January 7, 2015
Nativity Epistle His Holiness Kyrill, Patriarch of Moscow & All
Russia
Nativity
Epistle of His Holiness Kyrill, Patriarch of Moscow & All Russia, to
the archpastors, pastors, monastics, and all of the faithful
children of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Your Eminence and Graces the archpastors, venerable fathers,
all-honorable monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters!
On this holy night, I address all of you living in different
countries, cities, and villages, yet making up the One Russian
Orthodox Church, and from the bottom of my heart, I congratulate you
on the world-saving feast of the Nativity of Christ. I send you my
heartfelt greetings, my dear ones, and prayerfully wish that we all
be filled with spiritual joy in participating in this great
festivity and enjoy the banquet of faith as sons and daughters of
God and friends of Christ (John 15:15).
Today, as we contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation of God, we
strive to understand what the meaning is of this event that happened
two thousand years ago in Bethlehem, and what relationship it has to
us and our contemporaries.
St. Paul writes: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent
forth His Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those
who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons"
(Gal. 4:4-5). But what preceded this fullness of time? The entire
history of the human race before the Nativity of Christ is, in
essence, the history of the search for God, when the greatest minds
tried to understand Who the source of the supernatural power is,
which affects every human person in one way or another in this life.
On their path of searching for God, people, in endeavoring to find
the truth, stumbled into all sorts of errors. Yet, neither man’s
primitive fear before terrifying natural phenomena, nor the
deification of the natural elements, idols, and at times himself,
nor even those rare insights which illumined the pagan philosophers,
had brought people to God. And when "the world by wisdom knew not
God" (I Cor. 1:21), He deigned to come down to people. With our
spiritual eyes we contemplate the ‘great mystery of godliness:’ the
Creator is likened to creation, He assumes human nature, endures
humiliation, dies on the Cross and rises again. All of this
transcends human understanding and is a miracle which reveals the
fullness of the Revelation of God of Himself to people.
Christ is born and the world has found hope, Christ is born and love
reigns forever, Christ is born and the Heavens have bowed down to
the earth, Christ is born and the star of Bethlehem shows the true
way to God, Christ is born and let no one believe in the triumph of
evil, for we are "saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8).
The prophet Isaiah awaited and foresaw the coming of the Messiah,
and exclaimed: "God is with us" (Is. 8:10). His divinely inspired
words are even today a source of ineffable joy for millions of
Christians. Once born in Bethlehem, the Lord is born in our hearts
and abides with us if we remain faithful to Him and the Church that
He has founded. He is with us when we accomplish good deeds. He is
with us when we help our neighbors. He is with us when we are
compassionate and sympathetic. He is with us when we reconcile
enemies. He is with us when we forgive and remember not evil. He is
with us when we pray and participate in the Church’s sacraments,
above all in the sacrament of Thanksgiving, the Eucharist.
The feast of the Nativity of Christ speaks to us of that which is
most important; we are called to learn how to love God and serve
him, our Savior, the one who has granted this salvation to all
nations and for all times, who extends his embrace to each one of
us. In acquiring the skill of worshipping God and reverentially
standing in his presence, we at the same time learn how to serve our
neighbor as well by manifesting "faith which worketh by love" (Gal.
5:6).
We have only to add a little – to respond to the action of the
saving grace of God through our obedience, through our trust in the
words of the Lord, through our desire to fulfill His commandments.
If we master this great truth, then much will be transformed not
only within ourselves but around us. We will be able to set
priorities on our values, we can peacefully, calmly, and assuredly
go along the path of life mapped out for us, rendering praise and
thanksgiving to God.
In order to attain this spiritual state, we must be Orthodox people
not in name only, but according to our deepest convictions and way
of life, as our pious ancestors were ardent believers and people who
loved God. Among these a special place is occupied by the baptizer
of Rus’, the Holy and Equal-of-the-Apostles Great Prince Vladimir,
the 1000th anniversary of whose repose we shall commemorate this
year. It is thanks to him that we are the bearers of the lofty
calling of Christians, and in total comprise the single family of
Orthodox brotherly peoples of historic Rus’. Thus it was, is, and
shall be. And no temporary troubles and trials, no external forces
can tear asunder these centuries-old spiritual and cultural ties of
the inheritors of the baptismal font of Kiev.
In these holy days of the Nativity, the prayers of the fullness of
the Church and my own fervent prayer are for peace in the country of
Ukraine. Irrespective of where her children live and of their
political views and preferences, the Russian Orthodox Church
fulfills her responsible mission which was placed upon her by Christ
(Mt. 5:9). She has done and continues to do all that is possible to
reconcile people and help them overcome the consequences of enmity.
At the bottom of all conflict, hatred, and division is sin.
According to St. Justin Popović, sin "exploits all its power to
accomplish one thing: to render the human person godless and
inhuman" (St. Justin Popović,
Philosophical Abysses). And we see in what infernal state the
human person at times abides when he has lost the dignity granted to
him by the Creator.
Yet the Church, in the name of God tirelessly proclaiming to people
the ‘great joy’ (Luke 2:10) of the birth of the Savior, calls upon
each dweller on earth to believe and transform himself for the
better. She offers to us the way of ascent: from seeking out God to
the knowledge of God, from the knowledge of God to communion with
God, and from communion with God to becoming like God. St.
Athanasius the Great, who lived in Alexandria in the fourth century,
expressed the purpose of the coming into the world of the Savior in
these amazing words: ‘God became man so that man may become god,’
yet not according to his nature but according to divine grace. The
centuries-old experience of the Church testifies that genuine
transfiguration, theosis,
is accomplished through the action of grace by means of the
voluntary co-operation between God and the human person. And it is
attained through labor, in obedience to the Creator, and not through
accepting the diabolic temptation of the serpent who intimated to
our ancestors that they should taste of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil and immediately become ‘as gods’ (Gen.
3:5). Every person who lives according to faith knows that it is
fidelity to God that deters him from evil deeds and thoughts, that
it is faith which inspires him to spiritual feats and labors to the
glory of God and for the good of our neighbors.
In congratulating you all on the great feast of the Nativity of
Christ and the New Year I would like to wish you from the bottom of
my heart good health, peace, prosperity and abundant succor from on
high in following our Lord and Savior without stumbling.
"But the God of all grace, Who hath called us unto His eternal glory
by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you
perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and
dominion for ever and ever. Amen" (I Peter 5:10-11).
+KYRILL
Patriarch of Moscow & All Russia
Nativity of Christ 2014/2015
Moscow
