Crucea.ro

The crown of martyrdom didst thou receive, O Catherine, by struggling
steadfastly for the tradition of our Fathers; and thou didst surrender
thy soul to Jesus the Bridegroom, when, on the festival of the
Archangels at Mandra of Megaris, thou didst sincerely proclaim the
dogmas of the Faith of the Scriptures.

New Martyr Catherine was born in 1900 in the village of Mandra in the
region of Megara, between Athens and Corinth. When the western
calendar was forcibly imposed on the Christians of Greece in 1924,
large numbers of Greek Christians spontaneously rejected both the new
order of things and the Hierarchs responsible for enforcing that new
order.

The forcible (and violent) imposition of the western calendar was the
result of a sinister combination of secularizing political policies,
inaugurated by the government of Emanuel Venizelos, coupled with the
reformist-ecumenist ideas associated with syncretist freemasonry and
an infatuation with the West, which had been quietly emerging within a
circle of Hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarch (and elsewhere) from
the 19th century forward. These ideas would become the stated policy
of that Patriarchate under the guidance of the freemason and
ecclesiastical adventurer, Patriarch Meletios IV Metaxakis.

Catherine Routis
New Martyr Catherine and her husband joined the widespread populist
and spontaneous rejection of the government’s Synod of Bishops and
their policies, and continued to worship with clergy and laity
according to the traditional calendar. While much is written in our
times concerning the futility and the wrong-headedness of making an
issue of the 13 day difference between the western and the traditional
calendar, the fact is that neither the 13 days nor even the calendar
itself is the primary issue, any more than boiled wheat (kollyva, in
Greek) was the issue during the kollyvades dispute; any more than
painted pictures were the issue during the age of ikonoclasm. The
question raised by the heresy of ikonoclasm was a fundamental
christological issue; the issue raised by the kollyvades Fathers
concerned the liturgical reflection of fundamental Christian faith and
practice, and the issue raised by the “old-calendar” movement is the
issue of the basic definition of the Church herself, as that
definition is manifested in the decrees of Councils and the writings
of acknowledged Fathers.

The defense spontaneously organized by humble laymen and clergy in
Greece from 1924 on was only in the first instance the defense of a
given calendar, because contained within that defense was the
instinctive defense of the integrity of the “one, holy, catholic and
apostolic church” as such.

On the feast of the Archangels, November 8th (November 21st on the
western calendar), 1927, Catherine was part of a large congregation of
confessing Christians in her native village. During the Vigil for the
feast (presided over by the Presbyter Christopher Psallidas) a
detachment of police, ordered out by the Ministry of the Interior
acting in response to a demand issued by the head of the government
Synod, Archbishop Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, surrounded the village
church. After an all-night Vigil, as the Liturgy for the feast began,
the police began to batter down the doors of the church with their
rifle butts. Windows were smashed. The apparent goal of the police
forces was the arrest of Father Christopher (and the consequent
termination of the liturgical assembly). But the efforts of the
police were not met with success and they called for reinforcements.
Meanwhile, inside the temple, most of the congregation received Holy
Communion, and were preparing to leave the church and rest after the
all-night service.

As the communicants began to leave, and as it became evident that the
police were intent on arresting Father Christopher, a group of pious
women surrounded him to form a protective wall, under the impression
that the police would not physically attack women. Catherine Routis
had left the church after Communion and made sure that her husband and
2 children were safely home, and then she had returned to the church
to join the congregation’s non-violent efforts to protect its Presbyter.

The police fired their guns into the air to scare off the lay
defenders of their Priest, but to no avail. One woman, Angeliki
Katsarellis, still inside the church, was hit in the forehead by one
of the stray bullets. Women raised their voices against the violent
police attack, and when a policeman raised his rifle to strike Father
Christopher down, Catherine stepped between the Priest and the
attacker and received the hard blow from the rifle butt on the back of
her head. Falling to the floor of the church, her last words were
Most holy Mother of God.

She was transferred by some of the women to Annunciation Hospital in
Athens, along with the injured Angeliki Katsarellis. For 7 days New
Martyr Catherine suffered in the hospital. At 4 am on November 15
(November 28 on the western calendar), the first day of the Nativity
Fast, Catherine Routis died. She has been commemorated among the
Church’s New Martyrs ever since.

It is interesting to note that there is a widespread belief amongst
the ecumenists that the old calendarists constitute a violent
movement. There has been violence aplenty, in fact, both in Greece
and in Romania and elsewhere, directed against the confessing,
traditional Christians by the ecumenists, but actual violence directed
by the confessing members of the Church against the ecumenists has yet
to be documented.

Sadly the pristine early years of steadfast resistance to the
ecumenist innovations were followed by our own era, characterized by
disturbances from within, as confessing but undisciplined and
irresponsible Hierarchs, much-given to employing the tactics of verbal
abuse and to the violent denunciation of fellow confessing Hierarchs,
ad hominem for the most part, have become the familiar face of
traditionalism in the public square. This undisciplined and unworthy
behaviour defines the confessing Church of our times in the eyes of
many, and it does the confessing Church a terrible disservice.

While theological debate and the defense of truth is necessary, the
tone in which that defense is undertaken can determine the actual
impact of Christian apologetics. It is not possible to view with any
satisfaction the increasing failure of a style of apologetics that
clearly has alienated many from within the ranks of the so-called “old
calendar” movement, and kept many traditionalists within the ecumenist
communities from abandoning their ecumenist Hierarchs and affiliating
with confessing Orthodox Hierarchs.

Clearly, this is not the way to speak for the Church, because clearly,
the actual interests of the Church are not served. One can disagree,
without being disagreeable, and one can effectively defend the Church
without ad hominem attacks. When the confessing Hierarchs of our own
time understand this, the confessing Church will once again become the
real option for serious and honest seekers for the truth both from the
ranks of the ecumenist Synods, and from the ranks of those who have no
connection with either “world” or with “confessing” Orthodoxy.

Gheorghe Vanau