Nativity Epistle of the Blessed Metropolitan Vitaly
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
My congratulations on the Feast of Christ’s Nativity extend to the entire pious
flock of our Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. I wish everybody the peace
of mind from the Lord and God’s blessing.
The God-Man, our Lord Jesus Christ, was born from the Ever-Virgin Mary. This
ineffable miracle laid the foundation for Christ’s Church that is wondrously
alive in this world up to this very day.
This wonderful God-Manly Organism, the Church of Christ, where the invisible
combines with the visible, the mysterious with the revealed, Godly with the
human, the Devil tries all the time to downgrade to the rank of an ordinary
human corporation, where would be active the human depraved, spoiled will , and
by way of the latter, the will of the devil rather than the will of God. Here
lies the gist of the Church’s fighting the devil. If there is the will of God in
the Church, then she is the true Church of Christ. But when the corrupted human
will prevails in Church, then the Church is no longer a Church and will turn
into an ordinary earthly corporation in which no one would be able to get
renovated and reborn.
Throughout all the ages of Her existence the Church of Christ has taken care to
keep her inner freedom, as it were the “apple of one’s eye”, safe from the
infringements of the mighty of this world. Even during the most favorable
periods of her existence the Church stood up for its freedom against the
invasions and encroachments upon its independent existence which sometimes took
pious form, because in such invasions too she saw nothing more than a human
will, be it a good will. What then should we say of the insolent invasions of
her Holy of Holies by the government which had the demolition of Christ’s Church
as its ultimate goal!
Let us be careful to prevent any attempts, big or small, to replace the will of
God with the will of men in our Holy Orthodox Church Abroad, and thus
imperceptibly to lay her waste.
By God’s mercy we have been able, from the very beginning of our existence right
to this very day, to shun any rapprochement with the enslaved Soviet hierarchy.
There is one more thing happening in the Diaspora which, it must be admitted,
imposes no obligations on us, but is constantly tempting and persuading us to
embark on the path of the same inner substitution of a human society for the
Church of Christ, and this is ECUMENISM.
May God help us to better preserve our precious treasure, the inner freedom of
each one of us. Truly, it is better to die than to lose this spiritual freedom!
May Christ enlighten us, in these Holy Days, with the Light of His Kindness,
Love and Truth. Amen."
- Metropolitan Vitaly
First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
Nativity of Christ - December 25, 2005