ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Easter Message from Bishop Basil of Amphipolis

Dear brothers and sisters, clergy and laity of the Vicariate!

Christ is Risen!

Let us rejoice today for the light that shines on us in this great feast, the ‘feast of feast, the festival of festivals’.

The grandeur of Christ and the glory of his victory over death are such that we never can do more than ‘touch the hem of his garment’ (Mt 14:36) in our own personal, conscious experience. Yet the Church as a whole and in the depth of her being knows this victory and shares it with us according to our ability to comprehend it.

Let us give thanks, therefore, for this great blessing, which is nothing less than the taste of eternal life, for it has the power to lift us up when we are ‘bent down’, to relieve us when we are ‘weary and heavy laden’, and to ‘call us out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (1 Pet 2:9).

As we hear each year at the midnight Paschal Liturgy, Christ is the ‘light of all mankind’ (Jn 1:4). This light shines in a privileged way in the hearts of all those who believe - but not for their benefit alone. What we have been given by God is meant to be shared with others. We have been given light, and we are meant to be light.

As Isaiah says of the Christ: ‘I have given thee for a light to the gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth’ (Is 49:6). So let us not keep this light to ourselves, or put it under a bushel, but see that it is placed on a candlestick that it may ‘give light to all that are in the house’ (Mt 5:15). Our ‘house’ is this world and those ‘that are in the house’ are all mankind, no matter what their origin or condition in life.

Christ, ‘the light of the world’ (Jn 8:12), has conquered the darkness and death that are so much a part of our contemporary world.

May we all strive to continue his work through becoming partakers of that never failing light.

Christ is Risen!

He is risen indeed!

BISHOP OF AMPHIPOLIS