As for Archbishop Palladios (Rudenko) who you have referred to, so disrespectfully, as “a member of an uncanonical (in the extreme!) Ukrainian ecclesiastical organization. This status is debated by NO ONE-”World Orthodoxy” and “Old Calendarist” alike!”

I am unaware of what world you inhabit or the circles in which you dwell, but Archbishop Palladios (Rudenko)was one of the co-founders of SCOBA and reposed in grace.

May God forgive the vileness of such people who enjoy slandering Christ’s faithful and anointed servants.

Respectfully in Christ,
Fr. Stavrophoremonk Symeon
the least of men & monks

Thank you for your query as stated above. The Greek Old Calendar Church’s Eparchy of Western Europe (as you refer to it as the “Church of Portugal”) was given a tomos of autonomy by Archbishop Auxentios (of Blessed Memory)in consultation with his Synod of the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Greece in Sept. 1984 on the Feast of the Elevation of the Most Precious Cross. This was a visionary and evangelical act since there was a desire to witness the True Faith to Western Europeans by Orthodox Western Europeans and not to offer any stumbling-block of Greek ethnocentricism.

It was shortly after Sept 1984 that the Synod of Abp Auxentios imploded due to power struggles and all kinds of unseemly dispositions among such hierarchs. Separate from the Greeks, when the second primate was elected for the *Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia of Western Europe* its headquarters was transferred from Lisbon, Portugal to Milan, Italy. Hence the shorter reference “Holy Synod of Milan”.

Naturally, every Old Calendar Greek Synodal manifestation that appears after Sept. ‘84 is going to try to discredit its European brethren in order to give the appearance of its own legitimacy. To do otherwise would to admit that the Milan Synod is the only genuine and continuous descendant of the once canonical Synod under Abp Auxentios.

One must try not to become ensnared in such intrigue that has woefully stained the Old Calendar Church of Greece’s witness of the True Faith. Rather, let pray for the healing of all who claim the title “True (Genuine) Orthodox Church of Greece” and further for the “mainline” and State Church bodies that they might see their own errors and not to judge her brother’s in Faith. But, rather. to open her arms in true ecumenical dialog with them (all T.O.C.) in the hope for peace and unity within The Body of Christ we call the Orthodox Church.

Respectfully in Christ,
Fr. Stavrophoremonk Symeon
the least of men & monks