Christ Is Risen!
Our enforced staying in qurantine these days, has led us to appreciate many of the gifts God has granted us. For example: the gift of freedom. Just thinking that we are not free, makes us feel spiritually ill and in melancholy.
Or the gift of friendship, relationship and communication. Certain theologians claim that hell is nothing more than the incapability to see each other and talk.
Another gift is the worshipping life of the church. The inability to participate and experience the church mysteries is like looking thirstily at a spring of water and not be able to drink from it.
Finally, there is the gift of life. At any time, we are in danger of being infected by this virus and even of losing our life or the life of our beloved.
Lots of pain is experienced at this time by thousands of people who have lost their dearest persons due to this pandemic. However, even at the hardest and the most painful moments, there is joy and the hope of Resurrection.
Such a joy and hope can trample upon sadness, demonstrating that Christ defeats death. And those who believe in the Resurrected Christ cannot get lost or be defeated in any way but become winners who move through death to the eternal life, where there is no evils’s evil or authoritative power or arrogance of the unfaithful but only good will, justice and love.
We are sure that Jesus Christ is the Lord of life and death.
With God’s blessings,
Metropolitan of Apollonia & Fier
+Nikolla
