IRINEJ

BY THE GRACE OF GOD
THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX
BISHOP OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

Beloved monastics, clergy, all sons and daughters, the faithful spiritual children of our Holy Church in Australia and New Zealand: now, as all things are filled with light, both heaven and earth and beneath the earth; and therefore as all creation celebrates Christ's Resurrection in which we are confirmed (Paschal Canon—Song 3), from a paternal heart overflowing with joy We greet all of you on this Great Feast of Feasts with the heartfelt Christian greeting:

CHRIST IS RISEN!

Yesterday I was crucified with You, O Christ;
Today I abound with glory.
Yesterday I died with You;
Today I am filled with life.
Yesterday I was buried with You;
Today I arise with You.
(St. Gregory the Theologian)

The Risen Saviour has, according to His personal free will, and out of His boundless love for humanity, assumed our sins enduring crucifixion on the Cross, suffered and was buried for us and for our salvation. Celebrating today together with the Holy Apostles Him who rose from the dead, we hear from His holy lips those words: Peace be to you! (Jn 20:20) and with the Myrrh-Bearing Women, we repeat His invitation: Rejoice! (Маtt. 28:9). Thereby all of our hearts are overflowing with that same peace and that same joy! Christ is Risen and truly no one can take our joy from us (Јn. 16:22), because in His Resurrection the death of every human being and of all humanity has been abolished!

And so, visibly manifest before our eyes is the fulfilment of the wisdom of the Orthodox liturgical ethos in which there is neither yesterday, nor tomorrow; but only today and today's never-ending day is that victorious day of the Light of His Kingdom over the darkness of this fallen world. And the might of that victory is bestowed upon all of us as the might of our personal resurrection from all that which separates us from Christ, who rose from the dead. We, who have cast aside our old self (Rom. 6:6) together with its passions and desires (Gal. 5:24) and we who have died with Christ (Rom. 6:8) have been baptized into His death (Rom. 6:3); for us today it is essential to become united in a Resurrection like His (Rom. 6:5).

Otherwise, do we not see how the dark deeds of this world impede upon our spiritual devastation? Is it not clear to us that many among us have become adherents of the contemporary heresy of secularism? Have we identified ourselves with those who choose transform the Church, the Body of Christ, into corporations and associations and with that to tear asunder our precious unity in Christ? Do not those same persons persecute us with false testimonies through the media which haggles with sensationalism and does not seek after truth? Have we blinded ourselves to that extent that we no longer are capable of discerning truth from lies? Do we not see how much that sin impedes upon our moral defeat and spiritual destruction? If we choose not to believe, we have only to ask ourselves: where is our youth? In our churches or are their lives overcome by the temptations of this world? This is, beloved in the Risen Lord, for each parent the most painful experience of incarnate secularism! Do we have our youth and our fellow Serbs who suffer from the illness of addiction or those who are incarcerated? If we do not open our eyes and behold reality, we will become the sons and daughters of perdition, which God forbid!

Today, all that has persecuted us from the past, once and forever is overcome by the Risen God-Man. And thereby all of our agony is also overcome. For Christ's resurrection liberates us from false freedom which enslaves us to our imagination and tears asunder the shackles of concerns and the constraints of darkness. Christ is Risen and life truly can be lived! (St John Chrysostom). He, who is the Life and the Resurrection, has granted us life and resurrection which are reality and not the mere desires of our dreams or hollow machinations, or a trap between utopia and escape (Fr Alexander Schmemann), but the tangible reality of His New Day. And that reality is He who is the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29) and before Whose Name every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and beneath the earth (Phil. 2:10).

Thereby, in order for us to realise our personal life and our personal resurrection, sincere repentance and cleansing, conversion in transfiguration to Christ through spiritual renewal and moral regeneration is essential for all of us. If all of that is omitted, we will never, sadly, have a future, neither in the times which follow nor in the eternity of the Kingdom of God. Only a life in Christ presents an alternative to dissention and division, immorality and disfigurement, drugs and crime, corruption and all that is sin and bears death, both spiritual and physical. Therefore, despite all that comes to us from the Evil One, other persons and even more often from ourselves; yet because of everything that comes to us on Pascha from the Crucified and Risen Lord, let us rejoice and exult with our new Patriarch Kyr Irinej, with our Mother Church and the plenitude of Christ's Holy Church, always and from all our heart exclaiming:

CHRIST IS RISEN!
TRULY, HE IS RISEN!

Given in Sydney, at Pascha in the Year 2010

Your fervent intercessor before the Risen Christ,

                 +IRINEJ

Bishop of Australia and New Zealand
Administrator of the Diocese for Australia and New Zealand
New Gracanica Metropolitanate