Paschal Message of His Holiness KIRILL Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
PASCHAL MESSAGE
by
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia
to the Archpastors, Pastors, Deacons, Monastics
and all the Faithful Children of the
Russian Orthodox Church
Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ
(1 Cor 1:57)
Beloved in the Lord Your Graces the archpastors,
all-honourable presbyters and deacons,
God-loving monks and nuns, dear brothers and
sisters!
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. Photo:Patriarchia.ru
On
this great and radiant day I congratulate you from
the depths of my heart on the Lord’s Passover
and greet each of you with these ancient and holy
words:
CHRIST IS RISEN!
It is in these words, with which people throughout the
ages have greeted each other during the bright days of
Pascha and by which they have testified to the world of
the truth of an event occurring two thousand years ago,
that there is to be found a great inner power. They
contain the tidings of victory and a call to joy, the
desire for peace, and the hope and comfort of every human
person.
He who was born of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, he who
suffered greatly and without blame, he who was crucified
and died on a cross between two thieves, he was the first
among people to rise from the dead. ‘He has been
raised, as he said he would be’ (Mt 28:6). The tomb
is empty. There remain in it only the swaddling clothes in
which his body was wrapped. The myrrh-bearing women came
to the place of the Lord’s burial ‘very early
in the morning … at the rising of the sun’
(Mk 16:2) and did not find Jesus there, for neither the
stone that blocked the entrance into the cave, nor the
guard who kept watch by it, nor even death itself could
withstand the great power of the Living God. ‘Hell
hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without
measure’ (Is 5:14), exultant Hades had been ready to
engulf its most powerful enemy, yet instead froze in fear,
for it had been illumined by the light of the Godhead.
Christ has vanquished corruption and destroyed death.
Through the first man, who disobeyed the Maker and fell
away from the Fount of eternal life, evil came into the
world and sin reigned over people. Christ ‘the last
Adam’ (1 Cor 15:45) has vanquished death of the
spirit, death of the soul and death of the body.
‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all
be made alive,’ St. Paul tells us (1 Cor 15:22). All
that we have lost in the first Adam we have acquired anew
in Christ. The Lord’s Passover is truly the
‘great gift of the divine economy’ (St.
Theodore the Studite).
Having overcome the human person’s alienation from
his Maker, the Saviour has granted to us the possibility
of being united with him. As St. John Damascene says,
through the Cross of Christ we have been ‘granted
resurrection … The gates of paradise have been
opened to us, our nature now sits at the right hand of God
and we have become the children of God and his
heirs’ (An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox
Faith, Book 4). We are all called upon to be worthy of
this gift.
The Son of God, in assuming our nature, has become like us
in all things apart from sin. Through his earthly life and
sufferings on the Cross he has shown us an example of the
greatest humility and obedience to the heavenly Father, an
example of struggle against temptations and allurements,
and through his resurrection he has destroyed the fetters
of sin and granted to us the power and means to vanquish
evil. It is in this struggle that one grows spiritually
and becomes a morally free person.
We live at a time when freedom is often taken to mean
moral chaos. Many sincerely believe that only power and
riches, health and physical strength, bring liberation and
in competing in service to the idols of this world they
often fail in that which is most important, in the
attainment of the true goal of life. The Saviour, who has
risen from the tomb and granted to us freedom, has
revealed to us this goal of knowing the Truth (see:
Jn 8:32) and of life with God.
In destroying bodily death, Christ has promised eternal
life, but not as an infinite continuation of the earthly
path but as the transformation of the all human nature
when the body will acquire new properties. It is in the
Lord’s resurrection that the foreshadowing of our
future resurrection is mysteriously revealed. In the
coming kingdom of heaven, where there will be neither
death, nor illness, nor parting, and not even time,
‘God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes’ (Rev 21:4), and joy will be never-ending and
love eternal. The Lord’s victory over death gives us
steadfast hope that in following him at his second and
glorious coming we will rise again to a new life –
life in unceasing communion with God.
Let us then share the joy in our risen Saviour with all
those who are in need of attention and care: with the
sick, the elderly, those who suffer or who are despondent,
those who languish in places of confinement, and those
people who are without means or a roof over their heads.
And, in becoming like the witnesses to the resurrection
– the holy apostles – let us with faith and
boldness proclaim to those near and far the good news that
Christ has truly risen! Amen.
Moscow
Pascha 2013
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill
4 мая 2013 г.
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