“In the light of the Resurrection”
“We waited, and at last our expectations were fulfilled,” writes the Serbian Bishop Nikolai of Ochrid, describing the Easter service at Jerusalem. “When the Patriarch sang, “Christ is risen,” a heavy burden fell from our souls. We felt as if we also had been raised from the dead. All at once, from all around, the same cry resounded like the noise of many waters. “Christ is risen” sang the Greeks, the Russians, the Arabs, the Serbs, the Copts, the Armenians, the Ethiopians one after another, each in his own tongue, in his own melody. . . . Coming out from the service at dawn, we began to regard everything in the light of the glory of Christ’s Resurrection, and all appeared different from what it had yesterday; everything seemed better, more expressive, more glorious. Only in the light of the Resurrection does life receive meaning.”
So begins the well-known introduction to The Lenten Triodion edited by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary (quoting from Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich’s Missionary Letters.)
The Chancellor’s Diary will resume again on Bright Tuesday. In the meantime I wish you, your families and your church communities a blessed Holy Week and joyous celebration of Pascha.
May these days help all of us reevaluate our lives, relationships, plans and problems in the light of the Resurrection. Christ is risen!