Paschal Pastoral Encyclical 2025
Beloved children in the Lord,
The Resurrection of Christ that we celebrate these days is a great event in both history and the life of the Church. We celebrate the event of the Resurrection by holding lighted candles with which we illuminate the darkness of the environment and chant the triumphant hymn: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life.”
However, the Resurrection of Christ is not disconnected from His Cross, since both, the Cross and the Resurrection, are interrelated in the life of Christ and in the life of Christians. We see this most clearly in the Mystery of Baptism, by which we become members of the Body of Christ.
Moreover, the day of Pascha has been associated since ancient times with the Baptism of the Catechumens. The Catechumens were prepared for about three years, with catechism and exorcisms, and these were done more intensively during Great Lent, and then group baptisms were held on Great Saturday. Thus, the new members of the Church entered the church with lighted candles and all the faithful joyfully chanted: “All who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ: Alleluia.” Baptism is a person’s participation in the Cross and Resurrection of Christ experientially and truly. It is not an external event, but rather a person’s participation in the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. It was preceded during the period of Catechism by the crucifixion of the catechumens’ passions and followed by the life in Christ, and this along with Baptism are characterized as Pascha. This is analyzed more thoroughly and theologically by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, which is read as a reading during the Mystery of Baptism.
The Apostle Paul writes that Christians should not sin because we have died to sin through Baptism, and therefore we should not live under its authority. And he continues: “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:1-4).
The Christian, through Baptism, with all the preparation that preceded it, participates in the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. Christ on the Cross defeated sin, the devil and death and through His Resurrection this fact was confirmed. Thus, through Baptism we participate in the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. Since we have become partakers of Christ’s death, we will also become partakers of His Resurrection.
This is evident from the fact that “our old self was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that it might no longer serve sin” (Rom. 6:6). The old man is the passions and their actions, which have died with our participation in the life of repentance, by the power of the Cross of Christ, and after Baptism the new man lives, who participates in the Resurrection of Christ. This is why in the Christian life there is no Cross without the Resurrection, nor Resurrection without the Cross.
And the Apostle Paul concludes: “For if we have been made conformable to the likeness of His death, we shall also be conformed to the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For He who has died is justified from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over Him. For he who has died, died to sin once; but he who lives, lives to God. So you also consider yourselves dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:5-11). The translation of this passage is as follows:
"Just as we were organically incorporated into the Body of Christ, through Holy Baptism, which is a likeness of the death on the cross, so we will be resurrected as He was resurrected, knowing that the old man was crucified with Christ, so that the body of sin might be done away with, so that it would no longer serve sin. He who has died (in Baptism) has been justified (liberated) from sin. For since we were baptized into Christ to die with Him to sin, we believe that we will also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will die no more; death has no more dominion over Him. For he who died died to sin once for all; and the life he lives, he lives to God. So also you, consider yourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
This teaching of the Apostle Paul shows that the life in Christ that we live in the Church is not a superficial emotional life with thoughts, feelings and formalities, but a life of crucifixion. We are constantly crucified to sin and resurrected with repentance. The Apostle Paul elsewhere writes: “I am crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). How will the Risen Christ live in us if we do not die to sin, if we do not die daily, if we do not crucify our passions? These events are experiential, spiritual and not external.
This is the Orthodox ecclesiastical life, which is why the teaching of the Fathers is clear that we must live “in praxis and theoria,” that is, purification, illumination and theosis, as we chant in all the hymns of the Church. This is the Crucifixional-Resurrectional ethos of the Orthodox Church. When we see the Cross of Christ and the Crucified One, we immediately realize that we too must be crucified as to the old man, and this is done by the power of the Cross, which is why we chant: “Cross of Christ, save us by your power.” Through this crucifixion we will experience our resurrection.
The Holy Altar, according to Saint Symeon of Thessaloniki, signifies both “the tomb of Christ” and “the mystery of the Passion.” And Christ on the Holy Altar is “as God resting, the savior” and “as man suffering” and "for this reason, He is presented as a means for all towards both contemplation and enjoyment of the Divine.” The Holy Altar is both Golgotha and the Holy Sepulcher. It is, therefore, understandable that what is said by some that Western Christians praise the Cross, while Orthodox Christians praise the Resurrection, is beyond reality, because the Cross is connected with the Resurrection of Christ. As we are crucified according to sin, so we are initiated into the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection, both will be different and unknown mysteries for us.
Within this perspective, we must celebrate Pascha as our participation in the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ, as the mortification of passions and our transformation into new life.
With warm resurrectional prayers and fatherly love,
The Metropolitan
of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou, Hierotheos
of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou, Hierotheos
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.