Serbian True Orthodox Church
2014 Paschal Encyclical
Hierarchal Council of the STOC
Under the Chairmanship of His Grace Akakije,
Bishop of Uteshiteljevo
To All the Faithful Children of St. Sava’s Church
Congratulations on the Feast of Feasts, the Radiant Resurrection of Christ:
ХРИСТОС ВОСКРЕСЕ! CHRIST IS RISEN!
And if Christ is not risen… of all men we are the most pitiable. (1 Cor. 15:17-19)
In the past, present, or future, are there any people more joyful than the followers of Christ? Surely not. Perhaps there existed, and exist, fortunate ones of this world, but their shallow and superficial materialistic good fortune cannot at all be considered happiness, for it is short-lived and inevitably cut off by the end of this earthly life – death. With the Resurrection of Christ from the dead, we Christians became the most joyful people in the world. All sorrows, all sufferings, all misfortune of the world in which we lead this temporal life, even death itself, cannot darken our Christian joy which stems from the radiant Resurrection of Christ. After His sufferings and His death on the Cross, the Lord knew in what great sorrow, fear and uncertainty the myrrh-bearing women and the apostles were. Knowing this, the Risen Lord appeared to the myrrh-bearers, and through them to all of us, with the comforting and encouraging words, full of optimism, “Rejoice!” (Mat. 28:9). During Matins of the Resurrection, in confirmation of all of this, we joyfully sing that the radiant Resurrection of Christ, Pascha, is the deliverance from sorrow (fourth sticheron of Pascha).
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