OCA Chancery
Syosset, New York
To the Venerable Hierarchs, Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America
Dearly beloved,
Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I will be glorified with him. Yesterday I died with Christ; today I will return to life with him. Yesterday I was buried with Christ; today I will rise with him from the tomb. (Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Homily On Pascha)
CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED, HE IS RISEN!
On this day of unwaning light I greet you with the words of our holy father. They are words that echo the very core of the Gospel. They are words that have been incorporated into our liturgical celebration and express the life giving power of our Savior’s passover from death to life.
Today we proclaim the victory of the Life Giver. He who was suspended on the cross and placed in the tomb has destroyed the kingdom of death and corruption. The uncreated and transfiguring light of the resurrected God-man fills our early morning vigil with the radiance of the Kingdom which is to come. Indeed, the joyous news of the Messiah’s Resurrection is given to us to share with a world bound to its own sin and mortality. Today we are called to acquire the generosity of our Lord who desires us to seek and draw others into the dawn of the new and never ending day of glory.
Yet to extend Christ’s benevolence requires us to identify with the words of Saint Gregory. For unless we perceive with our mind and heart that we have been taken from death to life, our proclamation will not be compelling. Unless we acknowledge that in our baptism we were crucified and buried with Christ, our words about the Resurrection will remain hollow and unconvincing. Only when we acknowledge our baptism can we enter the empty tomb that has been transformed into the gathering place of all the living.
Beloved in the Lord, Christ is risen and the entire cosmos is being renewed. Christ is risen, and the living and the dead are no longer separated. As one choir we announce the joyous news of the Resurrection. With one voice we announce the power of our Lord’s great and holy Pascha.
CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED, HE IS RISEN!
With love in the Risen Lord,
+ THEODOSIUS
Archbishop of Washington,
Metropolitan of All America and Canada