{"id":7935,"date":"2013-05-03T19:38:07","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T08:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocor.org.au\/?p=7935"},"modified":"2013-05-03T19:38:07","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T08:38:07","slug":"paschal-epistle-of-his-eminence-metropolitan-hilarion-first-hierarch-of-the-russian-orthodox-church-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/?p=7935","title":{"rendered":"Paschal Epistle of His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/news25\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/pascha10.gif\" width=\"350\" height=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Paschal Epistle of His Eminence, Hilarion,<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong> Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York,<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong> First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Your Eminences, fellow hierarchs, God-loving monks and nuns, priests and deacons, beloved in the Lord brothers and sisters!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>CHRIST IS RISEN!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A wondrous energy lies hidden in these words and penetrates the whole soul: <em>Christ is Risen!<\/em> How joyous are these words for the soul of a Christian! Can more festive words than these be found in the entire human language?<!--more--> These joyous words were first uttered by the Angel to the Myrrh-bearers who had come to the life-bearing Tomb. With our mind\u2019s eye we see Christ Resurrected and hear His sweetest words to the Myrrh-bearers: <em>Rejoice!<\/em> (Matt. 23:9). The Resurrected Lover of Mankind directs the same joyful greeting to us: <em>Rejoice!<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With Paschal jubilation I greet all of you with this radiant world-saving triumph of Christ&#8217;s Resurrection! Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice! May each one of you, partaking of the joy today of Christ\u2019s Church, overcome the sorrows and crosses you bear in life; overcome the despondency due to personal sinfulness, and the temptations and scandals which surround us. With a breath of festive compunction let us and those around us partake of the many faceted mercies and blessings of this all-good and radiant celebration. For the Feast of Pascha is not just another ordinary festival or proclamation of resurrection; it is not a mere promise of life eternal for people; it is the triumph and victory over all grief and anguish, over all sorrow and sadness of this earthly life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">May this Paschal joy, this triumph of life reign throughout our Russian Church Abroad, in each parish, in each monastery, in each family, so that <em>\u201cthe unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace\u201d<\/em> (Eph. 4:3), spoken of by the Apostle, may be visible within our church life. And may whatever transpires among us be peaceful, amicable, cordial and according to the precepts of the Church!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As St. John of Kronstadt expresses in his writings: <em>\u201cMay our joy of the Resurrection be rational, deep, holy and dynamic. May it move us to greater love of the Resurrected One, to a life of holiness and mutual love.\u201d<\/em> Amen.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With Paschal joy in the Resurrected Christ and a request for your prayers,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>+Hilarion,<br \/>\nMetropolitan of Eastern America and New York,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Pascha 2013<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paschal Epistle of His Eminence, Hilarion, Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia Your Eminences, fellow hierarchs, God-loving monks and nuns, priests and deacons, beloved in the Lord brothers and sisters! CHRIST IS RISEN! A wondrous energy lies hidden in<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/?p=7935\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2,7,3],"tags":[22,99,29],"class_list":["entry","author-webmaster","has-more-link","post-7935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-articles","category-diocesan-news","category-english","category-parish-news","tag-metropolitan-hilarion","tag-official","tag-sermon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7935"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7938,"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7935\/revisions\/7938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocor.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}