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NATIVITY EPISTLETo the clergy and all God-saved flock of the Diocese of Canada.

13:58

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ!
In her hymns for the Feast of the Nativity in the flesh of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Holy Orthodox Church often repeats the words that are so close to out hearts – “joy” and “gladness”. Already at the beginning of the service of the Forefeast of the Nativity we hear “O come, let us rejoice in the Lord.” And later, at the Lity: “Let heaven and earth today prophetically make glad.” The Lord came to us from the Most Pure Virgin Mary, He “appeared on earth and dwelt among men”, as the prophet of the Lord Baruch said (Bar. 3:38) five centuries before Christmas. And Christmas itself took place over twenty centuries ago. Yet since then, every year on these holy days, according to the measure of the Lord’s gift, the echo of that distinct joy resounds in our hearts, the joy that the witnesses of the Nativity of Christ – the Mother of God Herself, the humble Joseph the Betrothed, the shepherds and the wise Magi who came to the Infant Christ – felt in their hearts. As the Lord has spoken through His prophets of the coming of Christ the Savior in the flesh, so His every word came to pass, and no one in the world could, for even a brief moment, defer the fulfillment of God’s will, much less hinder it.

The mighty King Herod cunningly found out from the wise men who had come to Jerusalem how old the Infant Jesus, the King of the Jews, could be (Mt. 2:16); even before that he had consulted the scribes versed in the Scriptures, and they also confirmed that, according to the words of the prophet Micah, Christ was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea (Mt. 2:5-6). A select band of soldiers was sent to Bethlehem with orders to “slay all the children” not only in the city itself, but “in all that region, from two years old and under” (Mt. 2:16). Yet by this atrocity Herod did not obtain what he was after. In those terrible hours, when “lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning” filled the streets of the ancient city of David (Mt. 2:18), the Infant, His Mother and Joseph the Betrothed, unnoticed, led by the word of the Angel of the Lord who had appeared to Joseph in a dream (Mt. 2:13), went to the Temple of Jerusalem, where they offered their sacrifices to the Lord according to the Law (Lk. 2:22-23), and then, as the Lord had commanded, departed to Egypt (Mt. 2:13, 19-20). God’s Will was accomplished, and “a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men’” (Lk. 2:13-14), appeared to the shepherds of Bethlehem, who were “keeping watch over their flock by night” (Lk. 2:8). But where is it, this peace, for which these supplications were made? It is so hard to remember that the promises of our Lord are true and irrevocable in these days, when enmity reigns throughout the earth, when with pain in our hearts we see that brothers in that same Baptismal font that our Lord gave us through the holy Grand Prince Vladimir, Equal-to-the-Apostles, are fighting each other in the historic lands of our Motherland. That is why we should pray without ceasing that the Lord will show us His way to the speedy coming of the reign of peace and goodwill that the Gospel story of the Navivity of Christ tells us about.

Christ is born – glorify Him, Christ is come from Heaven – go to meet Him!
GABRIEL
Archbishop of Montreal and Canada
Nativity of Christ, 2024/2025