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06-01-2012 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
OF E L I S E Y
ARCHBISHOP OF SOUROZH
TO THE PASTORS AND ALL FAITHFUL CHILDREN
OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
Dearly beloved in the Lord, honourable pastors
and God-loving monastics and laypeople,
dear brothers and sisters!
The Great Feast of the Nativity of Christ enters into our everyday existence as an inexpressible, mystical feeling of quietness, peacefulness and trembling heedfulness that comes over us as we approach the newborn Child.
In this restless world, where some ideals are overturned and replaced by others, also doomed to be destroyed in their turn, the festivals of entertainment and distraction from that which is most important, the innermost desire of the heart - to know God, the One Who is born for us as Truth and Love incarnate – are indeed popular.
May our celebration unfold not in vain noise and idleness, but rather in the silent mystery of that night at Bethlehem. We believe with all our heart that the Word became flesh (Jn 1, 14), and that mystery calms our mind – words fade away, hearts are opened to understand the angelic doxology and to meet the newborn Son of God.
Christ is born, give ye glory! Christ comes from heaven, meet ye Him! – thus the Church conveys to us the good news of the appearing of the long-expected Saviour. We have found the Messiah (Jn 1, 41), exclaims the apostle. Now we see God in man, the Creator in the creation, the Master in the form of a servant (St Tikhon of Zadonsk).
This joy of the knowledge of God is given to us by the mystery of the Incarnation. It cannot be received by those who seek individual satisfaction, finding it in transient earthly possessions and neglecting the possibility of obtaining the good things of the spirit that transform the human being. The joy of meeting Christ is characteristic of the person who is seeking salvation in God.
Beholding the image of the newborn Christ-child, let us seek answers to these questions. Why was God born as man? For what purpose is a human being born, what is his mission on earth? Is it not that God became man so that we could meet God in our fellow-man, so that in the beauty of this world we could see its Creator, so that in all humility we might know the presence of the Master of the world and His majesty? Was not the birth of the Saviour in the cave an event hardly noticeable for the surrounding world, in order that we ourselves, accompanied by the angelic doxology, might seek and find the Incarnate God.
We seek Him, with Whom misfortune is happiness – thus says the holy hierarch Tikhon of Zadonsk – and even weeping is gladness, and tears are joyful. We seek Him, through Whom we receive all prosperity, all good things, both temporal and eternal. But where shall we seek Him? … He dwells there, his dwelling-place is there, where Christian love abides.
As in the course of our earthly lives we perform works of Christian love, let us bring to the One Who is being born in our hearts the gifts of our fidelity and obedience to His divine will, which is calling us to inherit the Kingdom of God.
Dearly beloved in Christ, all-honourable fathers, dear brothers and sisters, all children of the Russian Orthodox Church residing in the British Isles and Ireland, I congratulate you most warmly with the Feast of the Nativity of Christ!
May prayer, joy and peace reign in our souls and may they bring us abundant spiritual gifts in the coming year of Grace of the Lord!
For our Diocese of Sourozh, the year 2012 will be the fiftieth year of its existence. Let us give thanks to Christ the Chief Shepherd and Giver of Life for the fact that we are coming to this blessed jubilee in unity, having maintained our spiritual identity and our fidelity to the Mother Church. May the cares and labours of each of you, dear brothers and sisters, be blessed and likewise those of our predecessors who put their energies into the building-up of this diocese of the Russian Church in the British Isles, so far from her homeland. In grateful remembrance we lift up our prayers to God for the founder of the Diocese of Sourozh, the ever-memorable Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom), whose apostolic faith drew to Holy Orthodoxy people of various origins and of different nationalities, gathering a diverse flock into one church fold.
Let us join together now our sincere and good feelings in prayerful glorification and may the expectation of our hearts – the meeting with true Love, the Beauty from on high, the perfect Wisdom and Power, the Sun of Righteousness that shines upon the whole world, Christ our God – find its fulfilment!
+ ELISEY
ARCHISHOP OF SOUROZH
The Nativity of Christ 2011/12
London