PROT. NO. 251
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B A R T H O L O M E W
By
God’s Mercy
Archbishop
of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch
To
the Plenitude of the Church:
May
the Grace, Peace and Mercy of Christ Risen in Glory be with you All
Most
honorable brother Hierarchs,
Dearly
beloved children,
By God’s mercy and strength, we have journeyed
through prayer and fasting across the ocean of Holy and Great Lent, finally reaching
the splendid feast of Pascha, and we praise the Lord of glory, who descended to
the depths of Hades and “achieved the entrance for all to Paradise” through His
raising from the dead.
The Resurrection is not the remembrance of an
event from the past, but the “good change” of our existence, “another birth, an
alternate life, a different kind of living, the transformation of our very
being.”[1]
And in the Risen Christ, the entire creation is renewed together with humanity.
When we chant in the 3rd Ode of the Paschal Canon, that “Now
everything is filled with light—heaven, earth, and all things beneath the
earth; therefore, let all creation celebrate the resurrection of Christ, in
which everything has been established,” we proclaim that the universe is founded
on and filled with unfading light. The phrases “before Christ” and “after
Christ” ring true not only for the history of the human race, but also for the
sake of all creation.
The Lord’s raising from the dead constitutes the
nucleus of the Gospel, the stable point of reference for all the books of the
New Testament, as well as for the liturgical life and devotion of the Orthodox
Christians. Indeed, the words “Christ is Risen!” summarize the theology of the
Church. The experience of the abolition of the dominion of death is a source of
ineffable joy, “free from the bonds of this world.” “All things are filled with
joy upon receiving the taste of resurrection.” The resurrection is an explosion
“of great joy” and permeates the entire life, ethos and pastoral ministry of
the church as the foretaste of the fullness of life, knowledge and life of the
eternal kingdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Orthodox faith and
pessimism are contradictory phenomena.
Pascha is for us a feast of freedom and victory
over alienating forces; it is the churchification of our existence, an
invitation to collaborate for the transfiguration of the world. The history of
the Church is rendered “a great Pascha” as the journey toward “the liberation
in glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8.21). The experience of resurrection
reveals the center and eschatological dimension of freedom in Christ. Biblical
references to the Savior’s resurrection demonstrate the power of our freedom as
believers; it is in this freedom alone that the “great miracle” is manifested,
which remains inaccessible to every oppression. “The mystery of salvation
belongs to those who desire it freely, not to those who are tyrannized against
their will.”[2]
Accepting the divine gift as a “transition” of the believer toward Christ is
the voluntary existential response to the loving and saving “transition” of the
Risen Lord toward humankind. For “without me, you cannot do anything” (Jn
15.5).
The mystery of the Lord’s resurrection to this day
continues to shatter the positivistic certainties of those who deny God as “the
denial of human will,” as well as the advocates of “the fallacy of
self-fulfillment without God” and the admirers of the contemporary “man-god.”
The future does not belong to those imprisoned in a self-sufficient, stifling
and narrow earthly existence. There is no authentic freedom without
resurrection, without the perspective of eternity.
For the Holy Great Church of Christ, one source of
such resurrectional joy is also found this year in the common celebration of
Easter by the entire Christian world, along with the commemoration of the 1700th
anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, which condemned the heresy of
Arius, who “diminished within the Trinity the one Son and Word of God,” and
which established the way of calculating the date for the feast of our Savior’s
resurrection.
The Council of Nicaea inaugurates a new age in the
conciliar history of the Church, the transition from the local to the
ecumenical synodal level. As we know, the First Ecumenical Council introduced
the non-biblical term “homoousios (of one essence)” to the Symbol of Faith,
albeit with a clear soteriological reference, which remains the essential
characteristic of church doctrines. In this sense, the celebrations of this
great anniversary are not a return to the past, inasmuch as the “spirit of
Nicaea” exists unspoiled in the life of the Church, whose unity is associated
with the correct understanding and development of its conciliar identity.
Discussion on the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea reminds us of the common
Christian archetypes and the meaning behind the struggle against the perversion
of our spotless faith, encouraging us to turn toward the depth and essence of
Church tradition. The joint celebration this year of the “most holy day of
Pascha” highlights the timeliness of the subject, the solution of which not
only expresses the respect of Christianity for the decrees of the Council of
Nicaea, but also the awareness that “there should be no differentiation in such
sacred matters.”
With these sentiments, filled with the light and
joy of the Resurrection, while proclaiming “Christ is Risen!” with jubilation,
let us honor the chosen and holy day of Pascha with a heartfelt confession of
our faith in the Redeemer, who trampled down death by death and granted life to
all people and all creation, through our faithfulness to the sacred traditions
of the Great Church as well as through sincere love for our neighbor, for the
glorification by us all of the heavenly name of the Lord.
At
the Phanar, Holy Pascha 2025
+
Bartholomew of Constantinople
Fervent
supplicant for you all
to
the Risen Lord
