Most Reverend Metropolitan Sotirios of Toronto
Beloved children in the Lord


With great joy and emotion, we entered this venerable and Holy Temple where we served Liturgy as Metropolitan of Philadelphia fifteen years past, conveying the blessings of the Mother Church of Christ. Moreover beloved children of our Modesty, we come face-to-face with you in the great city of Vancouver with paternal sentiments on this significant day on which our Holy Church celebrates the leavetaking of Pasha, the feast of feasts.

We have been celebrating the Resurrection of the Lord for forty days and, having taken leave, will now celebrate and chant the joyous resurrectional hymns on each and every Sunday. Furthermore we shall perpetually call into remembrance together with the world-saving Passion of the Lord, His Ascension and His glorious coming.
The characteristic feature of our Church par excellence is a constant experience of the mystery of the Cross and of the Resurrection. These mysteries are bound together, for the cross leads to the Resurrection, and the Resurrection presupposes the Cross.

It is because the majority of Orthodox Churches in various lands have borne the cross over a period of many years that they radiate the joy of the Resurrection and pour out the radiant light and uncreated grace of the Risen Lord far and wide and are strengthened by its grace, illumined by its light and endure all manner of toil and suffering; they sustain every kind of sorrow and temptation; they accept the cross consigned to them by the Lord.

For the Christian, the cross is not simply a matter of trials visited upon them through other persons and political shifts and occurrences. This cross is also that of the epistle : "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal. 5:24) which is the struggle against man's passions, yearnings and desires. This struggle is frequently the most difficult and toilsome test, and some Holy Fathers rightly considered it of equal merit to blood martyrdom, calling it the martyrdom of conscience.

The Holy Greatmartyr George, the guardian of your community, was such a martyr of conscience and trophybearer over sin. First he triumphed over the works of evil in the inner, unseen warfare and then, by shedding his blood, became a participant in the Lord's Passion and Resurrection.

And we, through removed by centuries from the time of our Lord's dispensation according to the flesh, can participate in the Passion and Resurrection by struggling against sin and with the help of Divine Grace. For this reason, though we have not seen Him in the body, we may acknowledge: " Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ...", and, as St-Symeon the New Theologian points out, not merely "having heard" , or "believing".

And this is because the Resurrection works in the heart and the uncreated Grace of the Risen One and remains steadfast in the souls of the humble and the pure. Therefore we are able at all times to gaze upon and celebrate the Resurrection.

For this reason did St-Seraphim of Sarov, the Russian saint of the last century greet those who came to him with the expression "Christ is Risen, my joy!". He had tasted the joy of the Resurrection and would transmit it to as many as he would meet.

From Russia to New Zealand, from Constantinople to this new world and all in a circle as far as Japan and over to Jerusalem Christians sing out on this day "Now all is filled with light : heaven and earth and the lower regions". The light of the Resurrection which comes from the Cross, through these who are illuminated by it, sheds light on the world.

We also sing : " Let us call even those who hate us brothers, let us forgive all by the Resurrection. Through the Cross and the Resurrection we all become brothers and sisters because the One who rose forgives all, loves and lives with all of us. Forgiveness and love are not only sentiments but a demonstration of life for they rise and shine from the Tomb, having been preceded by suffering and the cross.

My children in the Lord

We send up our fatherly prayer that you may become participants of such a life, and to impart the joyous light of the Resurrection to the inhabitants of this spacious and hospitable land with the blessing and grace of the Risen Lord, to whom be the glory and the dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.