Introduction

Orthodox Christians living in the West have benefited from

certain relative freedoms available to them which were not
available in the Old World. However, with these new
opportunities came new challenges. Especially after the confusion
of the October Revolution in 1917, the Orthodox Church in the
West became jurisdictionally fragmented, and in the midst of this
disorder arose competing bishops and jurisdictionsa canonical
irregularity and a serious scandal to all conscientious Christians.
With no governmental authority to intervene, and given the chaos
that was prevalent in many of the Old World patriarchates due to
war and upheaval, the reality of an unhealthy situation was
accepted as unavoidable. Out of this confusion arose bishops who
were no longer affiliated with any established Orthodox synod or
local church, and dozens of independent parishes.
An equally serious setback for Orthodoxy occurred in 1924, when
the Church of Greece unilaterally altered the Festal Calendar,
replacing it with a hybrid system which maintained the Orthodox
Paschalion while replacing the fixed feasts with the Gregorian
Calendar reckoning. The schism that these bishops created was
exported to other local churches, which divided their flocks by
introducing this so-called New Calendar. This change was a
precursor to further degradations of Orthodoxy, which are now
referred to under the common headings of Ecumenism and
Modernism. A notorious example of such was the Lifting of the
Anathemas, promulgated under Patriarch Athenagoras in 1965,
which led to St. Philaret of New York responding with
his Sorrowful Epistles. Those who resisted these changes to the
faith were the ones who remained Orthodox, but to distinguish
themselves from the innovatorswho were in positions of power
and continued to use the term Orthodox themselvesthey
adopted the name True (or Genuine) Orthodox.[1] The innovating
State Church referred to them derisively as Old Calendarists.
The origins of these Independent Orthodox communities on the
one hand, and True Orthodox Churches on the other, were thus
distinct. However, from the beginning, there were examples of the
Independent Orthodox appropriating the True Orthodox identity

in their attempts to distinguish themselves from the official

Churches, without, however, adopting a concomitant True
Orthodox ecclesiology.[2] This was partly natural in some cases;
for instance, some communities did not join the Greek Orthodox
Archdiocese of America when it was established in 1922, and
consequently they never adopted the New Calendar. Some of
these communities began to call themselves Old Calendarists,
while having no communion with the Old Calendarist hierarchy
which was reestablished on May 13, 1935, when three bishops of
the State Church returned to the Patristic Old Calendar. Many
of these communities were eventually incorporated in to the
Greek Archdiocese[3], while others were incorporated in to the
Holy Synod of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Church of
Greece.[4] Some simply ceased to exist.
While the original Independent Orthodox communities were on
the decline by the 1950s, two new groups of people began to
augment their ranks. The first were simply clerics of the official
Orthodox Churches who were deposed for various reasons, and
began to operate as Independent Orthodox. Some even engineered
their ordinations to the episcopate by the remnants of the various
Independent groups. A notorious example of this would be
Metropolitan Pangratios (Vrionis), a priest of the Greek
Archdiocese deposed after accusations of immorality, who was
allegedly ordained a bishop by offshoots of the Independent
groups mentioned above.[5] The other group consisted of Roman
Catholics and Anglicans who had separated from their own
Churches and received ordination from episcopi vagantes
wandering bishops with no real diocesewho apparently having
grown tired of the label Old Catholic, began to see the word
Orthodox as fresh and fashionable.[6] Thus emerged a plethora
of false Churches incorporating any number of variations on the
terms, Orthodox, Catholic, Apostolic, Byzantine, and
Western Rite.[7] In this paper, the argument which allows
Western Christians to justify becoming Orthodox clergy
without having been ordained by Orthodox bishops, namely the
theory of the indelible mark of priesthood, and the reliance on a
mechanical interpretation of apostolic succession[8], will be

addressed. It would be impossible, and indeed fruitless, to address

all of the permutations of this phenomenon of Independent
bishops[9]; we will instead use representative examples that are
culturally familiar to most readers.
Our focus here will be on addressing those aspects of Orthodox
faith and ecclesiology which distinguish True Orthodox Churches
from Independent Orthodox groups, without engaging in a
comprehensive study of the Independent Orthodox considered per
se. The aim of this study will be assisting the inquirer in assessing
any group calling itself True Orthodox or claiming some
affiliation with True Orthodoxy, in the hopes that such inquirers
will not be misled. This can happen in two waysin the first
instance, someone seeking out True Orthodoxy may stumble
across one of the Independent Orthodox groups that claims to be
True Orthodox, and thereby mistakenly become part of the wrong
church; in the second, someone investigating True Orthodoxy is
confronted by an apologist for a New Calendarist or Ecumenist
jurisdiction, who lumps True Orthodox together with the
Independent Orthodox groups in order to create the illusion that
any church or jurisdiction not part of the official patriarchates is
a counterfeit, non-canonical pseudo-church masquerading as
Orthodox. By highlighting some of the more egregious examples
of non-Orthodox practices found in some Independent Orthodox
circles, and lumping True Orthodox together with such groups,
the illusion is created that True Orthodox claims are not even
worth investigating, because the groups are hopelessly divided
and their leaders cranks and charlatans.
Our hope will also be that those already in the Independent
movement will realize their error and convert to the Orthodox
Church, but experience has shown that this does not often happen,
and when it does, the conversions are often incomplete. We will
never lose hope that it is possible, however, and we pray earnestly
for those who are currently members of Independent Orthodox
churches.
A Note on Terms
Vagante and Independent Orthodox

The Latin term episcopi vagantes technically refers to wandering

bishops, which in Latin Catholic theology would be validly
ordained but without jurisdiction since they are not tied to a
diocese and canonically invested. In modern English discussions
on such bishops, the word vagante has been coined, which refers
to any bishop, clergy, or church which is Independent, selfappointed, ahistorical, or seen as inauthentic. It is a term that is
often used as a pejorative. While we do not agree in principle with
the Independent movement as it stands, we will refrain from using
the term vagante to refer to them in the interest of maintaining a
civil tone and being precise, since the term episcopi vagantes has
a historical context which is not always applicable to todays
Independent Orthodox. Our use of the term Independent
Orthodox does not imply that we believe such individuals are
part of the canonical Orthodox Church, but is used because such
individuals self-identify with Orthodoxy (as opposed to those
Independents who identify with Roman Catholicism or
Anglicanism, for instance).
True Orthodox
Those who resisted the change in the calendar in 1924 were
derisively labelled Old Calendarists, but referred to themselves
as True (or Genuine) Orthodox in order to distinguish themselves
from the innovators. There were also legal reasons for doing so
there was (and still is) no separation of Church and State in
Greece, and so the True Orthodox could not simply refer to
themselves as Orthodox in the registration of their properties
and associations, because the State Church had rights over this
name. That being said, the True Orthodox consider themselves to
be the Orthodox Church, not a part or branch thereof. They
believe that the innovating State Church separated itself from the
Orthodox Church in 1924 when it adopted the New Calendar as
part of its program of modernization and ecumenical relations.
The title True Orthodox will be used in this chapter for purposes
of clarity, but the reader should keep in mind that the term is not
intrinsic to the self-identity of the True Orthodox Christians.
World Orthodoxy

The official patriarchates which have joined the World Council

of Churches and which participate in ecumenical dialogues and
joint prayers have fallen into the heresy of Ecumenism, which
first reared its head in an encyclical dating from 1920.[10] In
addition, some of the local Orthodox Churches have further
adopted the New Calendar, in contradiction to the councils held in
the 16th century which anathematized this papal innovation.
Finally, the fruits of Ecumenism and the adoption of the New
Calendar is the phenomenon of Modernism, which seeks to adapt
Orthodoxy to the changing times. These three issues are closely
intertwined.
In order to refer to the communion of official patriarchates and
local churches which have fallen into these heresies as one unit,
the term World Orthodoxy has been employed by some True
Orthodox. This term is not one which the present author favors,
but it will be used with reticence in this chapter in order to
identify those whose innovation have led them away from the
fullness of the faith. It is necessary to use such a term, because
while all of the patriarchates and local Churches are Ecumenist in
one way or another, not all of them are New Calendarist; and
among the local Churches are those who oppose Ecumenism, yet
remain in communion with their fallen hierarchs. For this reason,
the terms World Orthodox and World Orthodoxy will be
employed, but for lack of a more preferred term.