Patriarchal Declaration for the Nativity
GREEK ORTHODOX
ARCHDIOCESE OF AMERICA
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Prot. No.
1330
Patriarchal
Declaration
For Christmas,
2007
+
BARTHOLOMEW
By the Mercy of
God
Archbishop of
Constantinople, New Rome
And Ecumenical
Patriarch
To the Plenitude of
the Church
Grace, mercy and peace
From the savior Christ
born in Bethlehem
Christ is
born, glorify Him;
Christ comes from heaven,
meet
Him.
Beloved brothers and children
in the Lord,
It is with great joy that our
Church calls us to glorify God for His loving and personal presence on earth in
the divine-human hypostasis of Christ Jesus, one of the three persons of the
Holy Trinity.
We must, therefore, examine
very carefully the true and life-giving significance of the incarnation of the
Son and Word of God. First, it reveals to humanity that God is personal
and is made manifest to us as a person, just as He has also created us as
persons. Second, it reveals to us that God embraces us with His love. These two
realities, the personhood and love of God, express fundamental truths of our
faith, which we have doubtless heard many times. However, their impact on our
lives is not as great as it might be, because many of us neither experience our
brotherhood with Christ in a personal way, nor His boundless love for us.
Neither do we return our love to Christ so that by sharing in His love, we may
also share, by grace, in other characteristics of His
Person.
If others, who do not know
Christ and, as a result of their ignorance, drown in their search for an
impersonal being that they perceive as divine, are to some extent justified,
then we Orthodox Christians are not justified at all if we follow such fruitless
pursuits. Instead of seeking God as a person and approaching Him in the One Who
approaches us, namely Jesus Christ, people who are misled desperately strive to
become divine through their own powers, like Adam thought, when he listened to
spirit of evil. But the true and personal God, Who is known only through Jesus
Christ, the One born in a manger out of love for us, promised us adoption and a
return to the bosom of the Father, as well as deification by grace through
Christ. It is only through Christ that one may fulfill the universal human
desire to transcend the corruption and isolation of an existence without love,
and to achieve communion with Divine and human persons in love. This is what
leads to eternity and to immortality!
Let us, therefore, turn the
gaze of our hearts toward the newborn Jesus Christ in the manger, so that, by
considering how much He loves us, we might love Him with all our heart, mind and
being. It is only through the love of Jesus Christ that we may become
partakers by grace in His divine nature, just as through His love He shared in
our human nature. Human-centered attempts and concepts, drug-induced states and
ecstasies, together with similar non-Christian experiences do not lead to an
encounter with the truly personal God of love. Rather, they lead to a deep cold
darkness, to gloom of eternal destruction, as well as to a feeling of complete
and abysmal emptiness.
For this reason, beloved
children in the Lord, love Jesus Christ, Who out of love for us and for our
salvation became human. Come to know the communion of His love, with the Father
and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, there is nothing sweeter than the love of the
personal God.
The supreme herald of divine
love, the one who identified God as love, is St. John the Evangelist and
Theologian, who first pronounced to us, “God is love.” After him,
the greatest herald is St. Paul the Apostle, who loved God to the end and who
asked the fervent question: “What can separate us from the love of
Christ?” Neither sorrow nor sword, neither death nor any other love can be
more powerful than our love for Christ. In remembrance of the words and loving
works of St. Paul, and in celebration of two millennia since his birth, we
declare the coming year 2008 as the year of the Apostle
Paul.
We pray paternally and
fervently that Jesus Christ, Who was born in a manger out of love and for our
salvation, may render our hearts to become like His manger: through the
intercessions of His ever-Virgin Mother, as well as of our predecessor St. John
Chrysostom, to whose memory we dedicated this past year, together with the
intercessions of another Patriarchal predecessor, St. Niphon, restorer and
second founder of the Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of St.
Dionysius on Mount Athos, which next year celebrates the 500th
anniversary since his repose, as well as of Saints John and Paul the
Apostles, par excellence heralds of God’s love, and of all the saints, so
that He may reveal to everyone the person of His
love.
We invoke upon all of you His
grace and rich mercy. Merry Christmas; may the twelve days of Christmas be
blessed; and may the New Year be both spiritually and materially
fruitful.
Phanar, Christmas
2007
+
BARTHOLOMEW
Fervent supplicant for all to
God
To be
read in churches during the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Nativity, after
the Holy Gospel.
Posted: Tuesday - December 18, 2007 at 12:11 PM
