Reverend Fathers,
Your Excellencies Honorable Ambassadors of Greece and Cyprus,
Honorable Civic and Community Leaders,
Dearly Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Friends and Benefactors of the Holy Metropolis of Sweden and All Scandinavia,

Once again, we celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, the preeminent event in human history, which joyfully proclaims the triumph of life over death.

Endless crises, financial insecurity, natural disasters, and military conflicts create a world full of pain and turmoil—a world severely tested by the problems of poverty, injustice, and social inequality.

Humanity faces an unrelenting struggle against a series of crises that threaten its peace, prosperity, and even survival, including the ever-looming danger of a potential nuclear catastrophe.

Yet, Christ’s Resurrection provides us with a clear assurance that life conquers death, hope overcomes despair, and love defeats hatred and every form of extremism and madness.

Thus, the Resurrection becomes an anchor of hope and calls all of us to actively participate in restoring justice and peace in the world—to become, in other words, bearers of the Resurrection in our daily lives, speaking through acts of love and selfless service to our fellow human beings: the poor, the sick, and the refugees.

The Church, as “the living witness of the Resurrection,” is the living reality of the divine promise: “I was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore” (Rev 1:18), and “Behold, I am with you always” (Matt 28:20).
During the solemn days of the Divine Passion that preceded, we passed from the exuberance and explosive enthusiasm of the multitudes in Jerusalem who acclaimed Christ, hoping for the establishment of a false kingdom and a Messiah based on secular standards, to the confrontation with ancestral sin, which sent the immortal God to face corruption and death.

The God-man suffers, is put to death, and rises again, so that humanity might partake in the gift of salvation and eternity through the Resurrection.

Christ becomes the tugboat to theosis, towing humanity to life eternal through His Descent into Hades!
God descends from Heaven into Hades, so that humanity may ascend to Heaven, fulfilling at long last the long-awaited and divinely granted hope: for humans to become “gods by grace.”

Overcome by passionate love for His creatures, Christ reveals through His Divine Passion the abundance of His love for all of us.

The Resurrection becomes history’s ultimate event. “The Resurrection,” as Fr. Georges Florovsky notes, “manifests and continues the victory of the Cross.”
(Fr. Georges Florovsky, On the Tree of the Cross, p. 71)

Let the Resurrection hymn resound as both promise and triumphant cry in our hearts and minds: “O Christ, O divine, O beloved, O sweetest voice! You have truly promised to be with us until the end of time.”

Christ is Risen, my beloved brethren!

With love in the Risen Lord and many Paschal paternal blessings,

† Metropolitan Cleopas of Sweden and All Scandinavia