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Romanian Old Calendar Orthodox Church (Slatioara)

The Romanian Old Calendarists (BOSVR) have been involved in many scandalous activities from almost the beginning of their existence. First of all, their first leader, Father Glicherie (Tanase), whom they now proclaim a “saint,” was clearly in prelest (spiritual delusion). He did not wish to submit to the leadership of the Greek Old Calendarists under Blessed Metropolitan Chrysostom of Florina (d. 1955), but wanted himself to be made a bishop for his Romanian people, as head of his own, independent synod. His spiritual blindness is further attested by his many “visions” and “revelations,” one of which said that in 1982 the Antichrist would enter the world.

Furthermore, Bishop Galaction (Cordun), the origin of the episcopacy for the Romanian Old Calendarists, was a Freemason who also fathered an illegitimate son (of Mrs. Lucia Calin). Cordun was a vicar-bishop and never actually had a see of his own, and he belonged to the State Church that persecuted the Old Calendarists for many decades. In 1955 he joined the Old Calendarists of Romania and became their spiritual head. In 1956 he single-handedly consecrated Archimandrite Evloghie (Ota) as a bishop, and then also Father Glicherie. After Bishop Galaction’s death in 1959, the uncanonical Bishop Glicherie became the leader of the Romanian Old Calendarists.

This church fell away from Christ even further in 1979, when the Romanians, under the leadership of “Metropolitan” Glicherie (Tanase), went into communion with the schismatic Kallistite Synod, an uncanonical synod that consisted of Met. Kallistos of Corinth, Anthony of Megara, and eight bishops they had secretly consecrated without the knowledge of the synod of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece. Even worse, the Romanians (whose headquarters is at Slatioara) thereafter also joined the “Holy Synod in Resistance” under the deposed heresiarch Cyprian of Fili. They have also had communion with the Cyprianite Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, headed by Bishop Photii.

The shameful deeds have continued even till the present. Metropolitan Vlasie (Mogârzan), who became the head of Slatioara in 1992, was deposed in 2022 by his own synod because he was living with a woman and refused to stop. He was also found guilty of ecumenical activity with other churches. Some of the circumstances condemned in Vlasie’s deposition had been going on for 15 years, so it seems that the synod had other reasons for ousting their chief shepherd.

Also in 2022, the Romanian Old Calendarists broke communion with the Greek GOC under Kallinikos, together with the Bulgarians under Photii, and ROCA-Agafangel, citing the heresy of Cyprianism as the reason for the break. The Romanians are now demanding that those other groups anathematize the Cyprianite heresy. It is amazing that Slatioara is now finding fault with its “sister churches” for heresy, since they themselves have been in communion with this heresy for forty years. The Romanians, just like ROCOR-Vitaly, have decided to repent to themselves, if their actions can even be construed as repentance. They still consider themselves to be part of the Church and show no inclination to repent to true bishops who have never fallen into the heresy of Cyprianism. Despite what they have done, they still have no desire to join the Genuine Orthodox Church of America, which is the only church that has actually anathematized the Cyprianite heresy (2009).

Because the Romanian Old Calendarists have a very large number of followers, it seems they are unwilling to ever repent of their canonical transgressions and Cyprianite heresy.


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Archbishop Gregory
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