Long story short, it is solved. The more extended version is below:
We use the Let's Encrypt certificate to encrypt communication between our servers. In October, LE's cross-signed root certificate (by GeoTrust?) expired, and the certificate bundle on each server requires an update to trust each other. Unfortunately, The email server only receives one update annually for stability reasons, as we don't use cutting-edge technology for emails. That's why it's missing an updated root certificate which results in rejected communication.
Update to the root certificate bundle fixed this problem, and restore the email service. Also, the email server was sending its heartbeat to my monitoring system, it wasn't technically down, so it has managed to have gone under the radar.