“The Resurrection of the Godman finds us injured for the second year. Humiliated by the invisible enemy, the universe is forced into the isolation of societies. Many people died within a year. At this moment I wish to remind us of the loss of these fellow humans, as well as of the Bishops, Priests, Monks, Nuns, and Believers of our Church” stressed Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece in his Easter message.
The Archbishop of Athens also said: “Pandemics erode the existing way of life and promote a new one. The current pandemic digitally regulates our lives in an almost universal way. Everything is done from a distance: distance learning, teleconferencing, teleworking.”
Concluding the Archbishop stated that: “The pandemic once again brought us to our limits. It brought to the fore the death that we relegate to the background. The unnatural death that the Godman overcame with His Resurrection”.
Read below the message of Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece:
EASTER MESSAGE 2021
My dear brothers and children in the Lord,
Christ is Risen!
The Resurrection of the Godman finds us injured for the second year. Humiliated by the invisible enemy, the universe is forced into the isolation of societies. Many people died within a year. At this moment I wish to remind us of the loss of these fellow humans, as well as of the Bishops, Priests, Monks, Nuns, and Believers of our Church.
Experts and scientists are trying to stop the transmission of the virus, with our fellow humans contributing responsibly. However, some deny the existence of the virus and others link it to conspiracy theories. In these circumstances, I would like to personally thank all the doctors and healthcare staff for their daily self-sacrifice.
Pandemics erode the existing way of life and promote a new one. The current pandemic digitally regulates our lives in an almost universal way. Everything is done from a distance: distance learning, teleconferencing, teleworking. We experience the culmination of the tragedy at the terrible hour of death. It is not possible to see or touch our deceased loved ones for the last time.
Many of these new changes came with the ambition of remaining permanent and are characterized by a paradox: the new, which emerges as a solution, at the same time enslaves us. What facilitates us, at the same time makes us dependent, restricts our freedom. While digital technology facilitates the life of the planet, at the same time it alienates us.
Pandemics are a symptom of human mortality, which infiltered human history when we sever our relationship with God and made ourselves the center of our lives. Since then, we have focused unilaterally on alleviating the problems at hand and we miss the essential thing: even if this virus is defeated, later another will resurge, as always has been the case in human history. Besides, there is the permanent “virus,” the “last enemy”; death. The cause of human problems is spiritual, human selfishness.
The Resurrection of the Godman overturned the hitherto human, Adamic things and introduced into history new, mysterious, eschatological ones. With all the events of the divine Economy, with His Incarnation and Resurrection, he reshaped human nature. Cosmic reality already tastes its renewal in Christ: “Heaven and earth and the depths are always filled with light.” Against the situation of decay, the Grace of the Resurrection shines brightly.
The center of history is no longer the Adamic humankind that perishes but the resurrected humankind in Christ that we meet in the Church. The Church, as the dough does, through the Godman, prepares His Coming Kingdom decisively, tacitly, through extreme humiliation and ignorance.
My brethren,
The pandemic once again brought us to our limits. It brought to the fore the death that we relegate to the background. The unnatural death that the Godman overcame with His Resurrection. For this reason, we do not live “like the rest of mankind, who have no hope,” because through the Mysteries of the Church we foretaste the Kingdom of God, the beginning of “another life of eternity.”
I hope that the joy of the glorious Resurrection will illuminate our lives.
The Lord has truly risen!
ARCHBISHOP OF ATHENS AND ALL GREECE
IERONYMOS