CHRIST IS RISEN! – the Paschal greeting resounded in this bright night in the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Nativity of the Lord in Chisinau during the Divine Service celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Resurrection service was officiated by His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir of Chisinau and all Moldova, assisted by archpriest Vadim Chiebas – Cathedral Dean and Metropolitan Secretary, and the priests and deacons of the holy place.
The liturgical responses were provided by the Cathedral’s Choir conducted by Angela Angheni.
At the Matins Service, Fr. Vadim read out the Paschal greeting of His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir:
Your Eminences arch-pastors,
Righteous priests and deacons,
Most Reverend monastics,
Right-faithful Christians of our Holy Church, Heralds of the Resurrection,
Christ is Risen!
The glorious celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us year after year, that the Son of God came into the world, was incarnate and became man, to free man from the slavery of death and to return him to his Creator and Father, restoring him to the status of son and heir of His Kingdom.
Christ, by His own life, indicates us the way leading back to God: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14, 6). There is no other way. In order to be part of the Life that Christ, the Conqueror of death, gives “abundantly” (John 10, 10), we must live in His Truth, not the world’s. If we live according to the truth of the world, we can only be sons of the world. We become sons of God by living in the Light of the Truth of the Resurrection of the Son of God, and the world will be reproved of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement (John 16, 8).
Logos – the Word of God – descended from the Bosom of the Father and from the “Throne of the Glory of His Kingdom” (Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom) and brought His Kingdom into the world. It is not of the world, but He brought it into the world, so that the world through him might be saved (John 3, 17).
He did not come with war against the world, nor did he conquer any city to place there the capital of the Kingdom of God, but he came humbly, calling to repentance and all who “love the Light” and “work the truth, come to the Light” (John 3, 21), and He places the Throne of His Kingdom right within them, in their heart.
Everyone who wants to be a citizen of the Kingdom must “graft himself onto Him, in the likeness of Him” (Romans 6, 5). Nothing makes us more like Christ than if we have love among ourselves, as he commanded us. No one in this world spoke so beautifully of Love as He did, and yet the world hated Him more than anyone. But He accepted to be crucified for the world and stopped the very war started in His defense. In the garden of Gethsemane, when Simon-Peter drew his sword and struck the one who had come to arrest Him, perhaps the only war that could have been called holy began, since it was for the defense of the Holy One, but He, Jesus ” Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9, 6) stopped him, because he wants only His holy peace to take place in the heart of His true disciples.
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you” (John 14, 27).
My beloved, let us multiply the Peace of Christ in our hearts, and then we “shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6, 5).
The Saviour’s resurrection brings peace and joy to the whole world. The Risen Christ did not find a more suitable word to address to the Myrrh-bearing Women on the morning of the Resurrection than: “Rejoice!” (Matthew 28, 9), and he spoke a hopeful word to the Apostles: “Peace be onto you!” (Luke 24, 36).
May peace and joy, springing from the miracle of the Resurrection, encompass the entire humanity.
On this day of the Feast of Feasts “let us lighten up with celebration and embrace each other; to say “brethren” and to those who hate us; let’s forgive everything for the Resurrection“, so that, as Saint John Chrysostom instructs us on this day, “let us all enter into the joy of our Lord“.
Right-faithful believers,
May the resurrection of the crucified One help us to remain strong and united in the true faith, as the great Paul the Apostle teaches us: “I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1, 27).
Announcing the undeniable joy of the Resurrection of Christ, I want to know that all the sons and daughters of our Holy Orthodox Church of Moldova, both those in the country and those who have gone far from the Fatherland and Nation, are united spiritually, “that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” (Philippians 2, 2).
Christ is Risen!
Indeed He is Risen!
With the mercy of our Heavenly Father,
METROPOLITAN OF CHISINAU AND ALL MOLDOVA
Synodal Sector of Institutional Communication and Mass-Media Relations