Christ is risen, and no one lies in the tomb.-Holy Light

 May the Holy Light we have received, its flame, not remain only in the candle, but first and foremost warm the flame of our soul....

May it soften and sweeten our hearts, so that the "ice" surrounding them may melt and we may forgive any transgressions of our fellow human beings....

May the Resurrection of our Lord show us the right path to joy, spiritual awakening, and spiritual gladness.

Let us offer a smile, a sign of love to our fellow human beings, in whatever way we can and without expecting anything in return… Love, a feeling so powerful, the highest form of sacrifice taught to us by the Lord—a smile, even to a stranger passing by on the street, can make someone happy!

It can save and redeem souls.... It is in our hands to make our world a more beautiful place!

I wholeheartedly wish that the Resurrection of the Lord may enlighten all our souls and bring blessings to every step of our life’s journey, so that we may be worthy of the heavenly Kingdom....

Christ is risen, and no one lies in the tomb!!!!

Take heart and pray......

I am the Resurrection and the Life

Saint Justin Popovich

If there is one truth in which all the truths of the Gospel could be summarized, that truth would be the resurrection of Christ. And furthermore, if there is a reality in which all the New Testament realities could be summarized, that reality would be the resurrection of Christ. Only in the Resurrection of Christ are all His miracles, all His truths, all His words, and all the events of the New Testament explained.

Until His resurrection, the Lord taught about eternal life, but with His resurrection He showed that He Himself is indeed eternal life. Until His resurrection, He taught about the resurrection of the dead, but with His resurrection He showed that He Himself is indeed the resurrection of the dead. Until His resurrection, He taught that faith in Him brings one from death to life, but with His resurrection He showed that He Himself had conquered death and thus secured for those who have died the passage from death to resurrection.

Through sin, man became mortal and finite; through the resurrection of the God-man, he becomes immortal and eternal. And this is precisely where the power, the authority, and the omnipotence of Christ’s resurrection lie. And for this reason, without the resurrection of Christ, there would not even be Christianity. Among the miracles, the Lord’s Resurrection is the greatest miracle. All other miracles stem from it and are summed up in it. From it spring faith and love and hope and prayer and piety. This is what no other religion possesses; this is what elevates the Lord above all people and gods. This is what, in a unique and indisputable way, shows and proves that Jesus Christ is the only true God and Lord in all the visible and invisible worlds.

That a person truly believes in the Risen Lord is demonstrated by their struggle against sin and passions, and if he does struggle, he must know that he is struggling for immortality and eternal life. But if he does not struggle, then his faith is in vain! For if a person’s faith is not a struggle for immortality and eternity, then what is it? If faith in Christ does not lead one to immortality and victory over death, then what is the point of our faith? If Christ did not rise from the dead, this means that sin and death have not been conquered. And if these two have not been conquered, then why should anyone believe in Christ? But he who, through faith in the Risen Christ, struggles against every sin of his own, gradually strengthens within himself the sense that the Lord has truly risen, has blunted the sting of death, has conquered death on all fronts of the battle.

Without the Resurrection, there is nothing in heaven or under heaven more absurd than this world, nor greater despair than this life than this one, without immortality. In all the worlds, there is no existence more miserable than that of a human being who does not believe in the resurrection of the dead. That is why, for human existence, the Risen Lord is “all in all” in all worlds: that which is Beautiful, the Good, the True, the Lovable, the Joyful, the Divine, the Wise, the Eternal. This is all our Love, all our Truth, all our Joy, all our Goodness, all our Life, Eternal Life in all eternities and infinities.

The Gospel says: “Be on good terms with your adversary while you are on the road with him.” Matthew 5:25

 

The Gospel says: “Be on good terms with your adversary while you are on the road with him.” Matthew 5:25  That is: “Maintain good relations with your adversary while you are still on the road with him, lest he hand you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison; Truly I tell you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the last penny.”

- What does this saying of our Lord mean?

Be careful, He says, while you are on the road with your adversary, to maintain a good relationship with him, lest he hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officers, and they throw you into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the last penny of your debt.

Here the translator has a footnote explaining how St. Athanasius interprets this passage. A path, a road—that is this vain life, our temporary existence. How many years… ten, twenty, a hundred—whatever we may live. This vain and deceptive life, which deceives us, misleads us. We think we will be here forever, while we are so very temporary. We are like a drop of water, like a ray of light that passes and disappears. Such is our life here on earth. “For if the soul is separated from the body and departs from this life and this path, it can no longer do good,” says St. Athanasius, if the union of soul and body is severed. This is death. Death is not disappearance; it is simply that this union of soul and body ceases to exist. These two are separated. So when this happens and we leave this vain life and this path, we can no longer work toward the good, toward repentance. In Hades, there is no repentance. After death, you cannot change. So be careful, while you are here with your adversary—that is, with your conscience—for he is the adversary, says Christ—to maintain a good relationship. Listen to your conscience. Do not trample on it, because otherwise this conscience will hand you over to the judge, to the court, and you will go to prison, to eternal hell. And you will not be able to leave unless you pay back every last penny of your debt, and the very last coin. “A ‘kodrantis’ is called,” explains St. Athanasius, “and this is the remnant of memory”—that is, the slightest memory that remains within us. “Conscience is also called an adversary. For it examines us in the secret of our hearts and restrains us from evil.” It is our conscience that secretly examines us in our hearts and tells us, “Do not do this,” and it stops evil if we listen to it.

- And if we don’t listen to it?

In the end, it delivers us to God’s Judgment, and we will give an account; we will be held accountable for the great sins, but also for the small ones and the slightest ones.

There is no such thing as a mortal sin and a non-mortal sin, as some say—that one is grave and mortal, the other is minor. It may be minor, but if you don’t repent even for this small one, and say, “It doesn’t matter,” I’ll just do it… then even the small sin becomes mortal. Therefore, all sins are deadly, and when we repent, they cease to kill us, to be deadly. And so even the smallest sins must be eradicated. That is why repentance is necessary, confession for everything.

What Became of the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate

The following text recounts one of the various traditions regarding the fates of Pilate and the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas after the unjust killing of Christ. It originates from a manuscript of the Holy Monastery of Iviron, a copy of which is kept in the cell of Saint Gobdela the Persian of that same monastery, which was transcribed and published by the Mount Athos monk (+) Hieromonk Averkios in 1895 and 1896 in Varna.

After the Ascension of the Lord, Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, wrote a report as required to the Roman Emperor Tiberius regarding the events that occurred concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tiberius, having been informed of the Lord’s many miracles, His Resurrection from the dead, and that many believed Him to be God, reported these matters to the Roman Senate and threatened the accusers of the Christians with death.

Tiberius’s response to Pilate came in a letter criticizing his unjust decision to condemn Christ, but also dispatching his Commissioner Rahab along with 2,000 men to arrest him and bring him to Rome, along with the High Priests Caiaphas and Annas.

The delegation from Rome arrested Pilate and the High Priests, whom they bound in chains. In chains, they sailed for Rome.

Caiaphas died in Crete. The ship stopped, and they buried the high priest’s putrid body, which was expelled from the grave, since even the earth would not accept him. They buried him seven times, but “the earth cast him out, unburied and black as Cain, for the great evil we committed, which condemned Christ.” A great crowd then gathered and, cursing him, buried him under a huge pile of stones.

This was the end of Caiaphas. His tomb in a village near Heraklion survived until the end of the 19th century.

This tradition is very old and is mentioned by several travelers (though it is not historically confirmed).

The ship continued its journey and arrived in Rome. Tiberius did not wish to examine them. He gave an order, and the High Priest Annas was wrapped naked in oxhide and left in the summer sun. From the heat, the skin dried out and tightened around his body, causing it to burst and his internal organs to spill out, thus bringing about a gruesome death.

As for Pilate, he ordered that he be locked up in a tower in chains, with the intention of killing him himself. One day, Tiberius had gone out hunting near the tower where Pilate was being held captive.

Pilate was informed of this by the guard and rushed to a hole in the wall to see Caesar. Then a roe deer approached the tower wall, roughly at the height of the hole from which Pilate was watching.

Caesar Tiberius, fearing he would lose his prey, quickly took aim with his bow, and the arrow entered through the hole in the tower wall, piercing Pilate’s eyes and killing him.

According to Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, vol. II, VII), Pilate was exiled to Vienne in France, where he committed suicide. According to another tradition, he was thrown into the Tiber River, and his corpse caused floods and destruction.

Yet another tradition holds that he fell from a mountain that still bears his name today on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. While another states that he was beheaded during the reign of Tiberius.

Metropolitan Meletios of Athens, in his Ecclesiastical History, states the following: After the Ascension of the Lord, Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, wrote a report as required to the Roman Emperor Tiberius regarding the events that occurred concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tiberius, having been informed of the Lord’s many miracles, His Resurrection from the dead, and that many believed Him to be God, reported these matters to the Roman Senate and threatened the accusers of the Christians with death. After the election of the seven deacons, persecution broke out against the Church in Jerusalem. Then, Mary Magdalene, along with Martha, Lazarus, and Joseph of Arimathea, visited Tiberius in Rome (according to Baronius, in Marseille, France), to whom she recounted the events and the injustices committed by the Jews against Christ and protested his unjust execution. Tiberius was enraged and ordered the high priests (Caiaphas and Annas) and Pilate to be put to death.

As soon as Vitellius assumed control of the province of Syria, he replaced Pilate with Marcellus and sent him to Rome to answer to Tiberius. It took him two years to reach Rome, and in the meantime Tiberius had died; the new emperor, Gaius Caligula, exiled him to Vienna, where he suffered great misfortunes and, in despair, committed suicide.

Vittellius maintains that Caiaphas met the same fate, having committed suicide. Clement of Rome agrees with this. Caiaphas’s father-in-law, Annas, also met a terrible death—a divine judgment. (See Meletios, Metropolitan of Athens, Ecclesiastical History, Volume 1, Vienna, Austria, 1794, pp. 119–126). It is worth mentioning, in closing this note, that Pilate’s wife, Procula, after his terrible death, repented, was baptized a Christian, lived a life of faith and piety, and passed away peacefully. Our Church honors her memory on October 27.

Source: Averkius, a monk of Mount Athos, A Precise History of the Events Occurring at the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Originally written by a certain Jew named Aeneas, a contemporary of the Savior, and translated into Latin by Nicodemus, a Roman, it is preserved in a manuscript on Mount Athos, Varna 1896, pp. 60–63.

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Christ became my life.

 I loved Him and I cannot imagine anyone else who can compare with Him. He is for me the only Lord and God.

I almost constantly carry pain in my heart, fearing that I may lose His mercy because of the multitude of my resistances.

However, despite the struggle with Him, despite the numerous attempts to deviate from His cross, I embrace the cross of Christ, and in a way I lift up the cross that was given to me, my cross (see Matt. 19:24).

And I now bless my God who has pleased me to be reborn through the flame of repentance.

(Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) Let Us See God as He Is, Holy Monastery of the Holy Forerunner, Essex, England, 2010, pp. 64-5)