PATRIARCHAL AND SYNODICAL PASCHAL EPISTLE

The joyful news about the Resurrected from the dead Lord Jesus Christ and the triumph of life warms up our hearts and enlightens our minds, chases away from us any anxiety, sorrow and despair, strengthens and reinforces our faith, and illuminated by the Light of the Resurrection, we again rejoice with the Paschal greeting:

CHRIST IS RISEN!

Christ has risen and death forever lost its power that it had over the humankind! Christ has risen and darkness yielded to the Light, which it could not overcome! Christ has risen and life was established! And although in our world even today we are witnesses of the outbreaks of evil, nevertheless, we know that its triumph is only ostensible, because all its power was “swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:54). And that is why we do not lament like those who “have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13), because: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life!” (Paschal Troparion).

With His glorious Resurrection our Lord defeated death not for Himself, but for us, so that we can have life. That is the reason why He became flesh, lived among us, showed us His divinity and the world saw “His glory, glory as a Father’s Only-begotten Son” (John 1:14) – because such was God’s holy will: “…whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:15).

The Resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our salvific faith. Upon that is based our radiant and unclouded by anything hope. And our faith and hope find their realization and manifest themselves best in the love that Christ taught us first. He bequeathed this love to us as an irrevocable sign of our belonging to His new community – His Holy Church.

As belonging to the Church of Christ, we know and have the Revelation for God’s will – the most perfect and accessible for men, that is why our Lord expects from us to bear our fruit as well (cf. John 15:16). And we bear our fruit when we fulfill the most important commandment of Christ to all of us: “This is my commandment: that you love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Without the love to the other, to our neighbour, our Christianity is just ostensible and we are not Christ’s.

The Resurrection of Christ, in the joy of which we are living today and through which we have hope and faith to inherit eternal life, is a result and fruit of God’s love for us, the people. The Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ first loved us and loved us “to the end” (John 13:1), and that is why our way, too, to the Resurrection and the eternal life in the bosom of the Father is a way that cannot be walked without the truly sacrificial, selfless love, which is the crown of the Christian virtues and of the Christian perfection.

Today this perfect Christ-imitating love is needed more than ever. Today, when the trials before the Christians and the whole humankind alike increase inconceivably, when we live in increasingly stronger insecurity and fears, when natural disasters and military conflicts doom hundreds and millions of people to exile and deprivation, and the untimely destroyed human lives are countless, in the world there more and more is growing the oppressive feeling of weakness and helplessness.

Our inability as people to live in stable peace and benevolence, in humbleness, mutual understanding and mutual assistance, the lack of compassion and mercy in the relation of man to man, and also the reluctance of fulfilling God’s holy and perfect will – all this more and more evidently defines the appearance of the contemporary world and threatens to deprive us of confidence in the very meaning of our life and existence.

As Christians we know that the only thing, which is able to change this joyless picture, to bring back and to strengthen our confidence in the meaning of salvation, and with which also to change the reality in which we are living, is our hope in God and in His kind providence for the world and the man. As Christians we do not forget that in accordance with God’s providence, man was made not for death, but for life (cf. Wis. 2:23); that precisely in order for us to have life (cf. John 10:10), God Himself entered into the world, so that by His Second Coming He could bring back man on the way to his assimilation to God.

This is the only true consolation of ours and that is why today, in spite of all we are witnessing in the world, our joy is complete. The Resurrection of Christ is a wondrous fruit of the boundless love of God for us. The Resurrected Lord is the beginning of the universal resurrection of all “who are Christ’s” (1 Cor. 15:23).

On the day of Christ’s Resurrection, glorifying the defeat over death and the triumph of life, let us offer even more assiduous prayers to the Giver of all for those whose life was taken away in war or in another misfortune, as well as for all the suffering, depressed and wronged, and let us accompany our prayers with acts of charity and philanthropy, of that perfect love which leads to the glory of the Cross and the light of the Resurrection.

We are fatherly greeting with all our heart all faithful children of our Orthodox Church – those in our Motherland and those far away from it, and we are wishing them pure and bright Paschal joy!

May to all of us be the peace and grace of our Resurrected Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

HAPPY RESURRECTION OF CHRIST!

CHRIST IS RISEN!

HEAD OF THE HOLY SYNOD

† NEOPHYTE

PATRIARCH OF BULGARIA AND

METROPOLITAN OF SOFIA

MEMBERS OF THE HOLY SYNOD:

† Metropolitan IOANIKIY of Sliven

† Metropolitan YOSIF of USA, Canada and Australia

† Metropolitan GRIGORIY of Veliko Turnovo

† Metropolitan IGNATIY of Pleven

† Metropolitan GAVRIIL of Lovech

† Metropolitan NIKOLAY of Plovdiv

† Metropolitan ANTONIY of Western and Central Europe

† Metropolitan YOAN of Varna and Velicky Preslav

† Metropolitan SERAPHIM of Nevrokop

† Metropolitan NAUM of Rousse

† Metropolitan CYPRIAN of Stara Zagora

† Metropolitan GRIGORIY of Vratsa

† Metropolitan DANIIL of Vidin

† Metropolitan YAKOV of Dorostol