Mathewite Synod

The Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece (Greek: Ἐκκλησία Γνησίων Ὀρθοδόξων Χριστιανῶν), also known as the True Orthodox Church of Greece, and Matthewites is a Greek Orthodox Old Calendarists jurisdiction, which broke with the main body of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece, known as the Florinites, in 1937 under their leader Bishop Matthew (Karpathakis), due to a dispute over the nature of grace in the sacraments of the official New Calendarist Church of Greece. They are traditional Orthodox Christians upholding their faith against renovationist and ecumenist innovations.

The Matthewites are widely regarded as the most intransigent of the claimants of the Old Calendarist legacy; they are hostile to World Orthodoxy, regard it's sacraments as completely graceless and are unwilling to give communion to New Calendarists. The Cyprianites of the defunct Synod in Resistance, on the other side, accept greace among the New Calendarists, while still opposing ecumenism and renovationism. The main body of the Old Calendarists, the Florinites, considered by Matthewites as Crypto-Cyprianites, fall somewhere between the two.

From 1971 to 1974, the Matthewites established communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia under then Metropolitan Philaret, which was first based at Sremski Karlovci, Serbia. The ROCOR had already established communion with the Florinites, and in hopes of unifying the Greeks, the Matthewites gave ROCOR their Exposition of Faith, which ROCOR accepted. The Florinites were outraged that ROCOR was going to accept the Matthewites without re-ordination. So ROCOR offered to give the Matthewite bishops a "blessing". The Matthewites are adamant that this was neither a Chirotonia nor a Chirothesia, but a mere blessing as it took place before the liturgy, with the Bishops already vested. This issue was to cause problems in the future both for the communion and later cause a schism in the Matthewite synod itself. Because ROCOR never submitted their own Statement of Faith to the Matthewite synod, they broke off communion in 1974 with ROCOR.

Throughout much of their history, unlike the Florinites, the Matthewites were free from the problem of major factionalism. This would change in 1995 under Archbishop Andreas (Anestis). Firstly the so-called Gregorian Synod split away with five bishops led by Bishop Gregory (Rousis) over the issue of the "God the Father" icon, and also taught that the 1971 ROCOR blessing was in fact a Chirothesia.

Then in 2003, the Synod without full participation of all members voted to retire Archbishop Andreas (Anestis) and install as Archbishop Nicholas (Messiakaris). By 2005 after the death of Archbishop Andreas (Anestis) the split was complete, and a new Synod which did not recognize the forced retirement was formed under Kirykos (Kontogannis). The Nicholation Synod accpepted the '71 blessing as a Chirothesia, denies the Church is eternal rather than formed at Pentecost, and under it's present Archbishop, Stephanos (Tsakiroglu) has been found in secret talks with Florinite bishops.

The Kirykos Synod rejects the 1971 blessing as anything but a mere blessing, rejects the Western God the Father icons, but does allow them for personal use, and does not claim as heretical the theologoumenon that the Church is eternal and existed before Pentecost.

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Primates

Portrait	Name	From	Until	Notes
80px	Matthew Karpathakis Archbishop of Athens and All Greece	1949	1950	Leader of the Matthewite faction against the Florinites, breaking with the GOC under Chrysostomos I Kavouridis since 1943, made Archbishop in 1949. Originally the Bishop of Bresthena.
80px	Demetrios Archbishop of Athens and All Greece	1950	1958	Previously the Metropolitan of Thessalonica.
80px	Agathangelos Archbishop of Athens and All Greece	1958	1967	Previously the Bishop of Tinos.
80px	Andreas Anestis Archbishop of Athens and All Greece	1972	2003	Due to ill health, he stepped down two years before his death. In 1995, the Gregorian Synod split, taking five bishops (over icon).

External links

• Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians in the United States at Orthodox-Christianity.net
• The Holy Synod at gnisios.narod.ru
• Comunione Vetero-Calendarista Matteita (Sinodo di Nicola II) at Atlas of Church
• Matthewites by Archbishop Gregory George (critical view from rival Genuine Orthodox Church of America)
• A Short History of the True Orthodox Church of Greece, 1969-2005 by Vladimir Moss