ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

EASTER MESSAGE OF BISHOP BASIL

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This year, for the first time in more than half a century, the Feast of the Annunciation according to the Old Calendar falls on Great and Holy Saturday. As a result the texts for the two services are combined, leading to an extraordinary mixture of thoughts and emotions. We not only follow Christ to the tomb, but at the same time celebrate his entry into this world as the Incarnate Son of God.  We see clearly that our Lord was born to die as the ‘lamb slain from the foundation of the world’ (Rev 13:8).

This combination of joy and sorrow is close to the heart of the Christian experience. In the ascetic life this is called, in Greek, kharmolipi, a term that combines sorrow for sin with the joy of salvation, much as the services of the Church always speak of the Crucifixion against the background of the Resurrection. This link between joy and sorrow goes right back to the teaching of Christ. ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ Christ says, ‘for they shall be comforted’ (Mt 5:4). In other words, those whose recognise their own distance from God and repent will know the joy of the presence of the Comforter, whose coming among us is itself the fruit of Christ’s death and rising again.

This mixture of joy and sorrow must have come to many on hearing that the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow have found a way to resolve their differences over the canonical status of the Episcopal Vicariate of Great Britain and Ireland. What is sad is that issues of this kind should even arise in the Orthodox Church. What is a cause for joy, however, is that the conflict has been resolved and that the Vicariate is now able to move forward with other Orthodox in Western Europe under the aegis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and in full communion with world Orthodoxy.

There will be difficulties ahead, this we know, but as Christians we live with the knowledge of Christ’s Resurrection, the source of all mankind’s rebirth into eternal life. Let us never forget that ‘Christ is Risen!’ and be able to reply with joy at all times, especially now, that ‘He is Risen Indeed!’

                                       BISHOP OF AMPHIPOLIS

Oxford
7 April 2007