Wishing
everyone a very Happy and Joyous Pascha!
Wellington, New Zealand 1 /4/2014
To our devout Priests and Monks and to our beloved
Christians of our Holy Metropolis of New Zealand (Fiji, Tonga, Samoa).
My beloved children in Christ,
Our Holy God has made us worthy to celebrate this year also the
Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This unique event in the history of mankind.
The Resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our Christian faith and
the essence of the Apostles’ preaching. If the Resurrection of Christ had not
taken place, the Apostle Paul says, then in vain would be our faith, and in
vain would be our preaching.
However CHRIST IS RISEN – TRULY IS RISEN.
Let us celebrate this worldsaving event with pure
souls and pure bodies, faith and love, with repentance and confession, with
forgiveness and charity, with church attendance and Holy Communion.
This way we will feel the true joy of this great
feast, chanting the words of our Churches’ great composer:
“It is
the day of the Resurrection, let us be radiant, O people! Pascha, the Lord’s
Pascha”.
With fatherely love,
Metropolitan
† of New Zealand Amfilohios