...Some Correspondence to Consider, Fr. Mark Smith
https://priest-mark.livejournal.com/2815.html
Dear Stavros,
Do you have a different version of this story?:
"Knowing the history of a man can always help us understand him more. If one goes to the Holy Mountain, one can find disciples from the line of Vicar-Bishop Matthew. When Vicar-Bishop Matthew was on the Holy Mountain, as a priest, he had a disciple named Fr. Damaskinos, who in turn had a synodia, which now survives in Katounakia, and is led by Fr. Augustine. Father Augustine would relate how his elder, Fr. Damaskinos, explained how the elder Matthew left Mount Athos. This is the story:
When Fr. Matthew was asked to leave Mount Athos for Athens to help in the sacred struggle of the Old Calendarists, he was tormented by this decision, as any Athonite monk would be. The cause was good, but he was an Athonite monk, and if this wasn't the will of God, he could perish. At length he went to his spiritual father, and asked his advice. His spiritual father, in a gentle way, told him 'No', saying, "My son, you have made progress by your monastic life here. You are a priest, and have a disciple, and are able to advance more in the spiritual life. You are a simple man, though, and the world is very complicated. If you leave the Holy Mountain, you will be tricked, and you will fall. Do not leave.
Later, the priest-monk Matthew made his decision, and disobeyed his spiritual father and left Mount Athos for Athens. Any man who wishes can go to the Holy Mountain and check this out themselves from the disciples of Fr. (later-Vicar-Bishop) Matthew. They are still alive. Like so many who have left the Holy Mountain in disobedience, this tells us much about the character of Vicar-Bishop Matthew. He did not believe the monastic axiom: "Obedience is life. Disobedience is death."
Dear Father Mark,
The statement you quoted is clearly falsification and Florinite propaganda. By this time St. Matthew had already been the spiritual father and confessor of three entire Monasteries (Megisti Lavra, Grigoriou and Xenophontos). He did not just have one disciple as the below version of the story stupidly suggests, but he rather had hundreds of spiritual children on Mt. Athos and thousands throughout Greece. Also this Damaskinos they mention was not even one of Bishop Matthew's close spiritual children, and he was a Matthewite for the majority of his life and only became a Florinite in the 1980s. Even still, Damaskinos never slandered Bishop Matthew. I have an open letter written by Damaskinos in which he praises 'Matthew of Bresthena, Germanos of the Cyclades and Chrysostom of Florina' has the three Holy Hierarchs of the 20th Century. In other words, Damaskinos went from being a Matthewite to being an old-calendarist ecumenist, placing truth and falsehood together by imagining that the blaspheming Sergianist Chrysostom of Florina could ever be styled a holy hierarch. The claim that Damaskinos wrote the quoted slander against Bishop Matthew is definitely a Florinite falsification.
More proof that the quote is false is the fact that St. Matthew had already been given the blessing to leave Mt. Athos almost 20 years earlier than the time described in the slanderous story. Around the year 1910, the Sacred Community of Mt. Athos voted St. Matthew to be their representative to the laity of Greece, to preach to them and teach them the ways of piety, for St. Matthew was well known throughout Mt. Athos and Greece as being very holy. He lived in a cave at St. Basil's desert on Athos for several years. He performed miracles and fulfilled prophecies while he was still alive! He was already known during the 1910s as 'O Agıos Pateras,' the Holy Father.
In 1910 he was blessed by the Community of Mt Athos to travel around Greece preaching the Divine Word, like a new St. Kosmas Aitolos. While in Greece he founded a very large Church in Navplion, he built it from scratch, and people throughout Peloponnese would visit his parish to hear him preach and for him to pray for them and heal their sicknesses by God's grace. During this time he also became the Spiritual Father of the Pantanassa Convent in the ancient walled city of Mistras, near Sparta and Bresthena. This Convent is still Matthewite today.
He then founded another large Church and parish in Athens, which is also extant. It was at this time that the Orthodox Christians of Athens experienced his holiness. St. Matthew then became closely acquainted wıth St. Nectarios, and St. Nectarios gave his epigonatıon to St. Matthew as a blessing. This epigonation can be venerated today at Keratea Convent. St. Nectarios also elevated St. Matthew to the rank of Archimandrite.
However, when Metaxakis uncanonically usurped the throne of Athens, and when the persecution against St. Nectarıos began, St. Matthew was disgusted by this and returned to Mt. Athos so he could live ın peace, away from the Church politics. However, he kept in touch with his spiritual children in Greece through letters, many of which are extant.
In 1924 when the new calendar was uncanonically introduced, the zealots of Mt. Athos were LED by St. Matthew, yes, LED BY HIM, because they all acknowledged his spirituality. Also assisting him was the simple monk, Arsenios Kotteas, who agreed with him originally, but later, in the 1940s Arsenios switched over to the Florinites because St. Matthew believed in the sainthood of St. Nectarios, while Chrysostom of Florina and Arsenios Kotteas didn't. Thus the Athonites had been broken into two groups, the Matthewites under St. Matthew who was living in Athens by this time, and the Florinites under the deluded Arsenios Kotteas, who later even left the Florinites and founded a priestless jurisdiction called the Kotteates. This faction still exists today on Athos.
Anyway, St. Matthew was invited to Athens in 1927 not merely to assist the sacred struggle, but to LEAD IT!!! He thus became the LEADER of the Sacred Struggle, and it was under his care that between 1927 and 1935 the Old Calendarists multiplied to include over 800 parishes throughout Greece.
In 1935 Bishops Germanos of Demetrias and Chrysostom of Zakynthos, together with the retired former bishop of Florina, Chrysostom, joined the sacred Struggle. By this time, Chrysostom of Florina was merely a suffragan and could not perform the acts of a bishop because he was retired and did not have a current see. The canons forbid retired bishops from occupying any role in the Synod or from ordaining bishops or even priests, because they are no longer valid bishops after retirement, but only retain the title of former bishop as an act of respect to their person, and are allowed to take part in ecclesiastical acts as witnesses but not as actual performers of the act.
Therefore, when the two bishops and the one FORMER bishop joined the sacred struggle, they read their confession openly before St. Matthew, and it was he, as leader of the Sacred Struggle in Greece and Athos, who received them back into communion with whatever level of priesthood they had prior to their loss of grace in 1924 when they fell into schism. Thus Germanos was received as a Bishop, Chrysostom of Florina was received as a FORMER BISHOP, and Chrysostom of Zaktynthos was received as an Archımandrıte who had been consecrated to the episcopacy by schismatics (he had been consecrated after 1924). Following this Bishop Germanos of Demetrias became the sole canonical active bishop of the G.O.C. He thus assumed the position of President and first-hierarch of the G.O.C. and St. Matthew handed the 800 parishes into Bishop Germanos's care. Immediately after this, on the same day, Bishop Germanos, as a valid acting bishop, together with former bishop Chrysostom of Florina, acting only as a witness, read a cheirothesia on Bishop Chrysostom of Zakynthos and elevated him to the rank of a canonical bishop. These two canonical bishops and the one retired bishop, then consecrated four more bishops. All of the bishops were given ruling diocesan titles and were given different parts of Greece to shepherd.
Germanos of Demetrias was to be commemorated within Thessaly and Macedonia, and Athens only for as long as he was President.
Chrysostom of Florina was retired and therefore was not commemorated in any region unless he was visiting a particular parish. He thus held the rank of merely a suffragan with no diocese and no canonical episcopal rights except for the title 'former metropolitan.'
Chrysostom of Zakynthos was to be commemorated on the Ionian Islands
Germanos of the Cyclades was to be commemorated on the Aegean Islands
Christopher of Megara was to be commemorated in Western Attica region
Polycarp of Diavlia was to be commemorated in northern Continental Greece (Thebes, Levadıa, Lamia, etc)
Matthew of Bresthena was commemorated in the entire Peloponnese region, where he had previously founded parishes and convents and had a large spiritual following, was well as in Crete, his homeland. He was also commemorated in the three parishes he founded in Athens as well as in the Keratea Convent and Kouvara Monastery in Eastern Attica region. He was given the title Bresthena because this is an ancient title in Peloponnese which is situated in the hill country between Navplion and Mistras, Navplion being where the large Church St. Matthew founded was, and Mistras being where the famous Convent of Panagia Pantanassa was located, both being under his spiritual care. Also, his homeland of Crete, where he also had several spiritual children and at least 20 parishes at this time, is located just across the sea to the south. When Chrysostom of Florina created the Florinite schismato-heresy in 1937, the ENTIRE regions of Peloponnese (Corinth, Patras, Messenia, Sparta, Navplion, Arcadia, Elis) and the island of Crete remained under their canonical ruling bishop, St. Matthew of Bresthena. Thus until the Kallistite schism in 1979, the vast majorıty of Peloponnesian and Cretan Old Calendarists were Matthewites. All of the current Florinite parishes in Peloponnese are those stolen from the Matthewites by Kallistos of Corinth, and later stolen from Kallistos by Kallinikos Sarantopoulos, current bishop of Achaia in the Kiousis Synod.
The bishops consecrated in 1935 were thus by no means suffragans, but ruling bishops. The only suffragan was Chrysostom of Florina himself, who, being retired, was only a former bishop with no canonical rıghts.
When the consecrations of 1935 were announced by the Holy Synod, the first three bishops were only mentioned by name, but when they mentioned Bishop Matthew, they wrote (my paraphrase as I am in Turkey at the moment and do not have the document with me):
'We then consecrated Hieromonk Matthew as Bishop of the once in ancient times glorious diocese of Bresthena, a man well-known for his great piety, much holiness and many spiritual gifts, and for his great service to the Orthodox Church and the Sacred Struggle.'
I also have a letter that Chrysostom of Florina sent to Bishop Matthew in 1935, where Chrysostom praises him continuously. Then suddenly when Chrysostom BETRAYED the Sacred Struggle and began working for the Greek government to submit the old calendarists to the new-calendarist state Church, suddenly the Confessor-Bishop Matthew began to be called unworthy and stupid, and all these lies and slander began on the part of the Florinites. Meanwhile Chrysostom of Florina petitioned for the old calendarists to be forcefully submitted to the state church, for the new calendar to be implemented by force if the synod decided this, for the Keratea Convent to be abolished, and he also praised Stalin and praised Sergius Stragorodsky for his declaration of 1927, and he was also involved with left-wing political parties, and despite the fact that Chrysostom was a TRAITOR, a WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING and a SERGIANIST to boot, the Florinites lift him up to the seventh heaven, believing that despite all of these heresies, Chrysostom is somehow infallible like some kind of 'old calendar pope'.
Yet whereas St. Matthew held the true confession until his last breath (something Chrysostom FAILED TO DO), past down the apostolic succession to the next generation (something Chrysostom FAILED TO DO), and also guarded the Church from the heresy of Sergianism (something Chrysostom FAILED TO DO), yet they completely turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to St. Matthew's ORTHODOX example, and instead come up with all manner of slander and every kind of lie their demon-possessed minds can conceive.
A lengthy book with all the lives of the new Matthewite Saints will soon be published (there are almost 30 of these new saints). It will include several documents including photocopies of original documents in Greek as well as English translations of the same which will verify EVERY SINGLE STATEMENT MADE ABOVE concerning the holiness of Bishop Matthew as well as EXPOSING the truth about the traitor Chrysostom of Florina with his own words, ı.e., letters Chrysostom of Florina himself had sent to the government, to the state church and to Bishop Matthew and others, proving that Chrysostom of Florina's true desire was to destroy the Sacred Struggle from within.
Unlike the Florinites who cannot find one true fault against Bishop Matthew and therefore resort to LIES and SLANDER that cannot be verified, this book will include ACTUAL DOCUMENTS that prove Chrysostom was a traitor and false-bishop while Bishop Matthew was a True Confessor.
Another interesting note is that the Kiousis Synod's Bishop Kallinikos Sarantopoulos sent a letter to the Matthewite Synod in 1998, in which he writes that he recognizes 'the Matthewite Synod as the true successors of Bishop Matthew, a holy man.' YES!!! A Florinite Bishop, and the most ANTI-MATTHEWITE Bishop among them (!!!), even confesses openly that Bishop Matthew was A HOLY MAN!! Therefore all other Florinites should swallow their tongues before daring to slander St. Matthew the New Confessor.
When the book is published all of these questions will be answered for anyone who reads the documents contained therein.
In Christ,
Stavros
Also See:
The Life of Saint Matthew the New Confessor (1861-1950), Mercian Monks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbeQtJaFShU
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