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19-04-2014 EASTER 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 lay people,
dear brothers and sisters!
I greet you all with the great Feast of the Pascha of Christ, the mystical triumph of Life that refreshes our souls with the awesome joy of the Paschal greeting:
Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!
These exclamations, which now resound throughout the world, fill our souls with reverent exultation and the desire to express our response to Christ’s greeting to the myrrh-bearing women to whom He appeared after His Resurrection - Rejoice! (Mt 28: 9)
The first words of Our Risen Lord and Saviour witness to the fact that man is called by God not to sorrow, but to joy. God wants man to find himself not in the unfruitful enjoyment of fleeting gratifications, but rather in creative and sacrificial virtue, so that, sharing this joy with one another, we may find true happiness.
The Pascha of Christ is a passage from sin to righteousness, from death to life. Pascha once again returns us to purity and innocence, so that we, rejecting the darkness of sin and the abyss of falsehood, might be confirmed in our following of the Risen Christ, the true Light, the source of Life, mercy and truth.
We all know what it is to entreat God for mercy when we find ourselves in difficult and hopeless circumstances. For many people, spiritual life begins with this hope of a miracle, when the heart tormented by pain yearns to hope that God would hear our prayers and, as the Creator of life, would grant us deliverance from our troubles and misfortunes.
We are now celebrating the fulfilment of our expectations, for our hearts hear the words of the Risen Christ, ‘Peace be unto you!’ (Lk. 24: 36)
Receiving from God His life-giving gifts of love and mercy, we restore our promised union with Him, we enter into the Passover of the New Covenant. This Passover, as the Sacrifice of the New Covenant sealed on the Cross by the divine Blood of Christ which cleanses us from all sin, is given to us as food in the mystical banquet of faith, in Holy Communion, as a pledge of the eternal life, given to us by the Resurrection of Christ on the third day.
Pascha is for us not simply a feast, but the great mystery of reconciliation with God; it is our attending to the joyful words of Christ, ‘Peace be unto you’, and at the same time the response of our heart, ‘Christ is Risen!’
May our Pascha be for all of us reconciliation: for relatives and strangers, for friends and those who are not friends, for those who love and for those who hate. May the peace of God subdue human souls, destroying emnity between people, societies and nations, establishing between us the divine bond of love.
May our common reconciliation witness to the fact that we have received the Good News of the victory over sin and death of the Son of God, Who grants us the power of His Resurrection.
Christ is Risen indeed!
+Elisey
ARCHBISHOP OF SOUROZH
Pascha of Christ, 2014
London