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BY THE GRACE OF GOD ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE, NEW ROME, AND ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH, TO THE PLENITUDE OF THE CHURCH, GRACE AND PEACE FROM OUR SAVIOUR CHRIST, TOGETHER WITH OUR PRAYER, BLESSING AND FORGIVENESS
TO ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH,
GRACE, PEACE AND MERCY FROM GOD.
Beloved Brethren and Children in the Lord,
On this day the first Sunday of Great Lent we read in church the Synodal decree of the Holy and Ecumenical Seventh Council for Orthodoxy, through which is announced in a festal way the unwavering for ages insistence of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church in the tradition of the Holy Apostles, Fathers and Teachers, which has been sealed by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We, therefore hear, among other things, that we think, we speak, and we preach as the Prophets saw, as the Apostles taught. as the Church received, as the Teachers dogmatised, as Grace shone forth and as Christ awarded. But though this is absolutely and undisputedly true for our Orthodox Church - the body of Christ, having him Christ himself as her source and head, every one of us has need of self examination to be certain that we as individual persons believe, think and speak as the Prophets, the Apostles, the Saints and Teachers of the Orthodox Church thought, believed and preached. Because always especially in these days many false prophets and false teachers appear, who try to delude the elect, introducing into the Orthodox Faith new ideas and opinions insisting that progress and development need them, while on the other side those battling from the right sometimes reject the life creating spirit of the Holy Scriptures and Holy Fathers and get attached to their death dealing letter instead.
Already about two thousand years have passed since the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh and the revelation by him of the right faith and life. During this long period the Orthodox Church as another ark kept intact the right belief and life. Every Great Lent the Church calls all to repentance for the everyday practical sins as well as the carelessness of each in regards to the faith. All of us without doubt want to keep Christ's commandments and to believe in an orthodox way, but as we sin in a practical way due to being carried away by human weakness or of ignorance, likewise, sometimes we fall into carelessness regarding the faith. For this reason our Orthodox Church prepares us during the Triodion period for Great Lent, the par excellence period of repentance, showing us during three consecutive Sundays certain persons, as the Pharisee, the hard-hearted brother of the Prodigal and those unmerciful people in the parable of the last judgement, as sinners, from whose attitude and sin we should stay away and if perchance we are carried away then to repent, likewise on this Sunday of Orthodoxy in which the Church blesses the champions of the Orthodox Faith and anathematises the conscious and obstinate heretics, shows us the obligation to repent for any carelessness of ours in regard to the Orthodox Faith.
Having in mind that repentance is indispensable for all and that any imperfection in regard to faith can always be corrected in each and every faithful, again knowing that no one is sinless even if our life on earth is but one day, we advise in a fatherly way all of you that we enter into sincere repentance not only during the period of Holy and Great Lent but throughout this jubilee 2000th year from the time of Christ's Nativity, which, for this reason we proclaim as the Year of Repentance.
It does not only suffice to be members of the Orthodox Church and to have the will not to sway from the Orthodox Faith and life, we must simultaneously penetrate continually into the orthodox truth and thus continually improve the manner of our christian life, showing zeal for our perfection in Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ who urged us to keep the practlical commandments of love, purity, attentiveness and prayer, advised us to know the truth, which he himself revealed to us, that the truth might free us. Therefore, the Sunday of Orthodoxy shows us that the period of true repentance starts with correcting the mistakes regarding faith in each one of us and continues on with the purifying of the mind and body from our bodily and spiritual passions.
True repentance is not a discontent nor a passive and painful self blame and false humility. It is a vigilance of the mind and the heart, a continuous self revocation of our self to the proper faith and life, an active freedom from the captivity of our thoughts, a tireless attempt in removing indolence and sloth, so as to always foresee in front of us with joy and peace our Lord, that we may not move from the way of correct faith nor from the way of a life of virtue, and also a continuous consciousness of any deviation and the correcting of this through return, with the help of God, to the correct faith and life. For this reason repentance is indispensable for all and more so for those who think that they have no need of repentance.
Our Holy Church by the characterization of this first Sunday of Fasting as the Sunday of Orthodoxy reminds us that correct faith is the foundation of a correct spiritual life. Thus the restoration of the veneration of the holy Icons by the seventh Ecumenical Council does not only involve the area of the Icons themselves, but is united with the faith in the real incarnation of the Lord, whose visible bodily existence we portray in the holy Icons. This faith constitutes a foundation for salvation and the discerment of the spirits, through which we are protected from delusion, because, as St. John the Evangelist writes, "by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus has come in the flesh is not from God" (1 John 4:2-3 NKJV). Knowing this a faithful Orthodox Christian is in communion with the spirit from God and receives help from him, in opposition to those who commune with the spirit not from God, and are guided by it to destruction.
May our Lord Jesus Christ guide all of us to the practice of correct faith and correct life in the Holy Spirit and continuous repentance, preparing ourselves suitably during this period of Great Lent, to enable us to celebrate also his Resurrection, suitably recalling ourselves for the whole of our life to the correct faith and practice thus enabling us to enter into his eternal heavenly kingdom. Amen.
+ Bartholomew of Constantinople
and all the rest of the Synodal Hierarchs
of the Ecumenical Throne.
Protocol No. 261