Christmas Message from Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia

PATRIARCH ALEXY II OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA CHRISTMAS MESSAGE from Patriarch ALEXY II of Moscow and All Russia to the Archpastors, Pastors, Monastics and the Faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church Thou has shone forth, O Christ, from a Virgin, the wise Sun of Righteousness, and a star has shown Thee to be in a cave, accommodating the Boundless. Thou didst teach the Magi how to worship Thee, and we with them magnify Thee: O Giver of life, glory to Thee! (Troparion for Great Vespers of the Feast Day )

Beloved in the Lord your graces archpastors, reverend pastors and all church servants, honourable monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters, children of our Holy Church living in Russia and in many countries of the world on all continents!

It is with a sense of profound spiritual joy from all of my heart, overflowing with the most elevated feelings, that I congratulate you, my beloved, with today’s great feast day of the Nativity in the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The first testimony to Christ’s Nativity were the words of the angel of the Lord to the shepherds of Bethlehem, who were keeping night vigil by their flock.

‘And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord… And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased”‘, – is how the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke narrates the great event of Christ’s Nativity (Lk 2:10-11; 13-14).

During the days when we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord and Saviour, the Church of Christ calls us to pious reflection, good deeds and joyful prayer of thanksgiving. Our Nativity prayers are a continuation of the doxology which the angels sang on Christmas night and through which the whole world – both heavenly and earthly – was brought to faith: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased’.

In the hymns of the feast day the Holy Church calls the Nativity of Christ a mystery revealed by God to mankind in the Incarnation of the Son of God, for ‘today God has come to the earth and man has ascended into Heaven’. She compares the Coming of Christ the Saviour with the radiance of the Divine Light illumining all creation; the Church praises Christ’s Nativity, calling it a ‘great and most glorious miracle’, for ‘a Virgin has given birth to the Maker of all’, for ‘today the condemnation of Adam is overthrown and Paradise is opened up to us’, and henceforth ‘Christ reigns for all eternity’.

My brother archpastors, pastors and children of the Church, all dear to my heart! As we celebrate the Nativity of Christ, let us offer on this great day praise and thanksgiving to our Lord and Saviour for the mercies He has granted us in this past year, while all of the trials that have visited us we must accept with the belief and hope that the almighty succour of God will help us to overcome them. Today we ask for the Lord’s blessing on the coming year, adding our voice to that of the great fourth-century ascetic St. Ephraim the Syrian: ‘On this day, O Lord, shed Thy mercies upon us in abundance!’.

In the past year many deeds have been accomplished by our Church and people of God, in many things our many labours have been crowned with success. I became convinced of this during my pastoral visits to the dioceses of Tambov, St. Petersburg, Tobolsk, Minsk, Polotsk and Vitebsk, as well as the Valaam Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, which occupies a special place in my life, the Monastery of St. Nicholas in Vyazhischsk near Novgorod and the Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God on Konevits Island.

At the end of August there was the six-hundred year anniversary of the founding of the Stavropegic Monastery of St. Savva of Storozhevsk near Zvenigorod in the diocese of Moscow. The relics of St. Savva were translated from St. Daniel’s Monastery in Moscow, where they had been kept, to the Monastery of St. Savva of Storozhevsk. The highlight of the remarkable jubilee of this ancient Russian monastery was the return of the relics of the saint who was pleasing to God to his own monastery.

Brothers and sisters! We are drawing ever closer to the great jubilee of 2000 years since the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The jubilee will be widely celebrated throughout the Christian world. Russia, which has now revived her national sacred treasure of the Church of Christ the Saviour, will offer this majestic cathedral as a gift to our Lord on the occasion of His Most Glorious Nativity. God willing, we hope that in the jubilee year we will be able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the main sanctuary of this majestic Moscow church and consecrate it as before to the Nativity of Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

My dears! 1999 is a year of remarkable anniversaries. I will note but one outstanding Russian jubilee, the meaning of which extends beyond national boundaries – the five-hundred year anniversary of the Gennadian Bible, so called after the holy hierarch St. Gennadius, Archbishop of Novgorod. At the turn of the fifteenth century he brought together in a single compilation all of the books of the Bible, giving us the Slavonic Bible. It became the prototype of all Bibles published in Russia from during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Gennadian Bible was the foundation of all other Bibles in the Slav countries.

With God’s help in the coming year we must complete what we have left unfinished, bring to perfection much of what we have already done and in all things strive for the maximum benefit of God’s Church, for all of those near to us and far away from us, for as St. Paul teaches us: ‘Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbour’ (1 Cor 10:24).

From each of us there are required constant efforts and serious work on all areas of church life. Parish life is to develop, it is essential to revive and strengthen the monasteries, set up new ecclesiastical institutions of study on all levels, especially Sunday schools. A most important task is the formation of the Orthodox Christian family and Christian upbringing of children, work with youth, soldiers, care for the sick, invalids, the elderly and the infirm, extra help for prisoners and much, much more.

Need I speak of how there should be greater organization of all aspects of church life, of unity and cooperation between clergy and laity, between parish and bishop? For it is with one mind that St. Paul calls us to ‘strive side by side for the faith’ (Phil 1:27). The strengthening of the unity of our Church and of all Holy Orthodoxy, the creative, tireless building up of inter-Orthodox relations is the work not only of bishops and priests, but of the laity too.

In His High Priestly prayer for Christians our Lord called to the Heavenly Father , ‘I do not pray that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them form the evil one… As Thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (Jn 17:15, 18). The Church is not of this world, yet the cares of every person living in the world are exceedingly dear to her. That is why she strives to transfigure and beautify earthly life, consecrate it with the moral norms given to us by God and arrange all of this according to the will of God. It is on this path that we are open to cooperation with people of all kinds of world-views and convictions.

In extending her active love to people, society and the entire human family, the Holy Church rejoices at peoples’ success and commiserates at the woes that unfortunately are no less than before. Terrible poverty, the failure to pay people their well-earned salaries, the excessively high level of crime and immorality in society, interethnic strife, the crisis in education, culture and the health service are all problems constantly encountered by people who are spiritually sustained by our Holy Church. But let us not fall into destructive despair because of these troubles – let us pray for those who suffer and labour for the attainment of a better life. And may God grant that the state authorities, society and every person of good will do all that they can to overcome the present chaos.

I would again take this opportunity to remind everyone that it is our Christian and civil duty to abide in harmony and good-willed cooperation with each other, to be tolerant of each other and render all assistance and support to those in need. My beloved, I wish all of you patience and wisdom in solving the difficult problems of society, which can be overcome only by peaceful means. Yes, today the multimillion flock of our Church lives in different countries, consists of various peoples and cultures, yet as Orthodox Christians we are one, and the strength of our unity comes from the fact that we abide in a single Mother Church.

Your graces the archpastors, esteemed fathers, dear brothers and sisters! Again and again with all of my heart I congratulate each one of you with love in the Lord on this radiant holiday of the Nativity of Christ, overflowing with truly royal majesty. I also offer you my sincere greetings for the coming New Year, a new year of the Lord’s goodness.

St. Ephraim the Syrian, turning to the Lord with a humble and yet joyful, radiant petition, called out: ‘Receive now the voice of our prayer and what we pray for in words may Thou accomplish in deed!’. May all of our prayers and labours be such. And I with all my heart desire that the mercy of God accompany each of you, my beloved, on all the paths of your life.

PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA

The Nativity of Christ
1998/1999
Moscow ENDDD