The St. Nicholas Cathedral community wishes you and your loved ones a blessed and happy Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord! |
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Paschal Greetings From Around the World
Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
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Greeting
Khristus anahgrecum!
Khris-tusax agla-gikux!
Krishti U Ngjall!
Khris-tusaq ung-uixtuq!
Kristos tenestwal!
Crist aras!
El Messieh kahm!
Kristos haryav ee merelotz!
Xristosi banuytashtch'ey!
Hristos voskrese!
Khrystos uvaskros!
Helisituosi fuhuole!
Pchristos aftooun!
Kristus vstal a mrtvych!
Kristus er opstanden!
Christus is opgestaan!
Christ is risen!
Christos tensiou!
Kristo levigis!
Kristus on oolestoosunt!
Christos t'ensah em' muhtan!
Kristus nousi kuolleista!
Le Christ est réssuscité!
Taw creest ereen!
Kriste aghsdga!
Christus ist auferstanden!
Christos anesti!
Ua ala hou 'o Kristo!
Ha Masheeha houh quam!
Krisztus feltamadt!
Jesu Kristi ebiliwo!
Christu uyirthezhunnettu!
Kristus telah bangkit!
Cristo e' risorto!
Harisutos Fukkatsu!
Kristus sampun wungu!
Kristo gesso!
Christus resurrexit!
Kristus ir augsham sales!
Kristo ajukkide!
Christus er oppstanden!
Khristus zmartwyckwstal!
Cristo ressuscitou!
Hristos a inviat!
Khristos voskrese!
Kristo'pastitaha!
Hristos vaskrse!
Kristus vstal zmr'tvych!
Cristo ha resucitado!
Kristo amefufukka!
Christus ar upstanden!
M'shee ho dkom!
Xristos Kuxwoo-digoot!
Hristos diril - di!
Kristo ajukkide!
Khristos voskres!
Atgyfododd Crist!
Xris-tusaq Ung-uixtuq!
Ukristu uvukile!
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Response
Alhecum anahgrecum!
Agangu-lakan agla-gikux!
Vertet U Ngjall!
Pijii-nuq ung-uixtuq!
Bergit tenestwal!
Crist sodhlice aras!
Hakken kahm!
Orhnial eh harootyunuh kristosee!
Gheli banuytashtch'ey!
Vo istina voskrese!
Saprawdy uvaskros!
Queshi fuhuole!
Alethos aftooun!
Opravdi vstoupil!
Ja, sandelig opstanden!
Ja, hij is waarlijk opgestaan!
Indeed He is risen!
Bahake tensiou!
Vere levigis!
Toayestee on oolestoosunt!
Exai' ab-her eokala!
Totisesti nousi!
En verite il est réssuscité!
Taw shay ereen guhdyne!
Cheshmaritad aghsdga!
Wahrlich Er ist auferstanden!
Alithos anesti!
Ua ala 'I 'o no 'oia!
Be emet quam!
Valoban feltamadt!
Ezia o' biliwo!
Theerchayayum uyirthezhunnettu!
Benar dia telah bangkit!
Veramente e' risorto!
Jitsu ni Fukkatsu!
Tuhu sampun wungu!
Buhar ha sho nay!
Vere resurrexit!
Teyasham ir augsham sales vinsch!
Amajim ajukkide!
Sandelig han er oppstanden!
Zaprawde zmartwyckwstal!
Em verdade ressuscitou!
Adevărat a înviat!
Voistinu voskrese!
Satvam upastitaha!
Vaistunu vaskrse!
Skutoc ne vstal!
En verdad ha resucitado!
Kweli amefufukka!
Han ar verkligen upstanden!
Ha koo qam!
Xegaa-kux Kuxwoo-digoot!
Hakikaten diril - di!
Kweli ajukkide!
Voistinu voskres!
Atgyfododd yn wir!
Iluumun Ung-uixtuq!
Uvukile kuphela!
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Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon
Pascha 2021
Today the Myrrhbearing Women arrive at the tomb and, seeing the angel, hear from him the joyous message that the Lord has risen. When they leave the tomb, running to tell the Apostles the news, Christ Himself suddenly appears to them and greets them with a single word: “Rejoice!” (Matthew 28:9).
On this bright day, as we celebrate this glorious feast of feasts, this supreme festival of festivals, the Resurrection of Christ, I in turn extend our Lord’s greeting and say to you all: “Rejoice!”
Our Lord Jesus Christ has revealed Himself to us through His Death and Resurrection. He has won the victory for us over seemingly meaningless death by His all-meaningful Death, and we in turn celebrate with exceeding joy. Death no longer stings and hell has no victory, for its gates are smashed and its prisoners are freed. The Resurrection of Christ has brought eternal life to all.
Through the Resurrection, we rejoice—in spite of our sins, hardheartedness, and lack of forgiveness. For we know that God promised through Jeremiah: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).
Through the Resurrection, we rejoice—in spite of our doubts, worries, and anxieties. For as was guaranteed to us through Zephaniah: “No one shall make them afraid… The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall see disaster no more!” (Zephaniah 3:13, 15).
Through the Resurrection, we rejoice—in spite of the difficulties, trials, and struggles that we have faced, and always will face, in the brief span of our earthly lives. For Christ Himself has promised: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen!” (Matthew 28:20).
My brothers and sisters in the Lord: “Rejoice!” Our sins are forgiven, our anxieties cease, and our temporary sufferings are given meaning through the Resurrection of the One who grants us eternal life. And while this eternal life is only fully manifest in the age to come, it is ours to experience joyfully even now.
May we celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection in joy and love. From this day forward, may we never cease exulting in the Lord.
Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
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Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada
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Holy Pascha - The Feast of the Resurrection
This is the starting point for our understanding of the sanctification of time. It is the Orthodox experience, which goes back to the apostles themselves, that in the center of our liturgical life, in the very center of that time which we measure as year, we find the Feast of Christ’s Resurrection. What is the Resurrection? Resurrection is the appearance in this world, completely dominated by time and therefore by death, of life that shall have no end. The One who rose again from the dead does not die anymore. In this world of ours, not somewhere else, not in any “other” world, there appeared one morning someone who is beyond death and yet in our time. This meaning of Christ’s Resurrection, this great joy, is the central theme of Christianity; and it has been preserved in its fullness in the liturgy of the Orthodox Church. There is much truth expressed by those who say that the central theme of Orthodoxy, the center of all its experience, the frame of reference for everything else in her, is the Resurrection of Christ.
We Orthodox living in the West are in danger of losing this resurrection spirit of Christianity. We are concerned with death much more than with resurrection, and church life sometimes is dominated by the funeral rather than the resurrection type of piety. Yet no one can understand the real structure of the liturgical cycle of the year unless he understands that the center, the day that gives meaning to all days and therefore to all time, is the yearly commemoration of Christ’s Resurrection at Pascha. Pascha is always the end and always the beginning. We are always living after Pascha, and we are always going towards Pascha. The whole spirit and meaning of liturgical life is contained in Pascha, together with the subsequent fifty-day period which culminates in the feast of Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. This unique Paschal celebration is reflected every week in the Christian Sunday, the day which Russians, for example, still call Voskresenie, “Resurrection.” Though it may seem strange to you, it is important to realize that every Sunday is a little Pascha. I say “Little Pascha,” but it is really “Great Pascha.” Every week the Church comes to the same central experience: “Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ . . .” Every Saturday night, when the Priest carries the Gospel from the Altar to the center of the Church, after he has read the Gospel of the Resurrection, the same fundamental fact of our Christian Faith is proclaimed: CHRIST IS RISEN! St. Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (I Corinthians 15:14). There is nothing else to believe. This is the heart of our Faith; and it is only in reference to Pascha, as the end of all merely natural time and the beginning of the new time, that we can understand the whole liturgical year.
Pentecost and Pascha
Pentecost is the fulfillment of Pascha. If you open a calendar, you will find all our Sundays are called Sundays after Pentecost, and Pentecost itself is fifty days after Pascha. Pentecost is the fulfillment of Pascha. Christ ascended into heaven and sent down His Holy Spirit. When He sent down His Holy Spirit into the world, a new society was instituted, a body of people, whose life, though it remained of this world and was shared in its life, took on a new meaning. This new meaning comes directly from Christ’s Resurrection. We are no longer people in meaningless time that leads to a meaningless end. We are given not only a new meaning in life, but even death itself has acquired a new significance. In the troparion of Pascha we say, “trampling down death by death." We do not say that He trampled down death by the Resurrection, but by death. And although a Christian still faces death, being in this way similar to any other man, death has for him a new significance. It means entering into the Pascha of the Lord, into His own passage from the old into a new life. This is the key to the liturgical year of the Church. Christianity is, first of all, the proclamation in this world of Christ’s Resurrection. Orthodox spirituality is paschal in its inner content, and the real content of the Christian life is joy.
We speak of feasts, and the feast is the expression of joyfulness of Christianity. When you teach children, you convey to them not only certain knowledge but also the spirit which is behind this knowledge. You know that the one thing a child accepts easily is joy. But we have made our Christianity so adult, so serious, so sad, so solemn, that we have virtually emptied it of that joy. Yet Christ has said, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15 and Luke 18:17). To become like a child, in Christ’s words, means to be capable of that joy of which an adult is no longer capable, to enter into communion with things, with nature, with other people, without suspicion or fear or frustration. We often use the term grace, but what is grace? Charis in Greek means not only grace but also joy. If I stress this point so much, it is because of my certainty that our first message must be this message of Paschal Joy. When on Pascha night we stand at the door of the Church and the Priest says, “Christ is Risen,” the night in the words of Gregory of Nyssa, becomes “lighter than the day.” Here is the strength, the real root of the Christian experience. And only within the framework of this joy can we understand everything else.
Let us keep in mind that Pascha is the real beginning of our liturgical year. The year “officially” begins on September 1st; but I am speaking here in terms of its spiritual principle and foundation, because Pascha truly opens our understanding of time. The world was dark, and Someone brought in light and warmth. The world was sad because it had become a cemetery, and Someone said, “Death is no more.” This is what Christ did in this world. It was cold and sinful and cruel, and He came and said, “Rejoice!” This is the way Christ addressed His disciples. “Rejoice! Peace be with you!” Paschal joy is, therefore, the beginning of Christian experience.
Fr. Alexander Schmemann
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Holy Pascha - The All-Embracing Feast
In the Orthodox Church, the Resurrection is not merely the ‘feast of feasts’, but the all-embracing feast, which is the soul of all the others and is always present in them. In it we find all the divine and theanthropic powers of the Savior, which crush every sin, every death, every devil. Unceasing Resurrection, that is continuous Resurrection, is precisely what the life of all Orthodox Christians in the Church of the Savior is: it is my life, your life and that of each of us. What is the Orthodox Church? It is the risen Christ Who lives forever. So we who live in it continually overcome sin, death and the devil through the Risen Lord. In this way, we raise ourselves from every grave, led and guided always in this task by the saints whom we praise every day. These are the true victors over death, sin and the devil through the Risen Lord and are, at the same time, those who raise us from our graves. Because, what is the aim of our Christian life? To defeat sin, death and the devil and thus to guarantee immortality and eternal life in the heavenly kingdom of the love of Christ. Because victory over any one of our sins is a victory over death, since every sin is our spiritual death. By overcoming sin and death, in reality we defeat the devil, since the devil is a being in whom sin and death and identical. But we people are human only through the Resurrection of the God/Man, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and through His form of immortality.
St. Justin Popovich
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The Guarantee of the Resurrection
When he went down to the world beneath, the Lord Jesus Christ brought life to those who waited there. Read 1 Peter 3:18–4:6.
The resurrection of Christ is the foundation stone of our faith and all the hope we have as Christians. And the Church presents it to us in all its glory as the guarantee of our salvation as well as our own resurrection; for his rising from the grave marks the death of Death and, as man, Christ has become the author of life because he is the very center of the whole economy of salvation. Baptism is the door to this life. From ancient times the opening verses of the Gospel of John were read over the newly baptized, and today over us all. “To all who received [Christ, the true light], who believed in his name, he gave power [through baptism] to become sons and daughters of God, born, not … of the flesh, nor of man willing it [meaning not a human possibility, not a human invention], but of God.” (John 1.12) The Apostle adds this: Furthermore, if you belong to Christ you are the descendants of Abraham, which means you inherit all that was promised. (Galatians 3.26–20)
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The Ethics of Resurrection
Is it not true that our mortality serves to justify our concern for ourselves, instead of our neighbors? My neighbor can be cold and hungry next door, but I feel quite justified in preserving my own standard of living and the security of my own future, because I consider my money as having been earned by me (or given to me) with no other purpose than to prolong my own life and to make it as comfortable as I can.
Moreover, even the laws of this mortal world of ours are made in such a way that their main purpose is to preserve my rights and my property. They justify violence as a form of self-defense. And the history of human society is one of conflicts and wars in which individuals and nations struggle and kill others in the name of temporal benefits which will be destroyed by death anyway. But this is still considered as "justice."
Such is, indeed, the inevitable logic of a world, which St. Paul describes as "the reign of death.”
On Easter Day (Pascha) however, we celebrate the end of this reign. Christ came to destroy it. "Death is swallowed up in victory, O death, where is your sting?" "Christ is Risen, and no one remains in a tomb." Therefore, as the Church sings, "let us embrace," "let us forgive."
This victory which our Church celebrates so brilliantly, so loudly, so triumphantly, is not simply a guarantee of "after life." Rather, it changes the entire set of our ethical priorities, even now. There is no need for self-preservation anymore because "our life is hidden with Christ in God.” To love one's neighbors and to give them the "last penny" is better insurance than to "store treasures upon earth." "To lose one's soul" is "to save it."
Fr. John Meyendorff
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The Gospel of Resurrection
'The preaching of the Resurrection as well as the preaching of the Cross was foolishness and a stumbling–block to Gentiles. St. Paul had already been called a "babbler" by the Athenian philosophers just "because he proclaimed to them Jesus and the resurrection" (Acts 17:18, cf. v.32). The Greek mind was always rather disgusted by the body. The attitude of an average Greek in early Christian times was strongly influenced by Platonic or Orphic ideas, and it was a common opinion that the body was a kind of a "prison", in which the fallen soul was incarcerated and confined. The Greeks dreamt rather of a complete and final disincarnation. And the Christian belief in a coming Resurrection could only confuse and frighten the Gentile mind. It meant simply that the prison will be everlasting, that the imprisonment will be renewed again and for ever. The expectation of a bodily resurrection would befit rather an earthworm suggested Celsus, and he jeered in the name of common sense. He nicknamed Christians a "philosomaton genos", a "flesh–loving crew" (ap. Origen, Contra Celsum, V:14 and VII:36).'
Fr Georges Florovsky
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