Protocol No. 01-002/2025
Great and Holy Pascha
Sunday, April 20th, 2025

Dearly Beloved Members of our Diocesan Family:
Christ is Risen! – Indeed He is Risen!

“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 15:57).

Many of those who have seen the pop cultural phenomenon “Jesus Christ Superstar” tell of leaving with a depressed feeling – because it ends with the crucifixion. What can be more depressing than to have a play or a movie end with the crucifixion of its hero? It is not surprising, though, that “Jesus Christ Superstar” ends with the crucifixion, since those who wrote it are non-believers. They tried to express through this rock opera their depressing philosophy about life – namely, that it ends with death for everybody.

It is true that Jesus’ disciples may have acted this way immediately before His resurrection, but definitely not after it. The clarion call sounded by the early Christians following our Lord's resurrection was ”VICTORY”:

“Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? … Thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 15:54-57).

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

“This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (I John 5:4-5).

The New Testament is full of the joyous conviction that through Christ, God has given us the victory; victory over every enemy; victory over every possible evil; victory over everything that has gone wrong with God's creation; victory over sin, death, and the devil.

Because of our Lord's resurrection, the true Christian is an eternal optimist. The trouble with being an optimist is that people think you're naive; that you don't know what's actually going on. The real Christian is anything but naive. He knows exactly what's going on. He knows that there are evil men in the world who want war; he knows there are such things as terminal illnesses; and he knows his world today is much like a jungle. But he is an optimist because he knows Christ. And he fastens his attention not upon the problems but upon the solution.

“In the world you have tribulation; but be of good courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Jesus did not say, “I will overcome the world,” but ”I have overcome.” When He cried out on the cross, ”It is finished!” – it was not a cry of defeat, but of triumph. “’It’ – the purpose for which I came – has been ‘finished’: completed, fulfilled. I have redeemed My people. I have given them the victory. Now it is up to them to accept it. For I cannot force them to receive it.”

One might rightly ask, exactly “victory over what” are we talking about here?

1. Victory over sin. Sin has the power to enslave, the power to bury us alive in the tomb of guilt and despair. Christ alone has the power to break open this tomb and set us free.

2. Victory over demons. The Gospels often portray Jesus as casting out demons. He does the same today, granting us victory over the demons that plague us and make life miserable: hatred, envy, lust, greed, etc. ”If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come” (II Cor. 5:17).

3. Victory over self. Christ offers us victory over self. The real war is always within. It is here that we must have victory before any outer victory will have meaning. Yet many church-going Christians are not victorious, but defeated. Defeated by circumstances, defeated by sin, defeated by loss, by pain, by suffering, by worry. They are Christians in name only. They have a form of religion, but they deny its power. They have never gotten up above the lowlands of self-centered living; they have never climbed the heights of faith and total commitment to Christ.

4. Victory over death. The final victory Christ offers us is over our last and greatest enemy: death. Over the years, I have faced together with many parishioners great sorrows and tremendous personal losses in the death of loved ones. At such times, several things have served to soften the grief — the presence of friends, the gift of flowers, the service of the funeral. But beyond all these, there were the words of our precious Lord Jesus taken right from the heart of the Paschal message. ”I am the resurrection and the life. ...” These words do something which nothing else can ever do. To be sure, the hurt and the loss are still there. But somehow the words of the Risen Lord give us strength to go on and the assurance that death does not have the last word.

How many times have family members who have lost their loved ones come to the cemetery on Pascha or Saint Thomas Sunday, to stand over the graves of the departed and sing the triumphant hymn “Christ is risen from the dead …” and conclude with the shout, “Christ is Risen! … Indeed He is Risen!”? What a dramatic expression of our Orthodox Christian Faith!

Here is victory over death – assured from the voice of our Savior Himself: ”If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death or taste death” (John 8:51, 52). And, “Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:26).

Unfortunately, what so many people want today is something – anything – to help them escape from reality. This is why entertainers are paid far more than doctors. Yet escape is a temporary thing; it may work for a short while, but eventually reality catches up and we must face it. Herein lies the greatness of our faith. It offers not escape but victory. Our faith enables us not to run away from life, but to conquer it through Christ Who said, “Be of good courage, I have overcome the world.”

As Jesus was buried in the earth and rose again, so we are buried in the waters of baptism and raised again. Christians have all received the power of the risen Christ, to rise from the death of sin to a new life in Him. This is why in the early Church baptism was always conferred on the vigil of Pascha. Because most of us were infants when we were baptized, Pascha becomes the time for us to renew our baptismal vows: our rejection of Satan and our commitment to Christ.

In a sense, our uniquely crowded churches at Pascha deny the very fact they are supposed to celebrate. Thousands of people betray their un-belief… by coming to church only once a year! They don't really believe in the tremendous victory of Christ in which we are called to share. If they did, they would be in church to celebrate it and share in it every Sunday, since for Christians every Sunday is the celebration of Pascha. May we greet these brothers and sisters with sincere Paschal joy, and invite them to come back, Sunday after Sunday!

My Beloved: The great football coach Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning is not everything; it is the only thing.” The resurrected Christ assures us of victory. How much we need this victorious mood today! Our tasks are tremendous; to lose confidence is to lose everything. The devil always wins when he breaks our assurance. To be confident in Christ is the beginning of victory. More than that, it is the victory! To fail to claim for ourselves the victory of Christ over sin, death and the devil is to cheat ourselves of the greatest victory we shall ever know, both for now and for all eternity.

Urging you to truly celebrate the victory of Holy Pascha in your heart and in your life, in your parish church and in your home, I pray you receive every blessing that comes from our Risen Lord!

With my humble prayers, my archpastoral blessing and my sincere love,

Archbishop of New York and the
Diocese of New York and New Jersey