Paschal Epistle of the Right Reverend Andronik Archbishop of Syracuse and St. Nicholas

PASCHAL EPISTLE

Of the Right Reverend Andronik

Archbishop of Syracuse and St. Nicholas

Christ is Risen!

Brothers and sisters, every year we await these loudly proclaimed and jubilant words.

They raise the ailing from their sick beds, wrest the faint-hearted and the doubters from the darkness of irreligion, and faithfully promise the eternal blessing of communion with God.

Each of us had the opportunity during this past Great Lent to test ourselves — to what extent are we prepared for this communion with God.

If we have not purified our souls through the lifesaving Sacrament of true Repentance, if instead of transforming our lives for the better we were engaged only in empty vanities, can we look at our Righteous Judge and commune with Him?

The Church through the ages has been the voice of Christ’s truth and at all times has called the faithful to soberness. Similarly, as we look at the approaching Radiant Feast of Christ’s Pascha, we tirelessly repeat: people, awaken, be sober in mind and spirit! Display wisdom and kindness and do the works of Christian piety! Feel your responsibility for the souls and even lives of those around you! May God grant that the precious time of Great Lent did not pass in vain for us all!

As always, we turn our gaze to our suffering Russian land, and pray to the Lord that He show mercy on her, so tormented and mutilated. The wrath of the entire world has been unleashed on her, while her unfortunate, deceived people are complacent and live in a state akin to winter hibernation. The forces of evil are ruining the country; for decades they have been siphoning the wealth from its depths, have been selling its land for a pittance, while with the help of television and other media, poisoning the people with harmful teachings, outright witchcraft and depravity, and spreading enmity among neighboring states.

In spite of how much our country suffered in the 20th century, again we see the active propagandizing of the cults of the communist cannibals – Lenin, Stalin and the other fiends of the human race! Is this not the madness that comes before death? Are more bloody lessons in the Russian Nation’s future? Yet we still believe that the power of the Lord will raise the nation again, as He resurrected His friend Lazarus from the dead. Only in this rests our hope.

We also look at the Russian Church, which has endured so many divisions in recent decades. We rely on the wisdom and integrity of the Russian Archpastors and pastors, for it is they who need to be the evangelical “leavening” from which will arise the enlightenment and healing of the Russian people. We pray for their faithful flocks and that through the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God and all the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, Christ our Lord will bring in His great harvest.

And then a truly “Russian” Pascha shall arrive, the Resurrection of our Homeland, that glorious day when our Nation may proclaim to the world the joyous testimony: Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

+Humble Andronik, Archbishop of Syracuse and St. Nicholas

Pascha, 2018