EASTER PASTORAL LETTERS (04/27/97)

EASTER PASTORAL LETTERS

Let us strengthen our faith in Christ
Prepare to receive the Risen Lord

Let us strengthen our faith in Christ

Paschal Archpastoral Encyclical of the Permanent Conference of Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops beyond the Borders of Ukraine.

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

To the esteemed clergy, the deaconate in Christ, the venerable monastics and God-loving spiritual children of the Holy Ukrainian Orthodox Church:

"Rejoice!" (Matthew 28:9)

On this radiant day of Christ's Resurrection, the Holy Church's desire is that your hearts are filled with that gladness of which St. John Chrysostom speaks in his Easter homily: "Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord; both the first, and last. Let rich and poor rejoice together; both the faithful and the negligent - celebrate this day!" Let all partake of this Feast of Faith. Let all receive the riches of Goodness.

Pascha is a holy day of faith and for this reason, only those who steadfastly believe in our Lord's Resurrection, that through His suffering and death on the cross, He "trampled down death by death," can fully experience the joy of the Feast of Feasts.

St. John Chrysostom also speaks of this, addressing our "last enemy": (I Corinthians 15:26) "O Death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory? (I Cor 15:55) Christ is risen, and you are overthrown! Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb! For Christ, being raised from the dead, is become the First-born from the dead."

The holy apostles, having been present with the Risen Lord, fearlessly preached the Gospel, for they were filled with the spirit of conquest - the spirit of His Resurrection. Their unshakable faith conquered the world.

The holy Apostle Paul - to whom Christ appeared separately - wrote of this apostolic preaching: "Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the Gospel (the Good News) ... that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then by the 12 ... Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God." (I Cor 15:1, 3-5, 8-9)

Faith in the mystery of Christ's Resurrection became the cornerstone of the apostles' proclamation of the Good News. (I Corinthians 15:14 - Psalms 118:32) Their preaching concerning this joyous news of redemption spread over the whole world, and today has reached almost all nations. This joyous news will continue to spread until the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He will return in Glory to this world, along with His angels, to judge each person according to his or her deeds. The deeper the darkness and shadow of disbelief, the more glorious the day of Christ's Resurrection.

We, who "have been baptized into Christ and have put on Christ," have become Christians, we belong to Christ. In the holy mystery of Baptism, we have grown with Christ and have become partakers of his death and Resurrection.

Therefore, in preparing for the 2000th anniversary of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, which is three years hence, let us strengthen our faith in the Risen Lord, and let us demonstrate our conviction to do so through deeds worthy of this faith.

The Standing Conference of Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops Beyond the Borders of Ukraine has declared for each of the next three years a specific purpose in preparation for this great anniversary. In this regard, 1997 has been designated as the Year of Vocations.

Various vocations exist in life, and in each we may serve God and our fellow man. Our primary calling, as Christians, is to become the People of God. As the People of God, we are the Church, and the Church needs spiritual leaders - pastors. Therefore, let us pray that the Lord will send us good pastors, who might lead us to our salvation, building on the work of our forefathers.

Beloved brothers and sisters! With love we greet you who are entrusted to our archpastoral care with this sincere paschal epistle, hoping it will bring you inseparable joy and gladness. Filled with the all-encompassing love of our Risen Savior, the well spring of all joy and blessing, we embrace, in the spirit of this Feast of Feasts, all the hierarchs, clergy and our brothers and sisters in Ukraine.

May the Risen Lord, who calls all to unity, make us worthy to witness that spiritually joyous day when our native land, sanctified by the steadfast faith and purity of our ancestors, will see a single, united Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which, in unity with Ecumenical Orthodoxy, will remain that instrument through which our Risen Lord will continue the sanctification and salvation of all.

Rejoice!

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

Ý Wasyly
Metropolitan, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada

Ý Constantine
Metropolitan, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. and Diaspora

Ý Anatolij
Metropolitan, Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Diaspora

Ý John
Archbishop, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada

Ý Antony
Archbishop, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A., and the Australia and New Zealand Eparchy of the UAOC

Ý Vsevolod
Archbishop, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.

Ý Paisiy
Bishop, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.

Ý Yuriy
Bishop, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada

Ý Ioan
Bishop, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Diaspora

Ý Jeremiah
Bishop, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of South America

Pascha 1997.

Prepare to receive the Risen Lord

Easter Pastoral Letter of Bishop Basil Losten of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford, Conn.

On Thee as man the sleep of death descended,
O my King and my Lord!
But in three days art Thou risen,
and raisest Adam from decay,
and has destroyed the might of death!
Pascha of incorruption! Salvation of all the world!

In this beautiful Hymn of Light towards the end of the Resurrection service, we marvel, joyfully, at our Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who rose on the third day. This is the great and crowning truth of our Christian-Catholic Faith: that Our Lord is truly risen.

Jesus Christ is true God and true man. On the cross, as a man, Jesus Christ died a very real and most painful death. He remained in the tomb until the third day, so that we should know that He was really dead. And then, as King and Lord, as the Almighty God, by His own power He rose again! And in His rising, He raised us with Him.

Jesus Christ is eternally and always God the Son, the Second Person of The Holy and Life-Giving Trinity. The Holy Resurrection is the greatest feast of our Trinitarian Faith, as we sing in the Eighth Ode of the Canon:

Father Almighty, and Word and Spirit,

One nature in Three Persons,

surpassing Essence and Divinity!

In Thee we have been baptized,

and Thee we shall bless throughout all the ages!

Jesus Christ came to look for us, and to bring us back with Him to share the eternal dynamic life of the Holy Trinity. We are baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity; we are baptized into the saving Death of Christ, and we are baptized into Christ's Resurrection. United with Christ and in Christ, we shall bless the Holy Trinity forever, in this life and in the life to come. God the Father raised up Christ His Son, and thus brought the human nature of Jesus Christ into the eternal life of the Trinity. God the Son laid down His human life of His own will in obedience to the Father, and in this obedience He finds His divine power to rise again. The Holy Spirit manifests and reveals the Resurrection of Christ to us, to the Church, and to all the nations by the powerful preaching of the apostles.

Jesus Christ is true Man and remains true Man after His Resurrection. The Holy Spirit reveals both the Divinity of the Risen Lord, in His miracles, and the humanity of the Risen Lord as the Risen Christ eats and drinks with His disciples and shows them the wounds of the Crucifixion, so that they can see for themselves that His glorified, Risen Body, is the same Body that was crucified and died on the cross. The Resurrection is no illusion, no trick, and, above all, no deceit.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is a historical event. Our Christian-Catholic faith is our response to the God Who acts in history. We do not believe in any myth; we respond in faith to the marvelous works of God in human history, and, above all, to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So far as the Gospels tell us, no other human being was present at the actual moment when Jesus Christ rose from the dead; there were no eyewitnesses to that moment, but there are abundant eyewitnesses to the Risen Lord. Traditionally, the Church believes that an angel immediately informed the Blessed Mother of God about the Resurrection and that Jesus then at once came to her. So we sing in the Ninth Ode: "The angel cried to the Lady Full of Grace, 'Rejoice, Immaculate Virgin Theotokos, in the Resurrection of Your Son!'"

The myrrh-bearing women came to the tomb and found it empty; when the angel informed them of Christ's Resurrection, they could not believe it. Even the Apostles hesitated and doubted this overwhelming miracle. But finally they accepted joyfully the evidence of their eyes, their ears and their hands: Jesus Christ was truly risen!

Jesus Christ raises us up with Himself! Christ did not rise simply to astound or astonish us; the Lord Jesus wants to share His Sonship, His Resurrection, with us now and forever. The "Pascha of Incorruption" celebrates our own liberation from sin and death, liberation given to us freely when we unite ourselves to Christ in holy Baptism and remain always united with Him in the Church, especially in the holy Eucharist. Pascha is the salvation of the world, because the whole world, all men and women, are invited to enter this eternal life through Christ's Resurrection.

Receive our Risen Lord well in Holy Communion on this Paschal feast, dear brothers and sisters! Rejoice in Christ's Resurrection; rejoice in church and rejoice in your homes and families! May this feast strengthen your faith, your commitment to live a Christian life, and may your joyful Christian witness proclaim the Gospel of Christ and His Holy Resurrection to all those around you! Christ is Truly Risen; ïËÒÚÓÒ ÇÓ¥ÒÚËÌÛ ÇÓÒÍÂÒ!

With every Paschal blessing, I remain, faithfully yours in the Risen Lord!

Most Rev. Basil H. Losten, D.D.
Bishop of Stamford
(New York and New England)

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