OCA Chancery
Syosset, New York
To the Venerable Hierarchs, Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America
Dearly beloved,
CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED, HE IS RISEN!
These words, which now resound in our Churches, offer us and the world the inexhaustible joy of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Through the Savior’s three-day Pascha all creation is being renewed. By our entrance into the mystery of the Feast we are invited to embrace with our mind and heart the Good News radiating from the empty tomb. With the myrrh bearing women we are called to rejoice in the angelic affirmation that the place of the dead is being transformed into the temple of eternal life.
In writing about the Lord’s Resurrection, Saint Paul makes use of Psalm 68: “when He ascended on high He led a host of captives and He gave gifts to men” (Ephesians 4:8). In ascending on high the Savior descended into the very depths of hell, making known His universal presence and lordship. Truly He fills all places. Truly His divine and uncreated light penetrated the dark prison of sinful rebelliousness and terrifying death. Today we, who were the captives of this prison, are set free by the One whose life-creating death raises our mortality to immortality. The One who loved us before the ages now offers to clothe us with the gift of incorruptibility. He now calls us to bear witness to His universal love which yearns to raise all mankind with Himself into the bright and joyous day that has no evening.
Today all who truly celebrate the cross and empty tomb are entrusted with the Good News of unwaning love and freedom. With one voice let us proclaim to an anxious and frightened world the victory of the God-Man. For it is He “who will change our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power which enables Him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21).
Dearly beloved, I embrace each of you with the Paschal kiss, and extend to you and your families my warmest wishes for a most joyous feast of our Lord’s Resurrection. May the glory, wisdom, power and strength of the great gift of our Lord’s Resurrection guide us as we bear witness to the world of the triumphant victory of life over death.
CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED, HE IS RISEN!
With love in the Risen Lord,
+ THEODOSIUS
Archbishop of Washington,
Metropolitan of All America and Canada