The Calendar Question

--- A Classic Defense of the Old Calendar, proving it is part of the Tradition of the Church, by Fr. Basile Sakkas
https://www.hotca.org/orthodoxy/orthodox-awareness/203-the-calendar-question

***This link to the schismatic HOTCA website is recommended only for its English translation of The Calendar Question, which can be accessed for free.  Though Fr. Basile thoroughly explains the importance of the Church's ecclesiastical calendar, one should keep in mind that he was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), which never condemned the new calendar schism.  Fr. Basile also remained devoted to his Bishop, Anthony of Geneva, the ROCOR ecumenist who fought the condemnation of the new calendar.  

In 1935, the Genuine Orthodox Church in Greece synodally condemned those who adopt the "Revised Julian Calendar" as graceless schismatics:

Pastoral Encyclical to the Orthodox Greek People - 1935
http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/1935encyclical.htm

When one refuses to condemn a schism, but rather communes with schismatics (as ROCOR has done from the beginning), he becomes a schismatic himself.  But in the wake of ROCOR's condemnation of the Ecumenical Patriarch for his 1965 lifting of the anathema against Rome, the GOC had reason to hope that ROCOR would finally condemn, rather than tolerate, the abandonment of the ecclesiastical calendar.  

In 1971, the Genuine Orthodox Church (GOC) of Greece (Matthewite Synod) entered into communion with the ROCOR after the Synod agreed whole-heartedly with the GOC's Confession of Faith.  ROCOR then promised to confirm its verbal agreement with the GOC in an official statement condemning the new calendar as schismatic and therefore graceless.  In light of this, The Calendar Question was originally a 1972 report submitted to the secretary (Bp. Vitaly) of ROCOR, to be addressed at its next synodal meeting.  ROCOR could not reach a consensus, however.  In 1975, the Synod finally replied to the GOC, saying that though the abandonment of the ecclesiastical calendar caused a schism, ROCOR still would not make a determination as to the presence of grace among the New Calendarists.  So, in 1976 the GOC broke communion with the schismatic ROCOR.  See:

The G.O.C. and R.O.C.O.R. - 1971
http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/rocor1971.htm