PASCHAL MESSAGE of His Holiness ALEXY II Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to Hierarchs, Pastors, Monastics and All Children of the Russian Orthodox Church

PATRIARCH ALEXY II OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA

PASCHAL MESSAGE
of His Holiness ALEXY II Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
to Hierarchs, Pastors, Monastics and All Children
of the Russian Orthodox Church

Glorifying Thy condescension divine, we sing Thy praises, O Christ!
For Thou wast born of a Virgin, yet didst Thou remain unseparated from the Father.
Thou didst suffer as a man, and of Thine own good pleasure didst Thou endure the Cross;
and Thou didst rise again from the tomb, as Thou hadst come forth from a lordly chamber,
that Thou mightest save the world: O Lord, glory to Thee!
( Canticle for the Praises at Paschal Matins)

Beloved in Our Lord Jesus Christ your Graces the hierarchs, all-honourable pastors, honourable monks and nuns and pious laity, children of our Holy Mother the Russian Orthodox Church!

CHRIST IS RISEN!

From the depths of my heart, which is now exultant and triumphant, I congratulate you on Christ’s Passover, on the Bright Resurrection of Christ! In the Epistles of the apostles and in the works of the holy fathers we are given a divinely-inspired explanation of the profound meaning and unfading significance of this great miracle of world history. For it is with the rising from the tomb of Christ the Saviour that the true spring has begun for the universe and the radiant, joyous morning of a new life has shone forth. Through His Resurrection the Lord Jesus Christ has laid the foundation for the general blessed resurrection from the dead, as St. Paul proclaims in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep … For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive’ (1 Cor 15:19-20, 22). St. Ephraim the Syrian says that ‘as Adam was the beginning of death for all those alive, so our Lord became the beginning of life for all the dead’. Truly, man has no longer to fear death if he believes in the Crucified and Risen Christ and through this faith receives His righteousness, His grace, and thus lives in Christ and with Christ.

My brothers and sisters! In this present year, when we are celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ, today’s feast day acquires a special significance: indeed, Christ’s Passover has been celebrated since the time of the Saviour’s Resurrection a little under two thousand years ago. It was already celebrated by the apostles in prayer. St. Paul called upon the first Christmas to observe the Passover worthily – not with the old leaven of malice and evil, but in purity and truth (1 Cor 5:8).

And so my beloved, we together, like the first Christians, celebrate Pascha with great joy and exultation. The divine glory of the Risen Lord is matched by the great solemnity of the Paschal service. All things bear witness to the majesty of this day: the procession of the Cross, symbolising our encounter with the Risen Saviour, and the joyous, unceasing Paschal bell-ringing; our churches, bathed in light and filled with the wondrous sweet-smelling fragrance, and the radiant vestments of our brothers the celebrants, and you, the beloved pilgrims with radiant faces! All of our Holy Church, ‘praising the eternal Passover’, proceeds to greet Christ coming forth from the tomb like the Bridegroom and, rejoicing, worships the Living God!

My beloved! It would appear strange to speak about Christ’s Nativity at Pascha. Yet we today are obliged to do so by virtue of the great jubilee of the 2000th anniversary of the Coming into the world of our Saviour. As St. John Chrysostom said, our feast days began with the Nativity of Christ, including Pascha, for if Christ had not been born in the flesh, then He would not have suffered and rose again. And if the Annunciation is the ‘beginning of our salvation’, then Christ’s Nativity is the continuation of the Divine economy, the crown of which were the Cross and the Resurrection.

The 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ is this year’s main event. It is not only a general Christian holiday but a celebration than embraces the whole world. In the Russian Orthodox Church the central jubilee events will take place in August of this year in Moscow and will begin with the Episcopal Council. At the heart of the acts of the Council will be the solemn glorification among the saints of the host of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. And on the feast day of the Transfiguration of Our Lord we hope to hold the great consecration of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

This year will see the tenth anniversary of my ministry on the Patriarchal Throne. I offer prayers of thanksgiving to God for His generous mercy sent down upon me, His humble servant, and all our Holy Church. The Lord has judged that we should all labour for the good of the Church and God’s people at this remarkable time – a time of beneficent changes in our church life, the time of its wondrous transformation! From the bottom of my heart I thank all of you, my beloved, for your love, for your constant help and support, for your untiring labours and most especially for your holy prayers, which have sustained and strengthened me!

The life of the state and society on the canonical territory of the Russian Church remains extremely difficult, yet there are signs of hope for better things. The state authorities in Russia have been renewed, and they are now striving for beneficial inter-action with the Orthodox Church in various spheres of life. We are wholly ready for such inter-action – not only in Russia but in the other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic region. For the Church knows how many difficulties our peoples are undergoing at the present and is trying to help them overcome them, working hand in hand with the powers that be and with all well-intentioned people.

Yes, people are suffering as before – they are suffering from poverty, from injustice, enmity, division, from bloody conflict and its consequences which have not yet been eliminated. The response to this division must be the peace of Christ. And we Orthodox Christians believe that only the spiritual rebirth of the people, only their return to the God-given moral values will truly bring us prosperity and peace.

May joy in the Risen Lord illumine your souls and hearts! Strengthened by the power of Christ’s Resurrection, let us bring to the Lord true fruits of the spirit. Let us be zealous in all that aids the growth of church life, in all that serves the cause of peace, love, unanimity in the Church and society, accord and justice in every country, in the little and the great in which we live and work. Let us be zealous too in all that aids the creation and strengthening of the Orthodox family, for it is this type of family that is the firm basis of society.

May the joy of Pascha become the inheritance of our brothers and sisters who live far from God’s house, who lie on the bed of illness or who are in prison and therefore do not have the opportunity to pray at today’s Holy Paschal service and thereby share our common festivities.

Christ’s Passover is the inexhaustible fount of the gracious gifts of God. Patriarch Sergius of All Russia expressed this thought remarkably in his Akathist to the Resurrection of Christ, with the words of which I would like to end this Message: ‘Christ is risen, and all creation rejoices! Christ is risen, and He has poured out His bottomless fount of mercies and compassions on our people! Christ is risen, and we all receive His Body as the Bread of Life! Christ is risen, and we taste of His Blood as of the Fount of Immortality! Christ is risen, and He raises with Himself all beings who cry aloud: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs He has given life!”‘

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!

PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA

Moscow Pascha 2000