Month: April 2009

FOR THE GLORIOUS FEAST OF FEASTS,THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD GOD AND SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST

Prot. N. 191- April 19, 2009

To the Very Reverend Protopresbyters, the Very Reverend and Reverend Fathers, Beloved Clergy, Monastics and Faithful of the Diocese:

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!

CHRISTOS VOSKRESE! VOISTINNU VOSKRESE!

I greet you in the bright morning of the Resurrection of Our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ!

This is the Morning after the long night and the long journey. For the past forty days and Holy Week, we have journeyed after Jesus in fasting, in confession, in the Liturgies of St. Basil and the Pre-Sanctified Gifts. We have prayed longer prayers and we have sought forgiveness. We have listened to the sweet Gospel words of our Saviour, and faithful songs of the Theotokos at the Cross. Continue reading →

Archiepiscopal Encyclical for Pascha 2009

April 16, 2009

Protocol 40/09, April 19, 2009
Holy Pascha, The Feast of Feasts

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

To the Most Reverend Hierarchs, the Reverend Priests and Deacons, the Monks and Nuns, the Presidents and Members of the Parish Councils of the Greek Orthodox Communities, the Distinguished Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Day, Afternoon, and Church Schools, the Philoptochos Sisterhoods, the Youth, the Hellenic Organizations, and the entire Greek Orthodox Family in America

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christ is Risen! Χριστός Ἀνέστη!

On this great and glorious Feast of our Holy Orthodox Church, I greet you in the abundant joy of our Risen Lord and in the peace of His unchanging promise of salvation and true life. As we gather at night anticipating the dawning of the new day, our churches, our homes, and most certainly our souls are filled with the radiance of the Resurrection and the illuminating Truth of our faith in Christ. Continue reading →

Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, on the occasion of the great feast of the Lord’s Pascha, 2009

Posted 04/13

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

To the Very Reverend and Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of The Orthodox Church in America

Dearly Beloved in Christ,

Beloved, let us greet one another with Paschal Joy, and exchange the kiss of peace.

Let us feast soberly, that our joy may be full. Let us not stuff ourselves to satiety with feasting, nor indulge our passions to insensibility. Most of all, let us not give ourselves over to the darkness of the fallen world from which we have sought to purify ourselves, lack of forgiveness, anger and judgment, bitterness and hatred. Continue reading →

Easter message by Patriarch Theodoros II of Alexandria and All Africa

Alexandria, 15.04.2009

My beloved spiritual children, Greeks of the Diaspora, Arab-speaking Christians and Orthodox Africans,

This year too, from all the corners of the earth, from the Most Holy Tomb of our Lord, from every Altar that symbolizes that Tomb, will resound the joyous message that “Christ is Risen”. The hymns will announce to us, as the Angel did to the Myrrh bearers that “He whom you seek, Jesus of Nazareth, who was Crucified, is not here but has risen as He had said”. It is this message that we have to take to heart and have it characterize our lives. We have to transmit it as an event and as a trumpet-call of victory to all those being blessed with feelings of defeat and loneliness in this world. Continue reading →

Athens, 15.04.2009

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, in his Easter message, expressed a wish to the faithful “to meet the Risen Christ in their fellow human beings.”

“The Resurrection of Christ is a reminder of the light’s supremacy over darkness,” the Archbishop mentioned, adding that in this light “the individual is met with the true calling, which is none other than meeting God through helping other people — regardless of language, colour, religion and culture.”

“The clouds of the imminent economic crisis may cast a shadow over the prospects and future of many of our brothers but a much deeper crisis is experienced when we continue a provocatively indifferent stance toward our fellow human being,” he stressed.

Source: ANA-MPA