Русская
Версия
April 23, 2011
Moscow, Russia: Paschal Epistle of His Holiness Kyrill, Patriarch of
Moscow and All Russia, to the archpastors, pastors, monastics, and
all the faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church
Beloved
in the Lord archpastors, all-honorable presbyters and deacons,
God-loving monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters!
From my heart, filled with gratitude toward God, I
proclaim to all of you the great and saving tidings:
Christ is risen!
With each year, the Church testifies through this
Paschal exclamation to the event of universal significance which
happened almost two thousand years ago. It was then that, early in
the morning, the myrrh-bearing women came to the burial site of
their Teacher and saw that the tomb was empty. The divine power of
Christ had triumphed over the law of death. He had risen, testifying
to all of humanity that death was not the end of life, that death
was overcome by the power of God.
Christ’s Resurrection, in being a unique event in world
history, became by God’s intention the beginning too of our own
personal resurrection. It was precisely for this that the Savior
came into the world, suffered, was crucified, and rose from the tomb
in order that each person might have the chance to go through the
experience of resurrection from the dead, and not in the figurative
but direct meaning of this word. St. Paul speaks clearly of this:
"God… will also raise us up by his own power" (1 Cor. 6: 14).
That is why the feast of Pascha is the feast of the
victory of life over death, for through the Resurrection of Christ
the Savior, resurrection from the dead has been granted to us all.
And whatever difficult circumstances we may endure in our earthly
life, whatever tribulations may be our lot, whatever fears people
may try to instill in us – for they possess no spiritual power to
foresee the future – our perception of the world ought to be calm
and joyous, for Christ has risen.
The feast of Pascha in Holy Russia has always been
great and radiant. And now in recent decades it has again returned
to many homes and families. It is now also celebrated in those
places where previously there had been no Paschal greeting: in
hospitals, prisons, in the army and navy, and even in space. May God
grant that beyond the external transformations taking part now in
the countries of the Russian world there may be accomplished the
genuine rebirth of human souls, that the joy of Christ’s
Resurrection may fill the hearts of each one of us, that the light
of divine love may warm not only our families and friends but also
people deprived of the chance of being in church, the elderly, sick
and lonely.
Through Christ’s Resurrection, the believer acquires
the chance of communicating with the power of grace sent down from
above, so that he may live in truth and according to God’s
commandments: to be good and merciful, honest and a well-wisher in
his relations with people, to be capable of sharing with them both
joy and grief.
This Christian attitude toward our neighbors includes
concern for one’s country, for one’s people, and for one’s family
and home. In preaching the priority of eternal spiritual values, the
Church calls upon her children to adopt a tactful attitude towards
the temporal ‒ yet real ‒ values of the world created by God:
towards the environment and towards our rich cultural inheritance
which has been made over centuries by our predecessors. To be
guardians of the spiritual treasures and traditions of Orthodoxy
means to transform oneself and one’s inner world actively, as well
as to maintain the beauty and harmony of the world which surrounds
us and to build them up in those places where they have been
destroyed by the ill will of people. This is the vocation and
responsibility of the Christian.
The Lord does not demand of us endeavors that are
beyond our strength. He appeals to the soul of each individual and
again and again calls upon us: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find
rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light"
(Matt. 11:28-30). In order to feel and understand how good and light
is the burden that the Lord lays upon us, we must learn how to do
good to our neighbors and those far from us. In this learning
process, it is only the first steps that are difficult: to stop in
time and not to answer rudeness with rudeness, evil with evil,
falsehood with falsehood, condemnation with condemnation. And then
at least to feel gratification as a result of a correct and honest
act which is beneficial to the other person, whether in the family,
at work, in the parish, or simply when speaking to other people and
acquaintances. This sense of gratification can then turn into a
joyful and optimistic spiritual condition if good deeds carried out
not for the sake of gain but from a pure heart become a part of our
lives. It is only then that we will feel the changes for the better
in our public life, when we become aware of the presence of the
indestructible link between the good we have done and the well-being
of society.
The evangelical motivation of our acts both in our
private and professional and public sphere is capable of changing
radically both ourselves and the world we live in.
"May God arise and his enemies be scattered!" ‒ we
exclaim on that light-bearing night. May God arise in our hearts and
may the falsehood, enmity, evil, discord and all divisions in our
life be scattered!
From the bottom of my heart I congratulate all of you,
my dear ones, on the feast of Holy Pascha. May the aid and blessing
of the Lord who has truly risen accompany each of us in our further
labors for the glory of the Church, the well-being of the country in
which we live, and for the good of our neighbors and those far from
us. Amen.
+KYRILL
Patriarch of Moscow & All Russia
Moscow
Holy Pascha 2011
Media Office of the Eastern American
Diocese
