Beloved in XP, Metropolitans, Bishops, Archimandrites, Archpriests, Priests and all my brothers and sisters:

CHRIST IS BORN, GLORIFY HIM!

The Angels sang out “Glory to God in the Highest and on earth, peace to men of good will.”  On this Holy Feast of the Nativity of our Lord, I want to hold that thought dear to my heart.  I need to hold that thought dear to my heart, because I have lost all faith in the world.  This is a time to be “reborn into love and holiness” but it is so very hard.   This last year has been another year filled with a world in turmoil.  Peace is something like a dreamscape just out of reach, and yet… we are celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace.  God was born to renew a fallen world, but do we pay attention?  I wonder…

God calls out to us to come home and be a part of the renewal and yet many reject the call.  The world is so bound up with itself that it doesn’t have the ears to hear God’s call.   His only begotten Son is born to bring light into the world, but the world seeks to live in darkness, and we consistently reject His offer to dwell in the Light of His glory.  I wonder…

It isn’t just the civil world that seems bent on self destruction, but the Orthodox Church itself.  In this last year we have seen a terrible scandal grow up in the OCA, and the GOA is in turmoil.  The Antiochians are growing in leaps and bounds but they are becoming a Jurisdiction that is more Protestant than Orthodox.  Many of its parishes have priests that are more like Jerry Falwells in Byzantine vestments, than Orthodox thinking clergy.  The actions are there, but the Faith is being twisted.  I wonder ...

The Patriarch of Constantinople is trying to assume the role of Pope of the East.  He is playing up to Rome as though he were her puppy, while he and the civil government of Greece  are even attempting to destroy the holiness of the Holy Mountain. The holy Fathers of Ephsigmenu Monastery are under siege by the soldiers of the Greek Government and this is bad enough, but the instigator of this atrocity is His All-Holiness, +Bartholomeos, Patriarch of Constantinople.  The man would claims to be the “leader” of 300 million Orthodox Christians is systematically terrifying the monks because they took him to task for his synchonistic view of Holy Orthodoxy and world religions.  They refused to commemorate him because he has taken ecumenism too far and is stamping on the Dogma of our Church, as though it were trash.  In return the monks are being systematically starved, and refused medical assistance.  Many of these monks are elderly and frail, but His All-Holiness has a great need to make his point… no one can defy him.  Is this what a Patriarch, a representative of our Holy Faith ought be doing?  He is acting as thought the Byzantine Empire were yet alive and he and the secular arm of the government can torture and do whatever they wish in the name of holy obedience.  It is interesting to note that neither Orthodox Hierarchs, nor Orthodox Laity are standing up to this atrocity.  I wonder,  Orthodox Christians are called to be “reason endowed sheep” because God has given us the ability to descern right from wrong.  We are not “blind” sheep that simply follow the shepherd without question.  When will His All-Holiness see this? I wonder.  When will the people of God be called to seek love in justice and peace in righteousness, stand up for the Truth?  I wonder.

Yet as I sit and ponder the degraded state of our world and our Church I am reminded of  what we must all look toward… Hope.  That is what our celebration of the Nativity of Lord is all about.  Ego destroyed the world that was given to Adam and Eve, and ego continues to be the factor that destroys our souls, rapes the ecology of the world, and places our “self” in place of our God.  Yet the opposite of Ego is Hope.

We have hope because God didn’t want us to linger in the darkness of “self” but in the Light that he sent to us… sent to us as a family.  Christ is born to us to give us the foundation for recreating the paradise lost to us.  He brings us the potential to join with Him and reduce our “self” so that we might be a part of the Peace that he offers us.  We will not find peace as individuals, but as a community of children of the True Faith.  Hope does not rest in “me” but in the “us”.

The world will ultimately fall, but God and His Holy Church will not fall.  He has promised us that the Church will not be the victim of the darkness that seems so powerful.  He has promised that we can be a part of the greater glory of His Son.  Its seems like the Light of the Nativity of our Lord is brief, but it is our perception that is brief.  The Light is with us and it is our choice to be a part of it. 

Jesus told us not to worry about worldly things.  He pointed out that the Lilies of the Field and the birds of the air are cared for by His Father.  He told us to render to Caesar those things that are Caesar’s.  He gave us a new commandment: That we should love one another, as He has loved us.  These statements offer a wondrous promise.  Yes we are in a fallen world but in we need not dwell in the muck of the fall.  We are capable of being holy and being those who help the world to see The Light.  All we have to do is reduce our “self” and incorporate Him into our lives.  Yes, celebrating the Nativity of our Lord is about the Birth of renewal within our hearts, souls and minds.  In this Nativity we will find hope, and in the hope we will find our Salvation.

Let us cry out with the Angels and all the Saints that Christ is Born in Bethlehem.  Let us rejoice and be glad that God has given us a way to find true peace.  Let us pray that each of us can become less of self and more of Him.  God gave us the potential in the creation of Paradise, let us pick up the pieces and with the Promise given to us at the Birth of our Saviour, let us let the Light of Hope shine through us and into all the world.  Let is be the active light that will help to change the world.

I pray that this Holy Nativity will bring you peace and the Light so needed by us all.  May the Love of the New Born Child fill your hearts all the year long.

+Elias

Bishop of San Francisco

First Hierarch

Independent Greek Orthodox Church of the United States

 

Christ is Born!  Glorify Him!