Your Graces, archpastors,
reverend pastors and deacons, venerable monks and nuns,
dear brothers and sisters!
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Addressing you with this life-affirming greeting, I cordially congratulate you all on the great and world-saving feast of Pascha. On this chosen and holy day we are filled with such spiritual joy and immense gratitude to God, and feel so clearly the power and depth of the Creator’s love for man, that it is sometimes difficult to find other words to express our feelings than those with which the myrrh-bearing women hastened to the apostles to tell them of the miraculous event — that they had seen the Lord.
One can only imagine how hard it was for the Savior’s disciples to believe in the reality of the Resurrection. After all, only recently they had seen with their own eyes how their beloved Teacher was tormented and crucified. Fresh were the memories of how His dead and lifeless Body was laid in the tomb and the cold cave sealed with a heavy stone. And now sorrow gives way to the affirmation of faith and the triumph of life, and tears of grief are transformed into tears of joy.
The experience of real communion with the Risen Christ and the unfading Paschal joy gave wings to and inspired the apostles, who went to the ends of the earth to preach the forgiveness of sins and the salvation we have received through the Lord Jesus, risen from the tomb. Not fearing hardships and cruel persecutions, enduring calamities and misfortunes, the apostles ceaselessly and boldly bore witness to Christ, the Conqueror of death.
And for two millennia now the Church has lived by this news of the Resurrection and strives to bring it to every man that cometh into the world (John 1:9). In the light of Pascha everything truly looks different: fear and hopelessness, born of sorrows, sadness and everyday troubles, disappear. And even the difficult circumstances of these troubled times lose their ominous sharpness in the perspective of the eternity given to us.
To bear witness to the Risen Savior, it is not at all necessary to go or travel somewhere far away, like the apostles who spread the Paschal news throughout the world. Around us are many people who need a living example of Christian faith which worketh by love (Gal. 5:6). God does not demand of us feats beyond our strength. He only asks us to show love to one another and to remember that in this way we show love to Him as well. A kind smile, attention and sensitivity to those around us, words of comfort and support spoken at the right time — these can sometimes be the most important deeds we are able to do for the sake of the Risen Christ.
And today, when the world is torn by conflicts and contradictions, and hatred, fear and enmity have settled in the hearts of many people, it is especially important not to forget our Christian calling and to show true love for our neighbors, by which alone the wounds inflicted by evil and injustice are healed. We must not yield to the temptation of the enemy of the human race, who seeks to destroy the blessed unity among Orthodox Christians. I fervently pray to the Conqueror of death, the Lord Jesus, and ask you also to offer earnest prayers to Him, that all dividing walls may be overcome, a lasting peace may triumph, and the wounds of division may be healed by divine grace.
Congratulating everyone on the feast of Pascha, I invoke upon you the blessing of the Risen Christ and wish you, my dear ones, unfailing bright Paschal joy that strengthens us in faith, hope and love. God grant that this light may never fade in our hearts, that it may always shine to the world (Matt. 5:14). And may we, being constantly sanctified by the word of God through reading the Gospel and partaking of divine grace through the Sacraments of the Church, steadily grow in the knowledge of the Lord and be established in fulfilling His commandments, so that people, seeing the light of our good works, may glorify our Father which is in heaven (Matt. 5:16) and joyfully bear witness with us that
CHRIST IS TRULY RISEN!
+ KIRILL
PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUS’
The Pascha of Christ,
2022