PASCHAL MESSAGE by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia to archpastors, pastors, the monastics and all children of the Russian Orthodox Church. Pascha 2001 AD

PATRIARCH ALEXY II OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA

Russian version

PASCHAL MESSAGE
by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia
to archpastors, pastors, the monastics and all children
of the Russian Orthodox Church

The godly women hastened to Thee with myrrh, O Christ.
In tears they had sought Thee as a dead man,
but in joy they worshipped Thee as the living God
and proclaimed the mystical Pascha to Thy disciples.

7th Ode of the Paschal Canon.

CHRIST IS RISEN!

Beloved of the risen Christ our Saviour, your graces the bishops, honourable pastors, humble monks and nuns, God-loving laity – children of our Holy Mother Church! It is with the radiant Pascha of Christ, the most joyful feast for the Christian soul, that I greet you, my dear ones, from the bottom of my heart!

What can we add to what already has been said of this great and salvific event by St. John Chrysostom, whose Paschal Homily we heard on Easter night? ‘Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.’ What can we add to these words, filled with ardent love, of the great saint, the very name of whom testifies to the gift with which God endowed him? Yet the Christian soul, tremulous at the joy of the Resurrection, cannot remain silent: her lips speak from the depths of the heart.

We gather in the churches of God for Easter worship in order to glorify together, as a community, the Lord Who rose on the third day, in order to feel the inexpressible bliss of this great feast and to nourish ourselves with its heavenly, life-creating joy that saves the world. Let us then spiritually rejoice on this day, let none of us be sad. May our joy illumine and warm those who were not able to come to God’s Church. May the Paschal joy, that bears comparison with nothing and brings us Orthodox Christians together, become our gift to a world buried in vanities, a precious, incorruptible gift to our neighbours and to those far from us.

On the day of Christ’s radiant resurrection it is with a particular force that we are aware of our adoption in the Lord, our participation in the great mystery of Divine Economy. We sense clearly that we are not alone in this world, that the Lord is with us. Yet let us recall at what price the joy of Easter night was attained for us. Then our imagined following of the Lord on the great and salvific days of Passion Week, the reverential and mournful contemplation of Golgotha, will be forever joined in our souls with this joy, ‘for today as from a bridal chamber Christ has shown forth from the tomb’. In the unity of the Cross and the Resurrection, revealed to us by God, we shall find the strength to fulfil Christ’s commandments, for the battle with our own sins and difficulties in life, for the carrying of the cross though our lives. Much has been given to us, yet much will be required of us. Thus, as St. John Chrysostom says, ‘having completed the fast, let us not put aside the fruits of the fast… The time for spiritual achievements has passed, yet our zeal for good deeds should not pass; the fast has ended, yet may piety remain’.

‘Today all creation rejoices and is glad, for Christ has risen, and hell has been made captive’. This joy was conveyed to the world by Christ’s disciples, yet they were not the first to know of it. It was the myrrh-bearing women who were at the Saviour’s tomb, who did not abandon Him during His sufferings on the cross, thereby showing the world that love which the Divine Teacher bequeathed, the love by which people ‘lay down their lives for their friends’ (Jn. 15:13), the love from which even the fear of death recedes. It is precisely for this reason that the Holy Myrrh-Bearers were accorded the honour of proclaiming the Good News of the risen Lord and Saviour to the apostles. This feat of fidelity, love and charity was repeated by our mothers and grandmothers, who remained with Christ and His Holy Church during the time of severe persecution. It was they who taught the truths of the faith of Christ to their children and grandchildren, it was they who proclaimed the Good News of the risen Lord and His radiant heavenly kingdom.

The present Easter is the first in the new century and in the new millennium, and it is significant that the whole Christian world is celebrating it together on the same day.

May the joy of the feast strengthen us in our faith in Christ, give us the courage and the strength to withstand all the temptations and trials of the world. Let us forever remember the faithful promise of the Saviour when He said that He would be with us ‘until the end of the age’ (Mt. 28:20). Spiritual growth, the purification of the soul, the maximum striving to do good for the glory of God – these are the things upon which the Christian builds his life.

My beloved, turn to the risen Christ more often in prayer, defend yourself with the sign of the cross, for the Cross of Christ has the great power to guard us all from all temptations, lapses into sin, grief and illnesses. As St. Ignatius Brianchanninov said, ‘Christ, in trampling down the death of men by His own death and granting resurrection to all those who believe in Him by His own resurrection, has already gained the victory over all woes, while we do the same with Christ’.

I thank their graces the bishops and pastors of our Holy Church who diligently, with love in the Lord, carry out their ministry, strengthening people in faith and helping them in their difficulties and trials. I thank all church workers and all of our Orthodox people for their love for Christ’s Church, for their prayerful support, which we, ministers at the Lord’s altar, constantly feel. For its great patience our people, who has experienced so much in the past twentieth century, is worthy of a better lot in the twenty first. Our Church is doing all within her power to help the suffering, she is fully open to cooperation with the state authorities and secular society. Now this cooperation, by the grace of God, is being successfully developed, bearing good fruits to both believers and non-believers.

Let us pray that the joy of Christ’s radiant resurrection be with us forever, that the new century be for our people a time of peace and prosperity, that enmity and division cease, that Holy Orthodoxy be revived on our earth, bringing all of the faithful to salvation. The guarantee of this is the prayers for our earthly Fatherland of the host of new martyrs and confessors glorified at the Jubilee Bishops’ Council – a great host of saints, the deeds and blood of which testify to their fidelity to Christ the Saviour.

Christ’s Passover has always been a source of spiritual joy for Orthodox Christians – even during the most difficult times of the godless regime we had ‘hope against hope’ (Rom. 4:18) that our much-suffering people would return to the faith of their fathers. And now the changes that are happening could not but happen, for the Lord God could not leave his people who so loved Him in their past history.

The Lord has bestowed upon our generation a great mercy – to see with our own eyes the rebirth of Holy Orthodoxy in Russia. Upon us, humble ministers of Christ’s Church, and upon the whole of the nation there rests a great responsibility. Through our labours the Holy Church must occupy her rightful place in the life of the Fatherland in order to help people find their way to God by building up their life in truth, love and fidelity to Christ Who was crucified and risen ‘for us men and our salvation’.

‘This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it’. Again and again with all my soul I turn to you, beloved fathers, brothers and sisters, with the joyful greeting which stretches back to apostolic times and is passed on from generation to generation:

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!

PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA

Pascha 2001 AD
Moscow