In their Paschal Message to Bulgarians on Holy Saturday, Patriarch Neophyte and the metropolitans of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church said: “Beloved children of our most Holy Church, the Light of the Resurrection shines today on the universe and the pure joy in the victory of the Life risen from the tomb raises us high above the mundane that is suffering, grief or desperation, filling our souls and hearts to proclaim triumphantly: Christ is Risen!”
The Bulgarian Patriarchate said the Paschal Message further recalls that life has overcome its eternal enemy and even those who have not seen and yet have believed are blessed (Jn 20:29) and the empty tomb only shows that He in Whom we all live shall prevail.
To bear witness to the Risen Savior, we live an eternal life for which we prepare here on Earth in the life God has given us. And this is God’s gift, the “eternal life by Jesus Christ” (Rm 5:21), the message says.
His Holiness and the metropolitans underscore that the lack of love witnessed today is the source of the greatest difficulty – when hostility, hatred and the desire for supremacy prevail in the mind and distance people from the Heavenly Father.
But our Lord Jesus Christ that has risen just asks us to show love to one another, to remember that by doing so we also show love to Him. For “for the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining” (1 Jn 2:8). “Let the joy that the Resurrection of our Savior brings us be always with us! Let us live with the Resurrection and know deep in our hearts the irreversible change in our world with the morning of Pascha when the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn 1:5),” the message says.
Greeting all on the feast of Pascha, the Patriarch and the metropolitans invoked upon them the blessing of the Risen Christ and wished them peace on their souls and inexhaustible radiant Easter joy.
Christ is Risen!
