Talk:True Orthodox church

Tagged for conflict of interest

Conflict of interest has been detected: FrJosephSuaiden declares that he is a deacon of a True Orthodox church. Elizium23 (talk) 23:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia guidelines here I am declaring an interest. [1]

My name is Deacon Joseph Suaiden. As declared previously, I am a clergyman of the Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia of North and South America and the British Isles. I am one of approximately 40 clergy of said Church and one of hundreds of True Orthodox clergy of all levels throughout the 125-150 True Orthodox parishes in the United States.

I have been posting to Wikipedia for years and by this statement of intent am committed to preserving both accuracy and NPOV. I will take extra care to be as factually accurate as possible, and ask all Wikipedians here to correct me when I fail in that accuracy. FrJosephSuaiden (talk) 23:49, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

References

Old Calendarists, True Orthodoxy: same thing?

According to the information I have added from a RS yesterday (The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity), Old Calendarists (including Greek Old Calendarists) and True Orthodoxy are the exact same same thing. "True Orthodox" seems to refer to a quite broad movement.
@Чръный человек, Lipsio, Sawyer-mcdonell, and Ribose carb: what do you think: should the three pages be merged, or is there other RSs which distinguish between the two movements? Veverve (talk) 14:09, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

• The term "Old Calendarists" means "True Orthodox" in those local churches that have switched to the Revised Julian calendar. Only in one case the terms are not synonymous: When the Finnish Orthodox Church switched to a new style, there was a powerful opposition to this. However, in Finland, the calendar reform not lead to a schism. Two parishes that did not want to accept the calendar reform moved to the Moscow Patriarchate after World War II. ~ Чръный человек (talk) 14:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
• They're very similar but ultimately have different origins and contexts. A good demonstration is that another name for Old Calendarists is Greek Old Calendarists. OC originates from Greek opposition to the adoption to the Revised Julian Calendar, while TO movements arise from particular controversies in each respective church (Sergianism in Russia and Serbia, ecumenism in the West). I think that combining the pages would do a disservice to the history of these two groups. You would also need to pick a name for the proposed article comprising both OC and TO, and that would be inherently biased, to say nothing of the fact that members of both groups would see it as misrepresentation. Ribose carb (talk) 15:06, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
• Methinks there is too much overlap to justify two separate articles.

I do not like the title "Old Calendarists" and believe it should be modied somehow because much of the mainstream Orthodox Church uses the Julian Calendar; also, there are parts of the Patriarchate of Constantinople that use the Julian Calendar, e.g., Mount Athos and some formerly schismatic groups that have been received back into the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Vincent J. Lipsio (talk)

@Чръный человек, Lipsio, Sawyer-mcdonell, and Ribose carb: I have made some research.

A source claims that "True Orthodox Christians" is the name the traditionalist movement, which refused to adopt the "Gregorian calendar" the E. Orthodox as a whole adopted, gave itself. The source states "Old Calendarism" is the name the opponents to those traditionalists used to designate them. (fr:Frédéric Luz, Le soufre & l'encens : Enquête sur lés Eglises parallèles et les évêques dissidents, Paris, Claire Vigne, coll. « La Place Royale », 1995, p. 37; my translation). Most information in this section of the source are quite erroneous, but we still get one same information: that True Orthodoxy and Old Calendarism are the same thing.

The Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition also seems to state in various places that Greek Old Calendarism and True Orthodoxy are the same thing.

Prokurat, Michael; et al., eds. (1996). "SECTS". Historical dictionary of the Orthodox church. Scarecrow Press. pp. 295 states: "In modern Greece, the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in the 1920s led to "Old calendarist" groups (or "True Orthodox," by their own reckoning) which have since fractured into at least half a dozen competing groups."

The Orthodox Church by Kallistos Ware states: "Sometimes it [the Catacomb Church] was called 'True Orthodox Church'." The book mentions Old Calendarists, but does not call them True Orthodox.

Ware, Kallistos (2002). "Old Calendarists". In Clogg, Richard (ed.). Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 2: "They [the Old Calendarists in Greece] call themselves Gnisioi Orthodoxoi Christianoi, the 'True Orthodox Christians' of the Greek land."

I found no mention of Old Calendarists or True Orthodox in the The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd edition) and in the The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology . Old Calendarist are briefly mentioned once in the The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church ("Greece" article, p. 483) without any explanation of who they are apart from implying they refused the "adoption of the Gregorian calendar by the Church of Greece".

If you have any information from a RS on the subject of whether or not True Orthodoxy and Old Calendarism are the same thing, feel free to share it (them). Veverve (talk) 16:50, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I found none of the two names in J. C. Cooper's Dictionary of Christianity(Routledge). Veverve (talk) 17:21, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

From what I read in this official declaration from 2011, it seems Old Calendarist churches of Bulgaria, of the Avlona Synod, of the Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia of North and South America and the British Isles, and of the Russian True Orthodox Church (Raphaelites) call themselves "True Orthodox". Veverve (talk) 23:25, 13 November 2021 (UTC)