DECR chairman congratulates Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches on Pascha
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, has sent his greetings with the Resurrection of Christ to His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria, His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, His Holiness and Beatitude Catholicos Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia, His Holiness Patriarch Irenej of Serbia, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel of Romania, His Holiness Patriarch Neofit of Bulgaria, His Beatitude Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus, His Beatitude Archbishop Hyeronimus II of Athens and All Greece, His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana and All Albania, His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland, His Beatitude Metropolitan Rastislav of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, and His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon of All America and Canada:
On this great and solemn day of the victory of life over death, please accept my heartfelt congratulations on Christ’s holy Passover:
CHRIST IS RISEN!
“Now are all things filled with light; heaven and earth, and the places under the earth. All creation celebrates the resurrection of Christ, on whom also we are founded” (The Paschal Canon).
The good news of the Saviour’s Resurrection is the unshakeable foundation of our faith and the fount of spiritual joy, for God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “who has enabled us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light and has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1, 12:13).
On this “day that the Lord has made” (Ps 118:24) I rejoice together with you and your God-saved flock and I prayerfully entreat of the risen Christ that he send down upon you peace in abundance and his gracious aid in your lofty Primatial ministry.
With reverential love in the Lord,
+ Hilarion
Metropolitan of Volokolamsk
Chairman
Department of External Relations
Moscow Patriarchate