Beloved children of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in the
diaspora and throughout the breadth of the Russian land.
Pascha - the Passover of Christ - has always consoled us and
will offer us consolation from the waves of God's grace
descending through the widely opened gates of the Heavenly
Kingdom. All will feel it, it will come to every single one of us
and illumine his countenance with pure joy as an oil lamp
illumines an icon. It will not overlook anyone, it will pass no
one by - the faster or the non-faster, him who prays or even him
who does not pray. It will touch everyone. One person's soul will
be so filled to overflowing that he will not know whether he is
in heaven or on earth, only God will know, to make a bold
paraphrase of St. Paul's words, while it will touch another
person quietly, as if caressing him with a feather, almost
imperceptibly, but from being touched in this way the Divine
Paschal grace will pass through him and fill him from head to
foot with joyful trembling; he will awaken and the eyes of his
soul will open to the light of a new life, and he will never
forget it throughout the rest of his life.
So we will not continue to repeat to you the annual good
wishes of the Pascha season. It is better that we and you keep
silent. It often happens that in such Paschal silence there is
more strength and meaning than in our feeble sounds and words. We
can recall the words in the Akathist hymn to the Mother of God:
"Rejoice, faith of those who pray for silence."
Truly Christ is Risen!
Such is your sacred reply. An ordinary ear will not hear it,
but the whole of creation, animate and inanimate, trembles with
it, the sun dances with it, and it is borne across fields,
forests, tundra, jungles, deserts and seas, so as to envelope the
whole inhabited earth. Such is our wondrous and miraculous
Pascha!
I have just exchanged the joyous Paschal kiss with you, but my
archpastoral conscience and duty force me once again to have
recourse to words, exhortations, teaching and warnings. Before
our eyes suddenly, quite unexpectedly, we are seeing the mystical
revelation of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the
Theologian, the Apocalypse. For a long time we thought of it as a
prophecy from a far off time which would assuredly be fulfilled
one day in the future. But now, suddenly, not only has it
appeared at the doors of our contemporary life, but the sharp,
icy blast of the antichrist has begun to howl across the whole of
our planet earth. what exactly is the Apocalypse? According to
the Holy Fathers who have interpreted this sacred book, the
Apocalypse is the book of the last years of the earthly history
of the Church of Christ. It shows the inseparably close links
between the fate of the Church and the fate of the whole world,
the whole human race, and the entire cosmos. This means that the
only reason why the world and all that is in it still exist is
the fact that the True Church of Christ continues to dwell on it.
What is the Church's lot in our days? It is a hard one. The
Church displeases most people; it is barely tolerated, people
laugh at it and revile it. They have not managed to destroy it,
and will not be able to do so. So now all the forces of darkness
are trying to squeeze themselves into it and eat it away from
inside like termites, leaving behind only an empty wrapping. Evil
is laughing in our faces? And we thoughtlessly chase after the
shadow of earthly good things and our imaginary good repute, as
long as no one inconveniences us or disturbs the tempo of our
life of comfort. But a great temptation will come upon us, and
come without fail. We will be placed on the knife edge of life.
Nobody will be able to hide anywhere, even in a fissure in the
rock. Everyone will be found and face with the fatally tragic
question: either you are with "us" or with Christ.
Perhaps the question will not be posed quite like that, from fear
of scaring the luckless Christian, but he will simply be asked,
"are you with 'us'?" What are we to do?
Firstly, we must understand in what a terribly dangerous time
we are living. Then, we must force ourselves to follow a
disciplined life of prayer: to pray morning and evening and to
pray with the Jesus prayer wherever and whenever we can. To
receive Holy Communion more often in the True Church, and not in
the church of the hollow egg shell, eaten away from within.
Nobody will then be saved by theological degrees, or knowledge of
the order of church services, or the orders of bishop or priest
or any other rank. Only a personal love from the heart for our
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, will save a human soul, together
with faithfulness to Him, even unto death. Did not the Lord
Himself prophetically say, "When the Son of Man cometh,
shall He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8), while at the
same time the Lord promised to preserve His Church invincible
even unto the end of this world. This means that by the time of
the Second Coming, the Church of Christ will be reduced in size
to the utmost degree. There will remain one or two churches in
which the True Body of Christ and the True Blood of Christ will
be imparted to the faithful. In the remaining churches there will
remain only an empty shell, with great outward adornment, but
empty. "See then that you walk circumspectlyŠbecause
the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:15-16). "Even so, come
Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).
But still, despite all the outer darkness and horror of
antichrist, until the very last earthly Pascha of Christ, the
whole inhabited earth will reverberate with the greeting:
Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
Amen.
Metropolitan Vitaly
Pascha, 1997.
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