resurrection

The following interview was conducted by George Vassiliou with His Eminence Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos. It was originally published in Επίκαιρα της Αιτωλοακαρνανίας, then republished in Paremvasis (April 1998).

Do you believe the contemporary world can attain the realization of the Resurrection? What is the message you would like to send, as a Hierarch, to young people?

What we have said so far shows the position of the spirit I want to get through in this interview. What I would like to emphasize at this point is that there exists a revolution occurring with hatred and the energies of the Beast of Revelation, and there is a resurrection occurring with love and the energies of the Lamb of Revelation. Christ by His Resurrection made the greatest revolution in history. Not every revolution is or leads to Resurrection, but the Resurrection in Christ Jesus is the true revolution, in the sense that the word "revolution" (επανάσταση) comes from the verb επανίστημι and shows the return (επάνοδο) of humanity to their first-created beauty, the restoration of humanity to our previous glory, and our resurrection from the Fall.

by St. Justin Popovic

People condemned God to death; with His Resurrection He condemned them to immortality. For striking Him, God returned embraces; for insults, blessings; for death, immortality. Never did men show more hate towards God than when they crucified Him; and God never showed His love towards people more than when He was resurrected. Mankind wanted to make God dead, but God, with His Resurrection, made people alive, the crucified God resurrected on the third day and thereby killed death! There is no more death. Immortality is surrounding man and his entire world.

With the Resurrection of the God-Man, the nature of man is irreversibly led toward the road of immortality and man's nature becomes destructive to death itself. For until the Resurrection of Christ, death was destructive for man; from the Resurrection of Christ, man's nature becomes destructive in death. If man lives in the faith of the Resurrected God Man, he lives above death, he is unreachable for her; death is under man's feet. Death where is thy sting? Hell, where is thy victory? And when a man who believes in Christ dies, he only leaves his body as his clothes, in which he will be dressed again on the Day of Last Judgment.

Before the Resurrection of the God-Man, death was the second nature of man; life was first and death was second. Man became accustomed to death as something natural. But after His Resurrection the Lord changed everything: and it was only natural until Christ's Resurrection, that the people became mortal, so after Christ's Resurrection it was natural that the people became immortal.

by Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky
from The Word, April 1968

“Now on the first day of the week at early dawn, they came to the sepulcher bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold two men stood by them in dazzling garments; and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them: ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead?’. . . And they remembered His words, and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles; but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”  (ST. LUKE 24:1)

SOMETIMES we are too hasty and pass lightly from our Lord’s crucifixion to the resurrection. Before the joy and the victory of the good news that “He is risen,” Jesus’ followers felt total despair that accompanied the tragedy of failure.

For two reasons we cannot afford to forget the disciples’ sense of abandonment on that unique Sabbath: if ye dare assume that by baptism we have been adopted into the family of His followers, we must make their emotions our own; secondly, by empathy with those in the Upper Room, by knowing their fear and confusion after the One person who gave their lives meaning, direction and beauty had been murdered, we can begin to deal with tragedy when it enters our personal lives. 

by Fr. Theodore E. Ziton
from The Word, April 1959

Winter is now past! The snow is gone, and the gardener prunes his trees and vines for another harvest. Nature joyfully cries out: “Stop, look and listen for spring is here!” Yes, there is a glorious resurrection in nature. STOP! or you will tread upon the tender flowers that have just risen from the dead. LOOK! and you will see that old tree whose branches in winter resembled the long arms of a ghost, but now the tree begins to bloom with fragrant apple blossoms. LISTEN! and you will hear the singing bird so full of song that it seems he will burst his little throat. The earth sounds a note of joy and gladness. Everyone picks up the melody and intones the words:  “Stop, look and listen, for there is a resurrection in nature.”

In the Songs of Songs we read: “Arise, my dove and come: Winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth.” (2: 10-12). Yes, the winter of Calvary is past; the storm of sorrow is gone, and Jesus the Nazarene, whose very title in Hebrew means the Flower, has appeared in glory today. Beautiful was that Flower when it took its roots in the dark cave of Bethlehem. Fragrant was that Flower when it was bruised and pinned to the Cross which became its vase: but glorious is that Flower today, for It now fully blooms never to wither away again.

by V. Rev. Fr. John Abdalah
from The Word, April 2000

A Christian is one who is defined by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, even in a day and age when some who call themselves by God’s own name deny the reality of the very act that defines them. You see, our God is one who acts in history and, in history, rose from the dead as was foretold. Risen from the dead, He is alive, and working in each of us. We are in Him and He is in us. His life in us could not end on Calvary; Life could not die. He can only be with us if He is risen from the dead, and He is.

We can speak of this with such confidence because He has revealed this to us. First, to those of us who heard His voice through prophecy even centuries before the incarnation, then to those among us who witnessed His earthly life and His empty tomb, then by those who stood with us as martyrs and confessors, suffering greatly to witness to the truth, and finally to those of us who, through prayer and love, have had these truths revealed to us in this modern age. All of this can only be so if He became man, died and rose from the dead. Only in rising from the dead can He lift us up into His resurrection, and save us.