January 7, 2015
Nativity Epistle of His
Eminence Hilarion, Metropolitan of Eastern America & New York, First
Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad
Right Reverend fellow archpastors, most honorable
father-concelebrants, reverent diaconate in Christ, beloved in the
Lord monastics, laboring in our monasteries; brothers and sisters,
faithful children of the Russian Church Abroad, scattered like
grains of God’s wheat across the face of the entire earth!
From the depth of my heart, filled with joy, I greet all of you with
the Nativity of the God of peace and love, who became a living Man,
one of us! Contemplating the manger of Christ, I offer the gift of
fervent prayer for the establishment of a deep and inalienable peace
in the hearts of all men, all peoples, in my heart and in your
hearts – that compunctious peace that was brought to the city of
Bethlehem by that great chorus of angels, which proclaimed: "Glory
to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men."
Today, the Holy Church represents Bethlehem in each of Her temples.
She desires that each heart be a pure manger for God… What is
necessary for this? It is necessary for each of us to become a
child. From His manger the Lord proclaims: look at Me, the Creator
of the world; I have become a child for your sake. If you do not
change and do not become like children, you will not enter the
Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 18:3); you will not be capable and worthy
of receiving Me into your hearts.
Having been cleansed in the font of Holy Baptism, the Holy Great
Prince Vladimir, enlightener of Rus’, who died exactly 1,000 years
ago, became such a child. In the upcoming 2015 New Year, this
momentous date will be widely celebrated by our beloved and great
Mother – the Russian Orthodox Church. Let us note that the famous
historian of Russian Church history and architecture, Eugene E.
Golubinsky, wrote in the early twentieth century about St. Vladimir,
that his very name contains the concept of possessing peace, amity,
and harmony. Sadly, at this time there is no such concord and peace
in our common font, the kind our enlightener Vladimir (whom we call
“our beautiful Sun”) possessed…
Everyone longs for peace and demands peace for the
whole world.
Where can that peace be found? It is in the preservation and
cultivation of our common Orthodox Christian roots. In 1988, my
predecessor, Metropolitan Laurus of blessed memory (who at the time
was the Archbishop of Syracuse & Holy Trinity) wrote: "What will
befall our nation in the future is fully known only by the Lord our
God. Yet that which constituted its strength in the past is the only
thing that can make us strong now and at all times. Therefore, let
us firmly enshrine and staunchly protect the testament of our
fathers, from whom we inherited the Orthodox Faith as the true
power, greater than that which can be found in this world."
Let us humbly beseech the God-Child that He grant our people
spiritual strength for the overcoming of fraternal strife, that
through the prayers of the right-believing, Equal-of-the-Apostles
Great Prince Vladimir peace be restored in the God-preserved lands
of Rus’, having been cleansed through repentant tears as through a
second baptism. May we uphold the way of St. Vladimir, which alone
can save us and our historic native land, and with it the entire
world. And then the promise of the Holy Hierarch John (Maximovitch),
the great archpastor of the Russian diaspora, will come to pass:
"Blessed are you, O Russian land, which is being purified by the
fire of suffering! You passed through the waters of baptism, and now
through the fire of suffering, and will enter into your rest" (from
his Homily on the 950th Anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’, 1938).
Once again I greet all the beloved children of the Russian Church
Abroad with the joyous and world-saving Feast of the Nativity of
Christ! Through this greeting, I would like to underline the
spiritual loftiness of this good and luminous celebration. May the
Son of God enlighten our hearts with the quiet light of the star of
Bethlehem. To Him is due glory and thanksgiving unto the ages of
ages. Amen!
With love in the Newborn Christ,
+HILARION
Metropolitan of Eastern America & New York
First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad
Nativity
of
the
Lord 2014/2015
