Bishop Justin of Maramureș and Sătmar used his Easter pastoral letter to call for continual prayer and support for the Ukrainian neighbors suffering from war.
“Let us pray fervently for an end to the fratricidal war waged in the vicinity of our country. May God give the leaders thoughts of peace, understanding, dialogue, and peaceful coexistence in the light of the universal rights and freedoms of peace and Christian love.”
“Let us support our brethren who have fled for refuge, as we have done since the first day of the war, with all our fraternal love, with a good heart and Christian philanthropy, well knowing that fasting and prayer are well received if many good deeds complement them,” His Grace wrote.
The Bishop of Maramureș and Sătmar also explained the Saviour’s descent to Hades.
“The descent into hades of the Saviour was also an act of perfect divine love because God could not leave the completely righteous, from Adam to Christ, outside of love and salvation.”
“Those who kept the law and the prophets who foretold His coming hundreds of years before, and who was held down in the darkness of death, waiting with hope for the promised One, the Lord of life and death, to bring them the unique light of the Resurrection in the unsearchable darkness.”
“If Christ had not descended into hades to free all those who have fallen asleep in eternity and to raise them with Himself to pass through the open gates of Heaven, then the work of salvation of the human race would have been unfinished and would not have shown the boundless love of Christ, a love that was and is stronger than death and is simultaneously in Heaven and on earth and into the nethermost parts of the earth,” Bishop Justin noted.
Source: basilica.ro
