After the saving events of Holy and Great Week, the city of Thessaloniki, with due ecclesiastical order and under the leadership of its Bishop, Metropolitan Philotheos of Thessaloniki, together with the abundant participation of the clergy and the Christ-loving faithful, celebrated the fundamental event of the Orthodox faith and life—the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—in all the holy churches and monasteries within its canonical bounds.
At the Metropolitan Church of Saint Gregory Palamas in Thessaloniki, on the evening of Holy Saturday, 19 April, the Service of the Resurrection was celebrated, followed by the Matins and the Paschal Divine Liturgy, presided over by His Eminence Metropolitan Philotheos, with the prayerful participation of Metropolitan Damaskinos of Velestino. Concelebrating were Archimandrite Dimitrios Tziafas (Preacher), the priests of the Metropolitan Church, Archimandrite Methodios Alexiou, Archimandrite Eusebios Nakopoulos, Protopresbyter Palaiologos Manos (Proistamenos), and Protopresbyter Athanasios Tsingos, as well as the deacons Dimitrios Rudko and Iakovos Athanasopoulos. A large number of faithful remained and participated in the Paschal Divine Liturgy, which concluded at 2:00 a.m., and all partook of the Immaculate Mysteries.
Immediately after the Gospel of the Resurrection service, the Paschal Encyclical of Metropolitan Philotheos of Thessaloniki was read, as follows:
“My beloved and blessed children,
Only a few hours remain until that moment when we, all Christians, the members of the Body of Christ, will go to our churches and hear, on this night, the night of the new creation, the joyful message of the Resurrection resounding throughout all creation: ‘Christ is Risen!’ – ‘Truly He is Risen!’
There is no more wondrous proclamation than this. There is no more essential message. There is nothing greater or more hopeful, for Christ did not simply return from death but conquered it definitively, overcame it, and died no more. Christ is risen, revealing the true Life that is not overcome by death, and through which, as Saint John Chrysostom proclaims in his Catechetical Homily, ‘no one remains in the grave.’
The Apostle to the Nations, Paul, the founder of the local Church of Thessaloniki and the first great theologian who expounded the decisive significance of the Resurrection of Christ, emphasises that Christ rises and raises us together with Him: ‘For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so too will God bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus’ (1 Thessalonians 4:14).
Faith in the Resurrection of Christ becomes the beginning of a new and eternal life and leads with certainty to the salvation of the faithful—that is, to the victory over death for each of us personally. This is because the Resurrection of Christ offers immortality and incorruption to all, in exactly the same way, since all human beings share the same human nature as the God-man Christ.
The Resurrection of Christ renews our life and gives new meaning to the history of the world and of humanity, orienting it toward a new reality of unity and communion, a new life entirely different from the conventional life of division, corruption, pain, and death. From the empty tomb emerges the promise that nothing is lost when it is united with Christ. Therefore, the Resurrection of Christ is not merely an event of the past; it is the eternal present of God within the world.
This saving truth is what we must come to realise tonight. And, sensing the magnitude of the miracle, let us celebrate and rejoice in the beginning of a life that does not end with death. Let us also remain until the end of the Paschal Divine Liturgy, so that we too may become eyewitnesses of the Risen Christ.
With much paternal love, I embrace you,
THE METROPOLITAN
† Philotheos of Thessaloniki”
