To the Orthodox: Happy Pascha!

Dearly beloved brothers and children in the Lord,

Christ is Risen!

In sullenness, one day in the 19th century, humankind heard from the lips of the tragic philosopher: “God is dead! We killed him! All of us are his murderers … God will remain dead! What else are the churches but tombs and graves of God?”[1] And only a few decades later, we heard from the lips of his younger colleague: “Gentlemen, I declare to you the death of God!”[2]

These declarations of atheist philosophers shook the conscience of people. Much confusion ensued in the field of the spirit and of literature, of art and sometimes even of Theology, where, especially in the West, there was debate even about a “Theology of the death of God.”

Of course, the Church never had the slightest doubt that God had died. This occurred in 33AD, on the hill of Golgotha in Jerusalem, in the reign of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judaea. After suffering an unspeakable passion, He was crucified as a criminal and, at about the ninth hour of the Preparation of the Passover, he said: “It is accomplished!” and surrendered His spirit. This is an unquestionable historical reality. The Only-begotten Son and Word of God, Jesus Christ, the true God, died for our sake.[3] After assuming everything that we have: body, soul, will, energy, toil, agony, pain, sorrow, joy, all things except sin, he finally assumed our greatest concern, namely death – indeed, in its most cruel and humiliating expression, namely on the Cross. To this point, we are in agreement with the philosophers. We would even accept that the churches, the temples, are “the tombs and graves of God.” Nevertheless … we recognize, experience and worship this God who has died, as “a most life-giving dead.” Only moments after that awful Preparation, in the morning watch of “the first of the Sabbath,” on the day of the Lord, what occurred was the reason for which the divine economy of the flesh, passion, cross and descent into Hades took place. The Resurrection! And this Resurrection is an equally unquestionable historical reality! This reality has immediate and salvific consequences for all of us. The Son of God, who is at the same time the Son of Man, was risen. God was resurrected together with all of humanity that He assumed: in the Body that He received from the pure blood of the Most Holy Theotokos as well as in His sacred soul. He was risen from the dead, “resurrecting the whole of Adam in His loving-kindness.” Christ’s grave, the “empty tomb” of Joseph, is forever empty. Instead of being a grave for the dead, it is a memorial of victory over death; it is a fountain of life! The spiritual Sun of Righteousness has dawned “beautiful, as from a grave,” granting the unwaning light, peace, joy, gladness, and eternal life. It is true that the temples were the “tombs” of God, but they were empty tombs, filled with light and replete with “the fragrance of life”[4] and the smell of Paschal spring, brilliant, splendid, adorned in glory and with life-giving flowers of tangible hope. The death of God overturned the powers of Hades; death itself was reduced to nothing more than a mere incident introducing humanity from death to Life. The Churches, those “tombs of God,” are the wide-open gates of divine love, the opened entrance to the Bridal chamber of God’s Son, who “came out of the tomb as from a Bridegroom,” while we faithful enter therein and “celebrate the death of death, the annihilation of Hades, the beginning of a new, eternal way of life; and, thus rejoicing, we offer hymns to the cause, namely the only blessed and glorious God of our fathers.”[5]

          It is fortunate, then, that God died because His death became the source of our life and resurrection. It is fortunate that there are so many of His “tombs” throughout the world, so many sacred temples, where each of can freely enter when we are in pain, tired, and in need of consolation in order lay before God the burden of our suffering, agony, fear and insecurity – namely, in order to become rid of our death. It is fortunate that we have Churches of the crucified, dead, risen and living Christ, where before the hopelessness of our time, the betrayal of all idols, the “lowly gods” that have stolen our hearts, such as the economy, the ideology, the philosophy, the metaphysics and all those “empty deceits”[6] of our “age of deception,”[7] we can find refuge, comfort and salvation.

          From the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Mother Church, which experiences to the utmost the Passion, Pain, Cross, and Death, as well as the Resurrection of Christ, we extend to all the faithful of the Church our wholehearted Paschal greeting and blessing, together with the embrace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was risen from the dead and lives eternally, granting life to all people. To Him be glory, might, honor and worship, with the Father and Holy Spirit, to the ages. Amen.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
Τhe evidence of things not seen.
(Hebrews 11:1)

To the Most Reverend Hierarchs, the Reverend Priests and Deacons, the Monks and Nuns, the Presidents and Members of the Parish Councils of the Greek Orthodox Communities, the Distinguished Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Day, Afternoon, and Church Schools, the Philoptochos Sisterhoods, the Youth, the Hellenic Organizations, and the entire Greek Orthodox Family in America

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christ is Risen!  Χριστός Ἀνέστη!

On this great and glorious Feast of our Holy Orthodox Church, I greet you in the abundant joy of our Risen Lord and in the peace of His unchanging promise of salvation and true life.  As we gather at night anticipating the dawning of the new day, our churches, our homes, and most certainly our souls are filled with the radiance of the Resurrection and the illuminating Truth of our faith in Christ.

The Biblical record is replete with several accounts of the appearances of Christ to His disciples after His triumphant Resurrection from the dead.  The Gospel of John (20:19-29) presents us with two such appearances of the Risen Christ to His apostles in the upper room, where they frequently gathered.  In the first of these appearances, the Risen Christ showed His apostles His hands and His side, the scars of the physical agony which He endured on the Cross unto death.  His presence before them was a visible sign of His Resurrection from the dead.  At this first appearance of the Risen Christ in the upper room, however, the Apostle Thomas was not present.  Hearing of this encounter from the other apostles, Thomas had clearly stated that he would not believe that Christ had risen from the dead unless he saw Christ and touched His wounds.  Eight days later, Christ made a second appearance to His apostles in the upper room.  This time, Thomas was present, and he was able to see the prints of the nails and spear in the flesh of the body of the Risen Christ.  Thomas recognized the Risen Christ with the following, unique exclamation of his belief: My Lord and my God!  (John 20:28).  To this, Christ replied to Thomas, Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe (John 20:29).

Thomas needed to see in order to believe, and Thomas’ struggle with his doubt and his faith is a very human one indeed.  Today, we profess our belief in the Risen Christ nearly 2,000 years after the appearances of the Risen Christ to His apostles.  We do this within a society that is removed historically by the passage of time since these Divine appearances.  For this reason, we can rejoice in our belief in the Risen Christ because we know the beatitude pronounced by Christ which tells us that we are blessed because we are among those who have not seen and yet believe (v.29). 

On this day of Pascha, we gather to celebrate this continued and real presence of Christ in our midst, Whose Resurrection from the dead is at the very core of our Christian faith.  Christ’s authentic presence is experienced by each and every one of us in many ways, such as when we gather together in His name for prayer, or when we hear His Holy Gospel.  However, His presence is made manifest in the most superb way when we partake of His very real body and blood in the most blessed sacrament of Holy Communion, through the physical elements of bread and wine.  This is why we give thanks to the Lord when we partake of the Holy Communion by acknowledging that we have “received the divine, holy, pure, immortal, life-giving and awesome Mysteries of Christ,” to quote the words of the Divine Liturgy.  Thus, paradoxically, while we did not “see” the Risen Christ in the same way in which His apostles did, we nonetheless do “see” Him and experience Him in a total and complete way, just as His apostles.  It is here where we are presented with the element of Divine Mystery that is a distinguishing characteristic of our Orthodox Christian faith.  It is in this most blessed experience of our receiving the Holy Communion that we are given the ability to see and experience that which Thomas needed to see 2,000 years ago in order for him to believe.  It is in this Divine Mystery of Holy Communion that we experience the Risen Christ, that we receive the Son of God physically into our bodies and spiritually within our lives, and that we are continuously renewed by His healing power.

My beloved Christians,

On this Holy Feast of Pascha, as we fill our churches and our hearts with the light and joy of the Resurrection, let us joyfully profess our belief in the Risen Lord, Who is in our midst.  Through faith and our partaking of His body and blood in the Divine Mystery of Holy Communion, let us receive His love and affirm the assurance of His blessings upon us.  Let us proclaim to a world in need that we are people of the Resurrection, that we are people of hope and salvation, and that we are people of faith.  And let us invite all to come into the loving embrace of the living Lord Who is Risen and to see Him, experience Him, and find everlasting joy and peace in Him, Who has vanquished the power of death so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).  Once again we joyfully proclaim: Christ is Risen!  Χριστός Ἀνέστη!  Truly He is Risen!  Ἀληθῶς Ἀνέστη!

With paternal blessings in the Risen Christ,

† DEMETRIOS
Archbishop of America