Salihiya, Lebanon | 29 March 2024

“If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain.” (I Cor. 15: 40)

Resurrection is the foundation of Christianity. Hope of resurrection is expressed in the Creed that concludes, “We look for the resurrection of the dead.”
The tomb. The icon of the Resurrection is an invitation to resurrection, as we see the risen Christ holding the hand of humans, Adam and Eve, and lifting them up from the tomb.

The symbolism is clear: as a human being, you are also called to resurrection and every Sunday of the year is a celebration of the Resurrection in our Eastern tradition. This is because the resurrection is central to Christian life, and the focus of all life.

We are exposed every day to death, physically and morally, through illness and its effects and sins of all sorts.

And today we remember the great tragedy of our brothers and sisters in Palestine – in Gaza and the West Bank, in Jerusalem and South Lebanon.

We are summoned to resist every day death and its transgressions in body and soul.

Thus, we pursue the way of a lasting, ever-new resurrection – for resurrection is new life – rising, being raised to new perspectives, hopes and love, longings for visions of kindness, rectitude and holiness.

To this resurrection you are called, and so you participate in the Resurrection of Christ – and you too, will have a resurrection.

Happy Feast, brothers and sisters, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.

Gregorios III
Patriarch Emeritus