc) decided to dedicate its
Synodal Calendar for the year 2019 to this important and historic
event, with the aim of underscoring its significance, since without
Orthodox Bishops and Clergy [an ecclesiastical body] “cannot
be called a Church” («Ἐκκλησία οὐ καλεῖται»2), according to
Saint Ignatios of Antioch.
1
The historical events, personages, and rare photographs presented briefly
herein, largely taken from materials found in the Synodal Archives of the
Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, are treated at greater
length in a two-volume Greek-language work by Bishop Klemes (Clement)
of Gardikion: Ἐπίσκοπος Mαγνησίας Xρυσόστομος Nασλίμης (1910–1973)·
Ἀκατάϐλητος Ἀγωνιστὴς Πίστεως καὶ Ὑπομονῆς [Bishop Chrysostomos
Naslimes of Magnesia (1910–1973): An Invincible Struggler in Faith and For-
titude], Vol. i (Athens: Holy Monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina, 2019).
Note that this and subsequent footnotes have been added by the editors
of Orthodox Tradition to our English translation of the Greek text of this trib-
ute. It should also be pointed out that various clarifications, somewhat liberal
adjustments in syntax, expression, and narrative style, as well as conceptual
elaborations by the translators and editors have been incorporated into the
translated text, though with due diligence not to alter its factual content. In
most cases, our changes and additions appear in brackets.
2
See his Πρὸς Tραλλιανούς (Letter to the Trallians) 3:1. More fully, in
the Greek: “Xωρὶς τούτων Ἐκκλησία οὐ καλεῖται” (Patrologia Græca, Vol. v,
col. 677A). Also, see Cyril C. Richardson, Early Christian Fathers (Philadel-
phia, pa: Westminster Press, 1953), where the phrase is aptly translated in this
way: “You cannot have a church without these” (Vol. i, p. 73).
Volume xxxvi, Number 2 39

In that vein, the polemic against our Apostolic Succession,

both in the past and in present days, meant to tarnish our eccle-
siastical status, prestige, and authenticity, is widely known. All
of those spreading such vitriol know their own motives, being ei-
ther innovating ecumenists, who are subject to reproach and cen-
sure by the mere fact of our existence, or persons who have
broken away from our Church on the pretense of our supposed
violations of exactitude in Faith or putative canonical infractions.
The anniversary of the synodal declaration by the roca of
our Hierarchical Consecrations as wholly canonical, valid, and
authentic offers us the occasion to describe briefly, objectively,
and with all possible accuracy, in the present dedicatory tribute,
all that which took place with regard to the Consecrations of our
first Bishops in the years 1960 and 1962. [See, below, an historic
photograph of the Bishops of the ROCA in 1962.]

I. A
Period of Searching
After the repose in ascetic holiness of our First Hierarch, Met-
ropolitan Chrysostomos (Kabourides) the Saint and Confessor,
former Greek State Church Hierarch of Phlorina (a municipality
in the mountainous region of northwestern Macedonia), in Sep-
tember of 1955, the administration of our Church was assumed
by a temporary Ecclesiastical Council elected from the holy
clergy, consisting of the twelve most eminent clergymen in the
Holy Struggle,3 with Archimandrite Akakios (Pappas) the Elder
3
An appellation applied early on, after the calendar change, to describe
the effort to preserve Holy Tradition in the Church of Greece, including the
ancient Ecclesiastical Calendar of the Orthodox Church. The term “Old Cal-
endarists,” though accepted as a badge of honor by resisters against Church
innovations in general, was originally adopted by the State Church to denigrate
40 Orthodox Tradition

as its President. One of the priorities among its activities was the
search for a new leader, who would take on the shepherding of
our Church, and to that end, concentrated efforts were undertaken
both within Greece and in other countries.
There was hope for the accession of some Archpastor from
the innovating New Calendar Church, such as Metropolitan Dr.
Evlogios (Kourilas) Lauriotes (1880–1961), Bishop of Korytsa,4
with whom there was communication for at least one or more
years. Concomitant overtures were made to other Archpastors
sympathetic to the matter of the Church Calendar, but without
any results.
There was still hope for the restoration of the Old Calendar
by the innovators, so that Godly unity might come about, and to-
wards that end steps were made in their direction, though also
without essential consequences. The New Calendarists were in-
flexible and unyielding in their malfeasance.
There emerged a movement for affiliation with a like-minded
foreign Church, with steps towards alignment with the Orthodox
Patriarchate in Jerusalem, on the condition that it, on its part,
would cease concelebration with the New Calendarists, but in the
end this did not come to fruition.
At the Second Panhellenic Clergy Conference of our Church
in 1957, in Athens, and in the presence of more than one hundred
clergymen of ours from all over Greece, as well as zealot Fathers
from the Holy Mountain of Athos, there was implemented,
among other things, an election process for the selection of can-
didates from among the clergy for the Episcopacy. This vote took
place by economy (κατ᾿ οἰκονομίαν), given the absence of Bish-
ops, more with an emblematic significance, in order to impede
such clergy as might strive on their own to put themselves forth
for the Episcopacy, without and against the will of the holy clergy.
The vote fell to Archimandrite Chrysostomos (Naslimes), 46
votes; Archimandrite Akakios (Pappas) the Elder, 42 votes; and
to Archimandrite Chrysostomos (Kiouses), 24 votes. And thus,
from then on, the three electees were considered candidates for

those among its conservative Hierarchs who rejected both the calendar change
and the innovative ecumenical ecclesiology that inspired it.
4
Born in present-day Albania, Metropolitan Evlogios was a highly edu-
cated cleric, who served both the Œcumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople
and the Autocephalous Church of Albania. He held professorships at the Uni-
versity of Thessaloniki and the University of Athens.
Volume xxxvi, Number 2 41

the Episcopacy.5 [Below, a group of representatives at the Clergy

Conference of 1957.]

Initiatives by way of appeals for aid in the Consecration of

the Bishops-elect were addressed to ecclesiastical authorities out-
side Greece, such as the Serbian Bishops in America or the so-
called “Metropolia,”6 but without results. Priority, however, had
in the main been placed on the most unimpeachable of the rest
of these Churches, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad,7 the

5
Or by alternative nomenclature, “Bishops-elect.”
6
I.e., the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America. In the
1950s, the “Metropolia” was a small but serious jurisdiction of Orthodox Chris-
tians in the Americas. Though its canonical status was at times challenged, its
Apostolic Succession was established. After 1970, it assumed the name “Or-
thodox Church in America (oca),” claiming more than one million members.
The Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches (Brookline, MA: Holy
Cross Orthodox Press, 2011) more realistically places that number at 84,900,
some 33,800 of whom it designates as active members.
7
The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, or roca, also called the “Russian
Orthodox Church in Exile” or the “Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia,”
like the “Metropolia,” was separated from the Russian Orthodox Church in
Russia (the Moscow Patriarchate), as a consequence of the latter’s domination
by the Soviet Union and the known collaboration of most of its Bishops with
that atheist state. In the 1950s, the roca was found throughout the Russian di-
aspora. Also, like the “Metropolia,” its canonical status, largely thanks to the
42 Orthodox Tradition

First Hierarch of which was then Metropolitan Anastassy

(1873–1965).8 It must be noted that the New Calendarist Greek
Orthodox Archdiocese in the Americas, both under Michael
(1892–1958)9 and under Iakovos (1911–2005),10 was vigilant to
see there would be no possibility of a Greek Old Calendarist
Bishop being ordained in America by any canonical jurisdiction
whatsoever, regardless of whether or not it was in communion
with such a jurisdiction.
Before proceeding with our narration, we consider it prudent
to underscore that, during this difficult period of such need, when
there were persecutions and restraining orders levelled against us,
as well as the issue of the “Matthewite” schism, with its anti-
canonical Hierarchy, there predominated in the view of our

propaganda machine of the Moscow Patriarchate, was occasionally, but with

little credulity, impugned, but again there was no question whatever with re-
gard to its Apostolic Succession, since its original Bishops came directly from
the most prominent Episcopal ranks of the pre-Bolshevik Russian Church.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the majority of the Hierarchy and
parishes of the roca entered into dialogue with the Moscow Patriarchate, even-
tually opening communion with it by the mutual recognition of the two
Churches, formalized in May of 2007. At this point, the cessation of roca’s
communion with one of the factions of the then-divided Church of the Gen-
uine Orthodox Christians of Greece, the Holy Synod in Resistance, and with
the Old Calendar Churches of Bulgaria and Romania was ordered by the
Moscow Patriarchate. (The Synod in Resistance had already ceased commem-
oration of the Primate of the roca in its diptychs in 2006, in anticipation of
the upcoming union with Moscow. A small group of clergy and faithful under
Bishop Agafangel remained faithful to the resistance of the old roca and con-
tinued in communion with the Synod in Resistance.) In the 1950s, when the
Greek Old Calendarists approached it, the roca had several hundred thousand
faithful throughout the Russian émigré community worldwide. At present, it
is said to have 27,677 members, 8,954 of them active (see The Atlas of Amer-
ican Orthodox Christian Churches, op. cit.).
8
Former Inspector of the Moscow Theological Seminary, Metropolitan
Anastassy was Consecrated, in 1906, Bishop of Serpukhov, Vicar of the
Moscow Diocese. At the All-Russian Church Council of 1917–1918, he was a
candidate for Patriarch. After the Bolshevik Revolution, he fled to Constantino-
ple, where, in 1923, Œcumenical Patriarch Meletiοs (Metaxakes) (1871–1935)
invited him to participate in the infamous “Pan-Orthodox Congress.” That ir-
regular congress of Bishops implemented the New Calendar, and proposed the
remarriage of widowed clergy, innovations in Church services and priestly
dress, and other reforms that Anastassy considered uncanonical. In 1936, he
was unanimously elected First Hierarch of the roca, when its founding First
Hierarch, Metropolitan Anthony (1863–1936) reposed.
9
Archbishop Michael served from 1949 to 1958.
10
Archbishop Iakovos served from 1959 to 1996.
 Volume xxxvi, Number 2 43

Church the priority of deriving Apostolic Succession from Or-

thodox Hierarchs of an Orthodox mind-set, with ecclesiastical
formation and incontrovertible apostolicity [apostolic spirit].
With regard to the roca, we should note that, even though
still accommodating to those Orthodox among the ecumenists, it
followed from its first years, though specifically after its estab-
lishment in America—in the middle of the 1950s—a “strategy of
isolation,” for reasons of “ecclesiological firmness,” that is, on
account of ecumenism, and indeed this intensified after 1959,
when Iakovos (Koukouzes), a well-known and eminent ecu-
menist, was appointed as Archbishop of the New Calendarist
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. The roca was distinguished by its
anti-ecumenist outlook and, generally, for its traditional and pro-
monastic line, with Hierarchs known for their virtue, education,
and missionary work. The roca, as the free part of the Russian
Church, was recognized, vis-à-vis its spiritual validity, by all of
the other local Churches (except, naturally, for the Moscow Pa-
triarchate, under the yoke of Communism), even if it was not in-
vited, for example, to take part in the First Pre-Synodal
Conference,11 in Rhodes, precisely because it did not commem-
orate some of the Patriarchates. Despite all of these things, the
petitions of our Church to Metropolitan Anastassy found no res-
onance, since he was greatly consumed by the spirit of maintain-
ing the equanimity of the status quo between the roca and the
“official” Churches, even though it did not have official commun-
ion with them, so as not to endanger the roca by measures
against it from those who wished to see it decreased in influence
or disestablished, something that was particularly pronounced
and in danger of occurring at that time.
Thus the members of our Church came to understand that they
should reach out to individual members of this Church who might
be able to help us. Already in mid-1957, there had been contact
with Saint John (Maximovitch) of San Francisco (1896–1966),12
11
That is, the First Pan-Orthodox Conference, as the 1961 meeting in
Rhodes was officially called.
12
Saint John was born in Adamovka, Russia, to a pious aristocratic family
and was a relative of Saint John of Tobolsk (1651–1715). Having fled the local
Communist unrest to Kharkiv, where he studied at the Imperial University, he
graduated with a degree in law in 1918. He finally fled with his family from
the Bolsheviks in Russia to Serbia, enrolling at the University of Belgrade,
where he received a degree in theology. He became a monk in 1926 and was
Consecrated a Bishop in 1934, when he was named Bishop of Shanghai, China,
44 Orthodox Tradition

who was then a Bishop in Western Europe, in which he expressed,

on his part, support for us and his readiness, if need be, to under-
take Consecrations of our clergy candidates. [Pictured below,
fourth from the left, is Saint John, standing among other Bishops
of the ROCA sympathetic to the Greek Old Calendarists.] From the
spring of 1958, through the intervention of the Russian ascetic,
Monk Father Anthony (Hagiosabbaïtes13), representatives of our

for the Russians living there in exile. He was soon elevated to the honor of
Orthodox Archbishop of China in 1946. When the Communists came to power
in China, he helped organize the exodus of his faithful to the West.
In the West, the future Saint served in Western Europe and the United
States, eventually taking his last post as Archbishop of San Francisco, where
he reposed. He is considered a Wonderworker throughout the Orthodox world,
and was even venerated in Russia for decades before the roca and the
Moscow Patriarchate opened communion. He is universally considered a spir-
itual sponsor of the Greek, Romanian, and Bulgarian Old Calendarists. He
was proclaimed a Saint by the roca in 1994, when Metropolitan Cyprian, First
Hierarch of one of the then-separated factions of the Old Calendar Orthodox
Church of Greece, the Synod in Resistance, and several Bishops of his Synod,
including those in the United States, were invited to his Glorification by Arch-
bishop Anthony of San Francisco (1908–2000), his successor. Several days
later, the roca opened full liturgical communion with the Synod in Resistance.
13
This monastic name signifies a monk of the Monastery of Saint Sabbas.
 Volume xxxvi, Number 2 45

Church came into contact with Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago

and Detroit (1897–1987),14 from the same Church, who showed
interest in helping us. Our correspondence with him continued
through 1959, with the perception that we were communicating
with an Archpastor who was in all things Orthodox, of one mind
with us, understood the needs of our times, and was willing to as-
sume, as his duty, responsibility for the Genuine Orthodox Chris-
tians of Greece. In this cause, it was not possible to receive
“official” help from anyone, save only individual Orthodox Bishops,
“spiritual individualists” with the zealous faith to take upon them-
selves the performance of our much-desired Consecrations. We
knew that this would agitate many and provoke turmoil on a wide
scale, as was ultimately the case.

II. The Consecration of Bishop Akakios of Talantion in 1960

Insomuch as the Russian Bishops, and indeed Bishop Seraphim
of Chicago and Detroit, were at the time (1959–1960) warned that
it was not possible for them to go to Greece in order to perform
Episcopal Consecrations, our clerical candidates had to find, by
every possible sacrifice, a way to get to America, overcoming the
frightful impediments put before them (persecutions, bans, surveil-
lance by the authorities, ill health, utter material deprivation, indi-
gence, etc.).
Finally, the only clergyman who could succeed in getting to
America, with a medical evaluation indicating that he needed to
deal with a serious health problem, was the elderly Archimandrite
Father Akakios (Pappas), who travelled in October of 1960 to
New York, along with his nephew, also named Archimandrite
14
While studying philosophy at Moscow University, Archbishop Sera-
phim (Ivanov), as a young man, was conscripted into the Russian Imperial
Army, interrupting his studies. Very shortly after the Russian Revolution, he
joined the White Army, with which he was evacuated to Serbia, where he
earned a theology degree at the University of Belgrade. Shortly thereafter, he
began teaching, but in 1926 left for Mount Athos, where he was tonsured a
monk at the Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon.
He was subsequently ordained a Hieromonk by the future Patriarch of
Serbia and formed a monastic brotherhood in Europe.
At the end of World War ii, Father Seraphim was Consecrated a Bishop for
the Russian communities in Chile, but emigrated to the United States, when he
was unable to take up his assignment in Chile. He served in several cities in the
United States until 1959, when he was made ruling Bishop of Chicago, Detroit,
and the Midwest, receiving the title of Archbishop in 1959. He reposed in 1987.
46 Orthodox Tradition

Father Akakios, having, with difficulty, previously secured funds

for their tickets (the Church’s philanthropic fund having been
emptied) through contributions from a nun, Eldress Meletia, and
a lay struggler, Konstantine Toutouzas of Thebes.
Again, since the official head of the roca (Metropolitan Anas-
tassy) had not agreed to carry out our request, for the reasons that
we set forth, refuge was sought in His Eminence, Archbishop
Seraphim of Chicago and Detroit, with whom we had corre-
sponded and who was empathetic and disposed to help us. He truly
bowed to the needs of his Greek brothers, taking into account the
critical nature of the situation and his responsibility as an Orthodox
Hierarch. Moreover, along with four other Hierarchs, including
Saint John, Archbishop of San Francisco, he had recently made
failed overtures to their Synod about the Consecration of Bishops
for the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece. So Archbishop
Seraphim of Chicago and Detroit appointed as his concelebrant
[for the Consecration of Archimandrite Akakios] the Romanian
Bishop of Sèvres15 (France), Teofil (Ionescu) (1894–1975)16—not
15
A suburb of Paris.
16
Bishop Teofil was born in Boboc, Romania. He received his Licentiate
in Theology from the Metropolitan Niphon Orthodox Theological Seminary
in Bucharest and his Master’s degree at the Faculté de Théologie Protestante
in Paris, France. He was ordained a Priest in 1921, when he was appointed Su-
perior of the Patriarchal School of Chant and Assistant Priest at the Patriarchal
Cathedral in Bucharest. In 1938, he was made Rector of the Romanian parish
in Paris and, in 1942, elevated to the rank of Mitred Archimandrite (an unusual
honor for the Romanian clergy).
After World War ii and the rise of Communism in Romania, he decided
to depart for the United States. The Romanians in Western Europe had formed
a Church in Exile in 1946 (centered at the Romanian Church in Paris), when
the Romanian Metropolitan in Western Europe, Visarion (Puiu) (1879–1964),
was sentenced to death in absentia by the Communist régime. They thus
placed themselves under the roca. In 1954, aging and unable to serve, Metro-
politan Visarion chose Archimandrite Teofil as his successor, and he was Con-
secrated by Metropolitan Visarion, Saint John of San Francisco (then assigned
to the roca in Western Europe), and Bishop Nathaniel (Lvov) (1906–1986),
then the Bishop of Carthage and Tunis.
Bishop Teofil assumed the direction of the Romanian parishes in Western
Europe and in the United States, which followed the New Calendar, since it had
been introduced early in the twentieth century in the Church of Romania. When
Bishop Teofil later began a course towards accepting the precepts of ecumenism,
remained supportive of the calendar change, and began to deviate from the tra-
ditionalist course of the roca, the saintly Metropolitan Philaret demanded an
explanation for his transgressions. As a result, in March of 1972, in a strange
volte-face, Teofil asked to be, and was, accepted into the Communist-controlled
Volume xxxvi, Number 2 47

a stridently stable traditionalist Hierarch—who nonetheless had

[Romanian] parishes in His Eminence’s diocese and happened, at
the time, to be in the canonical territory of his Ruling Bishop
[Archbishop Seraphim], to whom he was subject. [See Seraphim,
at left, and Teofil (in Paris), at center, below].

The Consecration of Akakios [at far right, above], the Greek

Bishop of Talantion, was conducted in a covert manner, during a
nighttime Divine Liturgy, at the Church of Saint Nicholas in De-
troit, Michigan, on December 9/22, 1960, in the presence of
Archimandrites Peter (Astyphides) (1915–1997)17 and Akakios
(Pappas) the Younger (1926–2019). Archbishop Seraphim did not
issue a certificate of Consecration until after May of 1964, when
the leadership of the roca was assumed by Metropolitan Philaret.
Not having, as is well known, the same reticent spirit as his pred-
ecessor, and choosing to follow a more decisive [and costly]
course, the new First Hierarch approved its issuance on Septem-
ber 23/October 6. Subsequently, as we shall soon see below,
under his influence, the roca also moved forward with the official

Romanian Patriarchate. Despite this, within a period of several months, he an-

nounced, first, that he wished to return to the roca, and then, once more, that
his desire was to align with the Patriarchate. The roca subsequently reduced
him to the rank of a monastic. The Romanian Patriarchate accepted him back
into its bosom as a Bishop.
At the end of his life, rumors circulated that Bishop Teofil, expressing re-
gret about his forays into innovation and ecumenism, confessed that he had
been compromised and manœuvred into his contradictory actions by the Ro-
manian Securitate (Communist secret police). The veracity of that claim has
never been verified as true or false, though there may be pertinent data in the
now open files of the Securitate.
17
Archimandrite Peter (or Petros), a former Athonite monk, was at the
time serving a parish that he established in Astoria, New York. He was later
appointed Synodal Exarch in America and Bishop of Astoria.
48 Orthodox Tradition

recognition of all the Consecrations for our Church that followed

that of Archbishop Akakios.
In any event, already at that time (1960) it was agreed that in
two years, after His Eminence, Bishop Akakios of Talantion had
met with other sympathetic Hierarchs from among the Russians,
there would take place the Consecration of the other candidates
recommended by the Greek Church.
The adversaries of this first Consecration, despite its retroactive
Synodal recognition, invoke the “letter” of the Holy Canons in
order to strike out at it, misunderstanding that canonical exactitude
applies to irenic periods in the life of the Church, not to periods of
persecution. The persecutors and those responsible for dividing the
Church by the introduction of the calendar reform, tramplers on
the Holy Canons, suddenly transformed themselves into our ac-
cusers, demanding precision in the case of our Consecrations! For-
tunately, however, we have similar precedents in Church history,
when out of necessity, in times of turmoil by reason of heretical
intrigue, there were deviations from canonical exactitude. (See the
Lives of Saint Eusebios of Samosata, John of Gothias, et al.). Even
in such circumstances as “banishment” (with Consecrations held
outside a Bishop’s territory and in a different ecclesiastical juris-
diction), such is wholly justified, as Saint Theodore the Studite un-
derscores (Patrologia Græca, Vol. xcix, cols. 1645–1648), with
reference to the relevant example of Saint Athanasios.
In the prevailing adverse conditions of the time, what was
able to be done was done by a miracle of God, and seemingly
tenuous canonical subtleties were later corrected and redressed
with the full blessing and protection of the Holy Synod (of the
roca). In order to understand and evaluate the Consecration of
Bishop Akakios of Talantion properly, it is not possible to con-
sider it in an isolated or organizational manner, but solely in the
context of the rightness and legitimacy of our Holy Struggle and
its significance in the life of the Church. It is natural for anyone
who does not embrace this principle, or who does not, as well,
keep in mind the historical context of that time, as we have gen-
erally summarized it, to founder in his dry rationalism and to ren-
der judgment and condemnation perfunctorily.
The reception of our Archpastor, His Eminence, Akakios of
Talantion, was regarded as a Paschal event, even though it took
place on the eve of the Feast of the Nativity(!), and as an indica-
tion of the establishment of the Holy Struggle by God and of His
Volume xxxvi, Number 2 49

overshadowing of it. Despite this fact, almost immediately a new

wave of persecution was unleashed, calling for his arrest, on be-
half of the New Calendar innovators, so as to show, thereby, their
endlessly oppressive disposition towards us! Our elderly Bishop
went into hiding for six months and God, once more by forewarn-
ings, protected him from his pursuers, so that the flame of the Hi-
erarchy might survive and be passed on in our martyric Church.
Vulgar attacks were orchestrated and directed against His Emi-
nence, our Archpastor, by the New Calendarist press, by apostate
clergy, and (as usual) enraged “Matthewites.” Nonetheless, de-
spite the uproar, the Grace of God brought respite to our Church,
even though we first went through fire and water.

III. The Consecrations of 1962

In the subsequent period, at the outset of 1962, on the recom-
mendation of His Eminence, Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago
and Detroit, who continued his constructive fraternal correspon-
dence with Bishop Akakios of Talantion, the latter initiated a cor-
respondence with Archbishop Leonty (Filippovich) of Chile and
Peru (1907–1971), an eminent member of the Holy Synod of the
Russian Church Abroad and a courageous Confessor and zealous
Hierarch formed by the leaders of the Catacomb Church of
Russia18 and linked by a fervent bond of friendship with the Holy
Archbishop John (Maximovitch).19 His Eminence, Archbishop
18
The underground Church in Russia, carrying out an active resistance to
the “official” Church under the atheistic Soviet régime, was a counterpart of
the roca, which was serving the émigré Russian community in the Free World.
19
Archbishop Leonty, a distant relative of Saint Athanasios of Brest, the
seventeenth-century Martyr of the violence attached to the Uniate movement,
began his Church service as a novice at the famous Kiev Caves Lavra. He later
completed his theological studies at the Moscow Theological Academy in the
tumultuous days after the Russian Revolution, when it operated in the worst
possible conditions. He personally witnessed the persecutions of the Church
in the pre-World War ii Soviet Union. When restrictions were later lifted to
some extent, he was Consecrated, in 1941, a Bishop at the celebrated Pochaev
Lavra. In 1943, when he went to the West, he was appointed to serve the roca
communities in Paraguay, Chile, and Peru. A man of deep spiritual sensitivities
and an intense inner life, as well as a firm opponent of the Moscow Patriar-
chate throughout his life, of late—and tragically in the style of Soviet revi-
sionist history—his memory and character have been sullied by various
“pro-Moscow” writers, who have tried to portray him as a maverick spiritual
figure or, by more benign academics, as a study in “Russian Orthodox non-
conformity.” The disgraceful, quasi-scholarly trend of his more extreme critics
50 Orthodox Tradition

Leonty expressed his eager willingness to aid his Greek co-reli-

gionists and co-struggling brothers in what was needful, and since
they were unable to travel to South America, he offered to travel
to Greece for this sacred aim. Again, vigorous efforts were ex-
pended, with all secrecy—lest the event be made widely known
and fail to come to fruition—to collect the required funds for se-
curing tickets for his arrival in Greece, since the charitable fund
of our Church remained exhausted.
At the invitation of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox
Christians and at the urging of the like-minded Archpastors in his
Synod, Archbishop Leonty of Chile and
Peru [see at left] arrived by air in Athens on
May 7/20, 1962, dressed as a simple monk!
He was transferred by a trusted layman to
the Monastery of Saint Nicholas in Paiania
(or Paeanea),20 where he was awaited. And
in the ensuing days, he proceeded, together
with Bishop Akakios of Talantion, in a small
Chapel dedicated to Saint Menas, at the
monastery in question (taking every precau-
tionary measure) with the Consecrations of
Bishops Parthenios (Skourles) of the Cy-
clades Islands, Auxentios (Pastras) of Gardikion, Chrysostomos
(Naslimes) of Magnesia, and then, in sequence, Bishops Akakios
(Pappas) the Younger of Diauleia (the only presently living one
among them21) and Gerontios (Marioles) of Salamina. To each
Bishop, in turn, there was given the appointed Certificate of Con-
secration, signed by His Eminence, Archbishop Leonty.
At a meeting of the roca Synod in America, a few months
later, in the fall of 1962, notwithstanding the critical reaction of
Metropolitan Anastassy, His Eminence, Archbishop Leonty
forcefully upheld the canonicity of these Consecrations, and in
this he found worthy supporters from those who had already done

is reflected in the sometimes banal and less than objective or erudite Internet
resource, “Orthodox Wiki,” where an entry on his life and work—“Leonty (Fil-
ippovich) of Chile”—taken from a very positive appraisal published by The
Orthodox Word (Vol. 17, No. 4 [1981]), is flagged with a disingenuous and,
for a putative encyclopedic resource, self-diminishing caveat: “This article or
section represents an Old Calendarist perspective, which may differ from an
Eastern Orthodox understanding.”
20
A suburb of Athens.
21
His Eminence has since reposed; see his obituary in the present issue.
Volume xxxvi, Number 2 51

so, such as Saint John (Maximovitch), Archbishop of San Fran-

cisco, His Eminence, Archbishop Averky (Taushev) of Syracuse
and Holy Trinity (1906–1976),22 and others. [See the original six
members of the Greek Synod below.]

In Greece, on the other hand, the severe attacks against His

Eminence, Archbishop Leonty and the Consecrations which he
helped perform were especially frenzied amidst those very same
circles that set themselves against the Consecration of His Emi-
nence, Bishop Akakios of Talantion. Our Church, wholly unex-
pectedly from a human standpoint, and despite the suffocating
pressures against such, had acquired a Holy Synod of Hierarchs,
undertaking blessed pastoral and confessional work of an ame-
liorative kind, something that both our New Calendarist pursuers
and irregular and raucous independents and renegades, as well
as the “Matthewite” Old Calendarists, could not digest.
There surged against His Eminence, Archbishop Leonty the
accusation that he was “Latin-minded”(!),23 since a photograph

22
Archbishop Averky was Abbot of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jor-
danville, New York. He escaped from Russia in 1920, after the Revolution, and
settled in Bulgaria, where he completed his theological education at the Uni-
versity of Sofia. He became a monk in 1931, was later ordained a Priest, served
several parishes in Western Europe, taught at schools in the Russian émigré
community in Europe, and, in 1951, was assigned to teach at the Holy Trinity
Monastery in Jordanville, where he was also Consecrated to the Episcopacy.
A zealous defender of the primacy of Orthodoxy, he was deeply interested in
the Church’s eschatology, showed remarkable administrative gifts, and was a
strict but loving and much-loved pastor.
23
I.e., disposed towards the union of the Orthodox Church and the Roman
Catholic Church, or the relinquishment of claims of ecclesiological primacy
52 Orthodox Tradition

of him was in circulation that showed him at the burial of a

Roman Catholic Cardinal in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1959, which
he attended briefly, since, as a visitor, he was obliged, by reason
οf clearly social and ceremonial convention, to convey condo-
lences to the state authorities during the time allotted to attendees
at the funeral, and then leave. He took part in no religious services.
This constituted no sort of canonical infraction, but a duty to ob-
serve social convention [and rubrics of Christian charity], and es-
pecially in Latin-dominated South America. His Eminence,
Archbishop Leonty never took part in any ecumenical celebration
or meeting, but he did expand his missionary activities among
the Orthodox and Roman Catholics, whom, when they came into
Orthodoxy, he Baptized, as this untainted and sincere struggler
for the Faith succinctly affirms:
I have always been a genuine Orthodox Christian, and in genuineness
will I expire; I have never betrayed my faith under fearful persecution
in Russia, and with the help of God, neither will I betray it here.
Some from among our adversaries, then and later, have
unashamedly condemned our Consecrations as simoniacal,24 that
is, that they came about by an exchange of money. However. that
accusation is wholly false and unfounded, since there was not
even enough money in our Church for the purchase of the needed
airplane tickets for the coming and going of our Godly benefactor.
Elsewhere, it has been vehemently stated in writing by our
Church leaders that
Archbishop Leontios’ expenses for his coming [to Greece] and re-
turn [to South America], and for accommodating him here [in
Greece], were handled by a special account, which is at the disposal
of every skeptic. In it, there is no reference even to a penny given
to Archbishop Leonty for Consecrations.
In the Greek daily Ethnos25 it was reported, among other
things, that

by the Orthodox Church to the latter. It is often argued by Orthodox, as it was

historically by many Protestants, that the acceptance of the Gregorian, or Papal,
Calendar in the sixteenth century was a capitulation to the primacy of the
Roman Pontiff. In that sense, the accusation here is especially ludicrous.
24
From “simony,” or the purchase of religious rites, privileges, or positions
by the direct payment of money or some other quid pro quo associated with
the acquisition of a religious position or title.
25
“The Nation,” a Greek newspaper founded in 1930, closed in 1970 by
the Greek military junta, and then started up again as a tabloid in 1981.
Volume xxxvi, Number 2 53

the Synod of the official [New Calendarist] Church [of Greece] has
been preoccupied with the issue of the recent Consecration of Old
Calendarist Metropolitans [Bishops], who were consecrated by the
Russian Bishop Leonty, residing in America, who belongs to the
Church of the White Russian [Metropolitan] Anastassy and who is
recognized by the Œcumenical Patriarchate [eo tempore26]. Let it
be well noted that the problem of the canonicity of the Consecra-
tions of the Old Calendarist Bishops of Greece, from the standpoint
of ecclesiastical administration, is still a prickly one.27
Consequently, then, the status of matters has been well known to
the New Calendarists themselves from that time forward, as re-
gards [the legitimacy of] our Episcopal Consecrations.

IV. Synodal Ratification

The innovators certainly, for the self-evident reasons of deny-
ing the truth, advanced—in the past and today—views and ac-
tions insulting to the Grace of the Holy Spirit, as evidenced in
Scripture: “When an ungodly man cometh into the depth of evils,
he sheweth contempt” (Proverbs 18:3 [lxx]).
However, the roca retroactively declared by official confir-
mation and ratifications all the aforementioned concerning our
Consecrations, so that not an inch of space was left for any arbi-
trariness whatsoever or vile gossip from anyone whomsoever.
So it was that, in a letter to the Archbishop of our Church,
Auxentios (Pastras) (1912–1994)28—the successor, from the end
of 1963, of Akakios of Talantion—the Holy Metropolitan Philaret
of blessed memory,29 on December 15/28, 1967, affirmed to
26
The Œcumenical Patriarchate rightly considered the roca to be the le-
gitimate Church of Russia at the time of the Russian Revolution. In the course
of political realignments, and as the traditionalist mentality of the émigré Hi-
erarchs came to confront the modernist, ecumenical, and innovative spirit of
much of “official” Orthodoxy in the West, this warm attitude cooled.
27
The problem for the State Church was the presence of these valid
[though dissenting] Bishops [Hierarchs with Apostolic Succession] in the
Church of Greece, which it naturally considered its “canonical” territory.
28
The second Bishop in order of Consecration by Archbishop Leonty of
Chile and Peru and Bishop Akakios of Talanton in 1962 and the second Pres-
ident of the Synod of Bishops of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Chris-
tians of Greece, Archbishop Auxentios became a monk at a very young age.
Originally a follower of Bishop Matthew, who ordained him a Hierodeacon
and Hieromonk in 1938, he rejected Matthew’s single-handed Consecrations
in 1949, placing himself under Saint Chrysostomos, former Metropolitan of
Phlorina.
54 Orthodox Tradition

Auxentios that his predecessor, His Eminence, Archbishop

Akakios, had been Consecrated by two Hierarchs of Metropolitan
Philaret’s Synod, namely Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago and
Detroit and Bishop Teofil, who was responsible for the Romanian
parishes in the roca, and thus, on the part of the roca, there was
no doubt at all about the validity of the Consecration of Bishop
Akakios of Talantion (see The Voice of Orthodoxy [in Greek],
№ 662 [December 12, 1972], p. 5).
Metropolitan Philaret, in another epistle of his, once again
addressed to our Archbishop Auxentios, underscored that the
roca recognized the validity of the Episcopal Consecrations of
Archbishop Akakios and of those of the subsequent Bishops of
our Church. Moreover, the Greek Hierarchy [he pointed out] was
considered a Brother Hierarchy in full communion with the Russ-
ian Church Abroad (see The Voice of Orthodoxy [in Greek],
№ 569 [July 1, 1969], p. 5).
As well, on December 18/31, 1969, there was issued a Syn-
odal Act recognizing the Episcopal Consecrations of our Church,
and [stating] that the Hierarchy of our Churches were considered
Brothers in Christ and in full communion with one another. The
Act was signed by the Holy Metropolitan Philaret and ten other
Hierarchs of the roca (see The Voice of Orthodoxy [in Greek],
29
Metropolitan Philaret was born in Kursk, Russia. In, 1920, his family
fled to the Russian enclave in Harbin, Manchuria, from the wartime violence
in their homeland. Within a year, his mother died and his father, a Priest, be-
came a monk. (His father was later Consecrated Bishop of Hailar.) The future
Saint Philaret was educated in Harbin, receiving, in 1927, a degree in engi-
neering at the Polytechnic Institute and, in 1931, a degree in pastoral studies
from the Saint Vladimir’s Institute of Theology. Upon graduation, he was ton-
sured a monk and subsequently, in 1932, a Hieromonk.
In 1937, Father Philaret was raised to the rank of Archimandrite and
served the faithful and taught at the Saint Vladimir’s Theological Institute until
the mid-1940s, when his anti-Communist sentiments led to an attempt to burn
him to death in his cell, an assault which he survived (with serious injuries)
and which led to his escape to the West.
In 1963, the future Metropolitan was made Bishop of Brisbane, Australia,
where he served the Russian émigré community, and in 1964 he was elected
the third First Hierarch of the roca. He is widely revered by the Greek Old
Calendarists for the rôle that he played in the recognition of their Consecra-
tions by his Church. He has been proclaimed a Saint by those roca clergy and
faithful who did not accept the union of the roca with the Patriarchate of
Moscow in 2007 (vide supra, passim, footnote 7), and, indeed, in 2012 even
the roca Bishops aligned with Moscow after 2007 established a committee
to investigate the possibility of his Glorification.
Volume xxxvi, Number 2 55

№ 585–586 [March 1, 1970], p. 8). After all of this, it should be

obvious to all that the Apostolic Succession of our Church is
wholly established and proven, sealed by divine signs, solid, and
indubitable. [Below, at left, His Eminence, Metropolitan Philaret,
now considered by many a Confessor of the Orthodox Church,
with the late Archbishop Auxentios of the Church of the Genuine
Orthodox Christians of Greece, who shepherded his flock through
a period of years wrought with turmoil, divisions, arduous trials,
and human errors, but marked by sacrificial service and a hope
for the future that proved fruitful.]

All of those who have assailed or assail our Church, wishing

to turn a blind eye and to sin, “are of themselves condemned” (St.
Titus 3:11).
56 Orthodox Tradition

To us, the humble and unworthy, though richly shown mercy

by God, it remains to render to our benefit, with fear and trem-
bling, such inestimable divine gifts, thanking our Gift-Bestowing
God and showing ourselves to be good stewards of His diverse
Grace, that we might continue in the salvific work of the Church:
in all ways upholding the purity of the Faith, being transmitters
of Divine blessings, and struggling against every threat, schism,
and heresy, yet beholden to all those who bequeathed to us Apos-
tolic Succession and honored, preserved, and passed it on.
[See immediately below, the Synodal Act by which the Russ-
ian Orthodox Church Abroad opened full communion with the
Greek “Old Calendarist” Church and the two bodies recognized
one another as Sister Churches.]

* The Greek word in the upper right-hand corner identifies the

document from which this copy was made as the prototype.