<\/p>\n
The Most Reverend Archbishop Gabriel
\nof Montreal and Canada<\/p>\n
CHRISTMAS EPISTLE
\nTo the clergy and God-saved flock of the Diocese of Canada
\nBeloved brothers and sisters in Christ!<\/p>\n
\u201cChrist is born \u2013 glorify Him!\u201d \u2013 the Orthodox Church sings, and we, Its children, start singing together with It forty days before the Feast of the Nativity of Christ: \u201cChrist is on earth \u2013 lift up your hearts!\u201d Yet the world, full of enmity, envy and malice among men even in the day when God and Infant Christ was born, seemed not prepared to Christ\u2019s coming on earth. Only a small flock was deemed worthy to receive Him: His Most Holy Mother, Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, humble shepherds of Bethlehem, the wise men from the East, who enquired about the star of the King of the Jews in Jerusalem, and came to worship Him, bringing precious gifts.
\nAnd yet, despite their wielding temporal power, their perfidy and cunning, those who \u201csought the young Child\u2019s life\u201d (Mt 2:20) could not alter God\u2019s will for the Salvation of mankind. The prince of this world\u2019s fight against Christ keeps on going before our very eyes. Last year we remembered one hundred years since the new herodian massacre of the innocents \u2013 the murder of the Imperial Family, of their innocent children. This evil deed brought about countless woes, not only for Russia, but for the whole world, including those who, directly or indirectly, were involved in this terrible crime.
\nOne could say that the salvific event of Christ\u2019s Nativity was accompanied by intermingling of joyous and sad feelings and premonitions. Hence the sign of a scroll that was given to the prophet, with \u201clamentations, and mourning, and woe\u201d written within it, but that scroll was as sweet as honey in prophet\u2019s mouth (Ez 2:10 and 3:2). And this goes on even today. Thus now we are witnessing attempts of the servants of the prince of this world, who follow in Herod\u2019s footsteps, to vanquish the Church of Christ in the ancient land of Kievan Rus. Yet let us recall the words of one of the great predecessors of His Beatitude Onuphry, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine \u2013 His Beatitude Anthony, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia, Abba of the Russian Church Abroad: \u201cBelieve me, my beloved, that this very poverty and want which may be throwing your souls into despair, in the future (especially for those whom God would grant to live to see the days of joy) will become a source of comforting reminiscences and a cause of kind feelings towards each other\u201d.
\nIn the days of Christmas, the Orthodox Christians, giving glory to Him who became a cornerstone for these great events, try to bring joys to each other, no matter how small. These joys remind people of the great spiritual joy of God\u2019s grace that was sent down to us from the manger at Bethlehem. That is why the Church, in the hymns of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, reminds us of the meaning of the greatest event in the salvation of mankind \u2013 God coming down to earth as a Babe: \u201cA strange and most wonderful mystery do I see: the cave is heaven; the Virgin the throne of the cherubim; the manger a room, in which Christ, the God whom nothing can contain, is laid. Him do we praise and magnify\u201d.
\nCHRIST IS BORN! GLORIFY HIM!<\/p>\n
GABRIEL
\nArchbishop of Montreal & Canada
\nNativity of Christ, 2019<\/p>\n
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Nativity epistle of His Eminence, Archbishop Gabriel. 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4866"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4867,"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4866\/revisions\/4867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mcdiocese.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}