Metropolitan Mark (ROCOR): Phanar's transition to the new style was the beginning of a schism in Orthodoxy

Metropolitan Mark of Berlin and Germany, the hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), said that the transition of the Constantinople Church to the Gregorian calendar is the main source of division in the Orthodox world and actually marked the beginning of a schism. He said this in an interview with the SPJ in Germany.

According to the bishop, this division dates back more than a hundred years and was the result of the Istanbul Church’s adoption of the Roman Catholic calendar, which served as a «bad example» for the Romanian, Bulgarian and other Local Churches. This led to widespread internal divisions and was also accompanied by numerous innovations in other areas of church life, the Metropolitan noted.

Metropolitan Mark also emphasized that a particular test for the unity of Orthodoxy has been the imposition by the Church of Constantinople of the status of first without equal, which has been actively promoted since the 2016 Council of Crete. The bishop called this claim to «unprecedented supremacy» the most far-reaching innovation in modern Orthodoxy.

Recall, a group of Orthodox theologians of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, gathered in Boston, issued a call to overcome the historical differences between Eastern and Western Christian traditions and unify the date of Easter in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. According to experts of the Phanar, the calculation of Easter according to the Julian calendar is an outdated practice, since the «old style» does not meet astronomical criteria. In addition, it is believed that moving the date of Easter to the «new style» will help to overcome the existing division in so-called mixed families, where spouses profess Orthodoxy and Catholicism/Protestantism.