Pascha

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