Beloved and blessed children in the Lord:

Christ is Risen!

From the See of the venerable Holy Mother and Great Church of Christ we address to all of you, our beloved children in the Orthodox faith and life on the American continent, the Paschal greeting of the victory of life over death. We especially wish to embrace the youth of our Orthodox Church in the Americas on this radiant and majestic feast, so, with festal joy and from the depths of our heart, we address to you these thoughts. We see you as the primary bearers and communicators of the Paschal message in today's world. We have nothing more precious to offer. Ideologies and philosophical systems, political agendas and social theories propose an improvement of the standards of our ephemeral life. The Church, however, justifies Her evangelical mission primarily and and essentially by responding to the one fundamental question put by man: What is the meaning of life and death?

The answer is recapitulated in the greeting: Christ is Risen! Christ rose from the dead and with him resurrected the entire generation of Adam, every single human being. Now, everyone can partake in this new way of being, which was inaugurated by Christ's Resurrection.

Is this a religious theory or a figment of the imagination? Those who have witnessed the experience of the Resurrection in the Church spread the good news of empirical verification. The verification, which is tangible through participation in this new way of being to which we are called by Christ who is risen from the tomb, is indeed empirical.

Which is this life-giving way? That we derive our being and life not from our corruptible and mortal nature, but through a loving relationship. Christ rose from the dead because he transformed even biological death into a relationship of obedience and love and one of extreme self-offering to the Father. Obedient and unison with the passion of God's loving goodness from man, Christ incarnated this passionate love by becoming a bridegroom of humankind. All this is recapitulated in the Church. "He loved us first, while we were His enemies and adversaries. And He not only loved us, but accepted the lash for us and was crucified; and by all these acts demonstrated His love for us."

We should be proud, our beloved youth, of belonging to the Orthodox Church of Christ. Look around you and you will see how the Christian Gospel is distorted daily and transformed into an abstract doctrine and a utilitarian ethic. In the Orthodox Church, which finds its composition and manifestation in each eucharistic gathering, we continue to witness and proclaim the resurrection from death and a way of empirically approaching life free of mortality.

Our witness and proclamation is expressed in word and flesh throughout a truly overwhelming centuries-old civilization. Our beloved Orthodox youth of America, we exhort you to consider the unrivalled poetry of our liturgical services during these Paschal days. Study the rich art of our ecclesiastical iconography, the insurmountable Byzantine melody of our hymnology, the revealing drama of our worship. In vaunting doxology be proud of your Orthodoxy identity with which you have been honored.

We embrace you all with a kiss of love proclaiming once again the triumphant greeting of life: Christ is Risen!

Holy Pascha 1995

+ Bartholomew of Constantinople
A fervent supplicant before the Risen Christ