(delivered during the Synodal Divine Liturgy celebrated in the Sacred

Church of St.Panteleimon, Acharnon St, Athens, on the 26th of December 1999)

                                  

To the Benevolent Clergy and the God-loving People,

To the entire pleroma of the Most Holy Church of Greece,

 

Beloved Children in Christ, the Lord,

On this special occasion as we soon prepare, by God’s Grace and loving-kindness, to enter into the 2000th year from the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh, and God’s Epiphany on earth, “by giving thanks to God the Father” through “Jesus Chist, the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1, 15), we experience this gift, and in repentance, “we set our hope on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe” (I Timothy 4, 10).

1. Thanksgiving.

“We give thanks to God the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”.

(Colossians 1, 12-14).

      First and foremost, we needs must render up both praise and thanksgiving to the life-giving, super-substantial, super-benevolent, All-Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, from whom we have our being and our well-being, as a gift in the Grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for “he has led us into this life” from non-being and has shown us paths leading to salvation and has granted to us the revelation of heavenly mysteries”.

      We render thanks because He has given us our being and gives to us our well-being as a pledge unto ever-being, to use the expression of St. Maximus the Confessor, because He has granted us divine adoption through our faith in Jesus Christ (John 1, 12), and while we were dead because of our transgressions, He granted us life anew through Jesus Christ, and raised us up, glorifying us by seating us in the heavenly places. (Eph. 2, 5-6).

      Furthermore, we render thanks, because our merciful and man-befriending Lord through our voluntary faith in him has granted us “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (II Peter 1, 3).

      Thus, for a second reason we thank with one mouth and one heart our God, Who has appeared unto us, the Lord Jesus Christ, Whom God the Father sent as “Saviour and Redeemer and Benefactor, to bless and sanctify us”.  Therefore, do we proclaim, “the great mystery of our piety” that “God was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, ascended in glory” (I Tim. 3, 15).

      The Church emphatically repeats and proclaims: “The Grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world” (Tit. 2, 11-12).

      For all these things we have grace and in eternal gratitude we glorify the all-honourable and majestic Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

      “We confess the Grace, we proclaim the Mercy, we do not hide the Beneficence”.

2. Repentance.

“Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years. The Lord is not slow about his promise…, but is forbearing towards us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance”.

(II Peter 3, 8-9).

      Proclaiming this inexpressible loving-kindness and beneficence we call all unto repentance.

      Of itself this conscious and conscientious repentance of the faithful constitutes a gift of divine goodness, an opportunity for recomposing our existence, and for returning to the Grace and Life which is in accordance with God. Repentance illumines the mind of man and enlightens his existence unto the knowledge of truth and unto the praising of God through his life and works, through hymns and silence. Through sincere repentance and confession immaculate purity and holiness free from all impiety are realized in man’s life. Repentance contributes towards the indwelling within us of the Holy Trinity, for God “dwells in that soul which is clean” if “man is suitably receptive” (St. Macarius of Egypt).

      The Church’s message, at all times, has always been the call to repentance, through which “vegetation useful for those who cultivate it is brought forth” and “a blessing from God is granted” (Heb. 6, 7). Our Lord Jesus Christ began his teaching summoning the people to repentance. “From that time Jesus began to preach saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matth. 4, 17). This undiminished and befitting summons is repeated steadily and emphatically by the Church throughout the course of history. And today exceedingly the acuteness of the times necessitates that all of us overcome our very selves so as, by changing our way of thinking and our conduct, to move towards divine life, thereby becoming “like Christ’s glorious body” (Philip. 3, 21). The attempt “to blot out our sins” (Acts 3,19) and our free movement towards transfiguration in God is always accompanied and assisted by Divine condescension. Human existence experiencing repentance in word and deed becomes a vessel of divine love and the richness of grace. It takes divine life as its own and is saturated by the peace of God which transcends all understanding (Philp. 4, 17).

                                 

3. The Church.

“You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering and to the Church of the first-born, who are enrolled in heaven”.

(Hebr. 12, 22).

      Incorporated in the Body of the Church “we live in Christ” (Gal. 2, 20) and “live a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called” (Eph. 4, 1).

      For 2000 years now, our Holy Orthodox Church, as a sacred, divine and human institution, during its entire historical course on earth, has never consciously violated the divine and evangelical law of love towards all and especially towards the weak, towards strangers and people of other religions, displaying the same conduct towards the “other” as towards the “same”. On the contrary, in the midst of the twentieth century she was a victim of persecutions, oppression, discrimination and injustices perpetrated against her by ideologies, secular powers, nations, religions and races having endured and enduring these tribulations with patience and hope, knowing that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8,18). Despite this, we Orthodox Christians, as human beings “bearing flesh and living in the world” are sinners and in need of repentance.

      Through our repentance we essentially partake in the “new creation” which is the Church. Christian repentance is not “psychotherapy”, a subjective, sentimental and emotional state and dependence but an ecclesial way of existence. In order to experience holy repentance, it is necessary that we be real Christians living the within the life of the Church, and that our entire life be permeated with the blessed Christian teaching and piety. Our Holy Orthodox Church does not constitute a common association or a simple congregation of people possessing the same ideological convictions or who organize their conduct in compliance with the same moral dictates. The Church is the sanctified dwelling-place of God. It is the place where one meets God. Through the Church “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3, 10-11), is revealed and all the nations become “fellow heirs, members of the same body and partakers of the promise” of Christ “through the Gospel” (Eph. 3, 6).

      Throughout human history, the existence of the Church stands out as being the highest gift of God and as possessing a singular significance for man’s life and his course in the world. The Church is the Body of Christ, in which “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2, 9).  Indeed, God’s greatest beneficence and condescension towards us is that we have been made worthy to be born within His Holy Church. In the body of the Church corruption is destroyed and our created nature is raised up to the uncreated divine life. In the Church all those powers of evil and iniquity which oppress the human person are vanquished, and the faithful becomes a partaker of the life of God, able to ascend, through God’s Grace and his own free will, to an existence of another quality, in the new life of participation in divinity. It is important that we realize that in the Church the tyranny of death is overcome and the transfiguration of the world is actualized. Through the Church “another birth has come about, another life, another manner of living, our very nature having been transformed” (Gregory of Nyssa).

      The Church Militant in the world, following the example of the Lord, during its two thousand year historical course, has not always been able to overcome the attrition of the world, but has always summoned its faithful to approach the Lord’s Table and to partake of the spiritual food offered so as to transcend the manifold confusion of this present age and live the liturgical life of the Church. This twofold struggle of the Church and the faithful defines the content of the life in Christ within the dimension of time, but also leads to the eternity of the spiritual good things. The Church’s mission therefore at the dawn of the third millenium is to liberate contemporary man from the spiritual confusion and ideological deviations of more modern times and to keep open the path of man’s communication with God which insures the correct evaluation of her relationship to the world.

      For two thousand years the Church, living and acting in the world through her renewing, sanctifying and illuminating Divine Grace “has given birth in Christ and through the Gospel” (I Cor. 4, 15) to the “great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Rev. 7, 9).  She has lead peoples, cultivated letters and sciences. She has inspired the arts and elevated morals. She has lovingly supported man. She has proclaimed the truth. She has united men in the One Fold under the One Shepherd. She has done away with all cause for discrimination. She has struggled for spiritual freedom. The mistakes and falls of her members cannot diminish her contribution nor eclipse her radiance. They cannot ruin her.

      It is the responsibility of all of us to utilize, as good stewards, the inexhaustible richness which our Orthodox Church offers so as to become both in word and deed “conformed to the image of the Son of God” (Rom. 8, 29). Our steady course must refer to the acquiring of the life of Christ, in the deep conviction that “our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philip. 3, 20 – 21).

4. Hope.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope”.

(Rom. 15, 13).

      The existence and the message of the Church are the existence and message of sure hope. The events that we are living and whatever the future holds in store can in no way shake Christianity’s faith and hope in Christ. If the every day events happening throughout the world are distressing and filled with hate and hostility, the Lord of life and history is the source of life and love. The Church lives and experiences love and hope at every historical moment as a prelude and foretaste of the perfect glorification of the world in Christ. Wars and rumors of wars, the rising of nation against nation, famines and pestilence, tribulations, martyrdom and all the sufferings of the world (Matth. 24, 6f) are dealt with within the eschatological perspective, “for I consider the sufferings of this present time as not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8, 18). “For our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philip. 3, 21). Indeed, “we have strong encouragement of the soul, sure and steadfast” (Hebr. 6, 18-19). Hence, despite the vicissitudes of the world and the sorrows which human hardness and man’s unrepentant heart hold in store for us (Rom. 2, 5) the believer’s disposition should not be darkened by trepidation, despair and fear. The machinations of the wicked and the insolence of evil should lead us to the mobilization of our strength in order to vanquish evil and to hinder the workers of iniquity. We Christians are duty-bound to oppose the agents of injustice and to condemn all evil things until they are completely done away with, with the faith and hope that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4, 12). Christian hope, this characteristic of the believer, is founded upon the assurance of our Saviour Christ: “Lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world” (Matth. 28, 20).

      This proclaim unto all of you, dear brethren and children, upon the completion of the second millenium and at the dawn of the third, and we emphasize the ageless optimism and hope in Christ which always possesses the conscience of the Christian believer. If the vicissitudes of the world appear that they bear hard upon man’s existence, the Lord of life and history who is ever coming summons all of us to the new life of faith, hope and love. The Church has never ceased to underline her sacred hope and to view the history of the world from the perspective of the Dominical words: “Behold, I make all thinks new…I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water without price from the water of life. He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son” (Rev. 21, 5 – 7).

                                  

+ C H R I S T O D O U L O S  of Athens, President

+ Panteleimon of Thessaloniki

+ Dionysios of Drama

+ Ambrosios of Paros and Naxos

+ Agathangelos of New Smyrna

+ Kallinikos of Peiraeus

+ Chrysostomos of Peristeri

+ Spyridon of Cephallonia

+ Chrysostomos of Zakynthos

+ Vasileios of Elasson

+ Eusebios of Samos and Icaria

+ Seraphim of Kastoria

+ Ambrosios of Servia and Kozani

                                  

The Chief-Secretary

+ Archimandrite Daniel Pourtsouklis