Paschal Epistle: Metropolitan Valentine (ROAC)
Russian to English translation
His Eminence Metropolitan VALENTINE of Suzdal and Vladimir
“These things I command you: Love one another. If the world hates you, know With me before it hated you … The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you ” (Evangn. John 15, 17 – 20).
Beloved in Christ’s Resurrection archpastors, Reverend ottsychestnoe monasticism, brothers and sisters!
Christ is Risen!
Not the first year, our Holy Church, Martyr meets Prebozhestvenny day of the Resurrection of their Lord and Savior in harassment. People with a worldly, earthly dispensation of mind, it is believed that persecution should mar our joy of the Risen Christ. But true Christians know that to suffer for his Lord, to suffer together with Him, not renouncing or from a single word of His truth – this is a true joy.
After all, the glory and dignity of the Church is not in the fact that the paths of this world glittering gold dome and the powers that be “sacrificed” her their unjustly earned wealth. No! Glory and dignity of the Church – its martyrs and confessors, living witnesses of that truth is not subject to any violence, that there is a world power capable of piercing silence word of the Gospel, to destroy the True Orthodox Church.
Talked about this the Lord Jesus Christ in his farewell conversation with his disciples in Gethsemane, the night before His crucifixion. For this to tears by a touching conversation, a stunning man’s consciousness, starts first, the largest fragment of the Gospel which is read on Holy Thursday evening, the succession of Christ’s Passion in our churches. From this conversation begins our mental, spiritual complicity in the sufferings of the Lord, with excerpts from her and we decided to start and it’s Easter message. In this sacred moment, the sacrament of Easter from the depths of our hearts, let us give glory to our brave brothers and sisters – the heroes of the faith, expelled on the eve of this celebration of their temples in the villages of Pavlovsk, Ivanovo, nettle, Borisov, Omutskom and Ves near Suzdal, but can not change our true Church! Our bow and faithful flock of Suzdal, 11 churches have lost – their most precious relics, which now, by the will of the devil and obey him in power, reigned “abomination of desolation”. Will not stop our fervent prayer and for the rest of the faithful Orthodox Christians expelled from the church, insulted and humiliated ponoshaemyh for the Holy Church. All of you – a worthy successor to our fathers – New Martyrs and Confessors Russian, on the blood which is our Church and in white robes which she met her fiance and the Creator on the day of His Second Coming. You are already connected to God through your pain, because, as he himself said, you have driven the same way as they persecuted him that you are resurrected and glorified, and was succeeded by his divine life with Him.
We all know that without the Cross there is no resurrection, and without the selfless loyalty to the truth is not true Easter joy. Also, the Russian people since ancient times said that the True Church is not one that drives, and one that persecuted. Our oppressors from among the secular authorities and the dominant lzhetserkvi say they also celebrate the Resurrection of Christ and also experiencing some kind of Easter joy. These vain their holidays, arranged in the walls taken from the temples of the True Church, the tears and blood of true Christians, to unjustly earned wealth, boldly rebuke many centuries ago, the great prophet Isaiah, with the word of God to the incorrect him to Israel: “Your new moons and your feasts hates My soul, and they burden for me, I am weary of bearing them … cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, relieve the oppressed “(Isaiah 1: 11-17). Hear whether our persecutors this prophetic voice, as he heard his “faithful remnant” of the Jewish people accepted Christ? Let us pray that does not come to pass upon them the word of Christ: “They have their eyes look and see, our ears hear, and not understand” (Mark 4: 12).
We will celebrate our Easter is not so, as it celebrates the world, who betrayed any external entertainment, decorations, drinking and obyadeniyu, emotional delight, complacency in the flesh and the lust of the eyes. Calling us to the Apostle Paul: “Clear the old leaven … For our Passover – Christ – sacrificed for us. Therefore let us feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness … “(1 Cor., 5: 7-8). Dedicate this day of feasting and bodily pleasures, and the prayer of thanksgiving for all the things which the Lord, and mysterious communion with Him in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. Exposing our persecutors, who have perverted the essence of Christianity and, in particular, have made Easter folk traditions, we will not arrogantly complacent over them. Our Lord Jesus Christ loves all people, has brought his crucifixion victim died on the cross and rose again to all people to live forever, in the fullness of God’s joy and happiness. Our mission as a small but faithful remnant of true Christians – to help our misguided brothers and sisters understand the falsehood of their errors, show them the way out of Babylon of sin and heresy to the New Jerusalem, the eternal truth, a shining “Divine blistanmi Resurrection.
Let us turn from the external environment in which we find this holiday to its internal content, which is undoubtedly the most important thing for us, and should fully occupy our thoughts and feelings in this and the Divine Lightbringer night. As taught by St. Paul, the risen Lord is the firstborn from the dead. What does this mean? When the people sinned and have fallen through it from God as the source of life, their destiny was death, sin, evil, lying is incompatible with life, which all have only good and true. Beginning with Adam and Eve, their children and descendants, right up to Christ, all people were dying and did not inherit eternal life. Our Lord, being the eternal God and Creator, is so fond of people, that two thousand years ago, is embodied in our human nature and lived on earth in our human body. Body of the Lord was crucified and died on the cross, and his immortal soul descended into hell – into the realm of eternal death. But death can not absorb the Source of life, her encounter with God meant the death of death, the ruin of hell. According to the figurative expression of a saint, swallowing the bait the flesh of Christ, hell and the devil have pierced the lightning of His Divinity and release all the dead, which they kept from the time of Adam and Eve. “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise” – nelozhno Lord Jesus Christ promised the repentant thief crucified on his right hand. It is no accident, as evidenced by the evangelist Matthew, in the days of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ “many bodies of saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many” (Matt. 27:53). Everyone is well-known “firstborn from the dead has become the holy one Lord Lazarus, which is already stinking, on 4-day stay in the grave, Christ has risen for eight days before own resurrection.
Visible to all of us as a future general resurrection is the resurrection of spring nature – is no coincidence our bright holiday every year coincides with the life-giving time of year when leaves deadening cold, the snow melts, everything comes alive, green, the sun shines gaily murmuring brooks, the birds are singing joyfully . As revealed to us in the Divine Revelation, the same will happen on the last day with the bodies of the dead. At Matins of Holy Saturday, we heard a tremendous prophecy of Ezekiel, whom the Lord opened the secret of the last day: “God … put me in the middle of the field, and it was full of bones … Thus says the Lord God unto these bones: Behold, I will introduce the spirit in you, ye shall live … I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone … and they lived, and stood on their feet – a very, very great army … Thus saith the Lord GOD; : Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves “(Ezekiel 37: 1-12).
Partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, we’ll become organic members of the Body of the Lord, the Resurrection of whom we now celebrate. Thus, the need to talk not about the “celebration” in the usual sense, but a direct participation in the Resurrection. As the first Adam we have inherited the body, genetic information, because of the New Adam – Christ – Resurrection and inherit eternal life. Through the sacrament we see the image become co-resurrection with Christ and with the parties of its eternal life, mysteriously attached to His divinity, as inseparable from the Father and the Spirit. A united way with Him, we will be resurrected and we shall also live with Him in His divinity.
Beloved in the Lord!
Welcome to vseradostnym holiday of Christ’s Resurrection, and calling upon you the blessing of God, I wish you all to keep in their hearts and not to lose the joy of God’s Passover. Let the light shining in your faces that night, will consecrate the twilight of the world and become a living, a clear indication of truth for all people!
Truly Christ is risen!
Humble
B A L E N T I N,
Metropolitan of Suzdal and Vladimir
Pascha 2011.
Suzdal
“These things I command you: Love one another. If the world hates you, know With me before it hated you … The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you ” (Evangn. John 15, 17 – 20).
Beloved in Christ’s Resurrection archpastors, Reverend ottsychestnoe monasticism, brothers and sisters!
Christ is Risen!
Not the first year, our Holy Church, Martyr meets Prebozhestvenny day of the Resurrection of their Lord and Savior in harassment. People with a worldly, earthly dispensation of mind, it is believed that persecution should mar our joy of the Risen Christ. But true Christians know that to suffer for his Lord, to suffer together with Him, not renouncing or from a single word of His truth – this is a true joy.
After all, the glory and dignity of the Church is not in the fact that the paths of this world glittering gold dome and the powers that be “sacrificed” her their unjustly earned wealth. No! Glory and dignity of the Church – its martyrs and confessors, living witnesses of that truth is not subject to any violence, that there is a world power capable of piercing silence word of the Gospel, to destroy the True Orthodox Church.
Talked about this the Lord Jesus Christ in his farewell conversation with his disciples in Gethsemane, the night before His crucifixion. For this to tears by a touching conversation, a stunning man’s consciousness, starts first, the largest fragment of the Gospel which is read on Holy Thursday evening, the succession of Christ’s Passion in our churches. From this conversation begins our mental, spiritual complicity in the sufferings of the Lord, with excerpts from her and we decided to start and it’s Easter message. In this sacred moment, the sacrament of Easter from the depths of our hearts, let us give glory to our brave brothers and sisters – the heroes of the faith, expelled on the eve of this celebration of their temples in the villages of Pavlovsk, Ivanovo, nettle, Borisov, Omutskom and Ves near Suzdal, but can not change our true Church! Our bow and faithful flock of Suzdal, 11 churches have lost – their most precious relics, which now, by the will of the devil and obey him in power, reigned “abomination of desolation”. Will not stop our fervent prayer and for the rest of the faithful Orthodox Christians expelled from the church, insulted and humiliated ponoshaemyh for the Holy Church. All of you – a worthy successor to our fathers – New Martyrs and Confessors Russian, on the blood which is our Church and in white robes which she met her fiance and the Creator on the day of His Second Coming. You are already connected to God through your pain, because, as he himself said, you have driven the same way as they persecuted him that you are resurrected and glorified, and was succeeded by his divine life with Him.
We all know that without the Cross there is no resurrection, and without the selfless loyalty to the truth is not true Easter joy. Also, the Russian people since ancient times said that the True Church is not one that drives, and one that persecuted. Our oppressors from among the secular authorities and the dominant lzhetserkvi say they also celebrate the Resurrection of Christ and also experiencing some kind of Easter joy. These vain their holidays, arranged in the walls taken from the temples of the True Church, the tears and blood of true Christians, to unjustly earned wealth, boldly rebuke many centuries ago, the great prophet Isaiah, with the word of God to the incorrect him to Israel: “Your new moons and your feasts hates My soul, and they burden for me, I am weary of bearing them … cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, relieve the oppressed “(Isaiah 1: 11-17). Hear whether our persecutors this prophetic voice, as he heard his “faithful remnant” of the Jewish people accepted Christ? Let us pray that does not come to pass upon them the word of Christ: “They have their eyes look and see, our ears hear, and not understand” (Mark 4: 12).
We will celebrate our Easter is not so, as it celebrates the world, who betrayed any external entertainment, decorations, drinking and obyadeniyu, emotional delight, complacency in the flesh and the lust of the eyes. Calling us to the Apostle Paul: “Clear the old leaven … For our Passover – Christ – sacrificed for us. Therefore let us feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness … “(1 Cor., 5: 7-8). Dedicate this day of feasting and bodily pleasures, and the prayer of thanksgiving for all the things which the Lord, and mysterious communion with Him in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. Exposing our persecutors, who have perverted the essence of Christianity and, in particular, have made Easter folk traditions, we will not arrogantly complacent over them. Our Lord Jesus Christ loves all people, has brought his crucifixion victim died on the cross and rose again to all people to live forever, in the fullness of God’s joy and happiness. Our mission as a small but faithful remnant of true Christians – to help our misguided brothers and sisters understand the falsehood of their errors, show them the way out of Babylon of sin and heresy to the New Jerusalem, the eternal truth, a shining “Divine blistanmi Resurrection.
Let us turn from the external environment in which we find this holiday to its internal content, which is undoubtedly the most important thing for us, and should fully occupy our thoughts and feelings in this and the Divine Lightbringer night. As taught by St. Paul, the risen Lord is the firstborn from the dead. What does this mean? When the people sinned and have fallen through it from God as the source of life, their destiny was death, sin, evil, lying is incompatible with life, which all have only good and true. Beginning with Adam and Eve, their children and descendants, right up to Christ, all people were dying and did not inherit eternal life. Our Lord, being the eternal God and Creator, is so fond of people, that two thousand years ago, is embodied in our human nature and lived on earth in our human body. Body of the Lord was crucified and died on the cross, and his immortal soul descended into hell – into the realm of eternal death. But death can not absorb the Source of life, her encounter with God meant the death of death, the ruin of hell. According to the figurative expression of a saint, swallowing the bait the flesh of Christ, hell and the devil have pierced the lightning of His Divinity and release all the dead, which they kept from the time of Adam and Eve. “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise” – nelozhno Lord Jesus Christ promised the repentant thief crucified on his right hand. It is no accident, as evidenced by the evangelist Matthew, in the days of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ “many bodies of saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many” (Matt. 27:53). Everyone is well-known “firstborn from the dead has become the holy one Lord Lazarus, which is already stinking, on 4-day stay in the grave, Christ has risen for eight days before own resurrection.
Visible to all of us as a future general resurrection is the resurrection of spring nature – is no coincidence our bright holiday every year coincides with the life-giving time of year when leaves deadening cold, the snow melts, everything comes alive, green, the sun shines gaily murmuring brooks, the birds are singing joyfully . As revealed to us in the Divine Revelation, the same will happen on the last day with the bodies of the dead. At Matins of Holy Saturday, we heard a tremendous prophecy of Ezekiel, whom the Lord opened the secret of the last day: “God … put me in the middle of the field, and it was full of bones … Thus says the Lord God unto these bones: Behold, I will introduce the spirit in you, ye shall live … I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone … and they lived, and stood on their feet – a very, very great army … Thus saith the Lord GOD; : Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves “(Ezekiel 37: 1-12).
Partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, we’ll become organic members of the Body of the Lord, the Resurrection of whom we now celebrate. Thus, the need to talk not about the “celebration” in the usual sense, but a direct participation in the Resurrection. As the first Adam we have inherited the body, genetic information, because of the New Adam – Christ – Resurrection and inherit eternal life. Through the sacrament we see the image become co-resurrection with Christ and with the parties of its eternal life, mysteriously attached to His divinity, as inseparable from the Father and the Spirit. A united way with Him, we will be resurrected and we shall also live with Him in His divinity.
Beloved in the Lord!
Welcome to vseradostnym holiday of Christ’s Resurrection, and calling upon you the blessing of God, I wish you all to keep in their hearts and not to lose the joy of God’s Passover. Let the light shining in your faces that night, will consecrate the twilight of the world and become a living, a clear indication of truth for all people!
Truly Christ is risen!
Humble
B A L E N T I N,
Metropolitan of Suzdal and Vladimir
Pascha 2011.
Suzdal
