DECR chairman greets Heads of Non-Orthodox Churches with the Nativity of Christ

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, has sent his greetings to the Pope of Rome Benedict XVI; the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II; Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, Head of the Anglican Communion; Archbishop Kari Mäkinen, Primate of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland; Praeses Nikolaus Schneider, President of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany; and the heads of other non-Orthodox Christian Churches.

May I cordially congratulate you on the great feast of the Nativity of Christ.

During these days the Church hymns the ineffable greatness of God’s mercy, dominion and might. As St. Gregory the Theologian says, ‘this is the feast which we celebrate today: the coming of God to people so that we may come to God… so that we, once clothed in the old person, may now be arrayed in the new, and as we have died in Adam so too we may find life in Christ, be born and be risen with him…’

I prayerfully wish you the joy of a radiant Nativity feast, good health and God’s help in your lofty ministry.

With love in the Lord,

/+Hilarion/

Metropolitan of Volokolamsk

Chairman

Department for External Church Relations

Moscow Patriarchate