To the honorable clergy, venerable monastics and all the sons and daughters of our Holy Church; Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit with the most joyous greeting: CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!

Behold, dear brothers and sisters in celebrating Christ's Resurrection we Christians have greeted one another with this greeting of eternal joy and life for nearly Two Thousand years, and each time we ask ourselves: "What does this greeting and this Magnificent Event mean for us human beings, for all of creation/ What is its ultimate significance for Mankind and the world?"

This greeting and this Miraculous Event [of Christ's Resurrection] mean, first of all, that through the Resurrection of Christ, Life has conquered Death, once and for all. It means that through the Resurrection, the Light of the Eternal Word of God - Who made everything out of nothing, and Who illumines everyone who comes into this world, is victorious over darkness and gloom, according to the eternal plan. It means that Man is created for eternity, and not temporality; for immortality, and not disappearance and destruction!

This also means that by Christ's Resurrection, human dignity has become eternal and indestructible. And so it means that Good shall ultimately triumph over Evil, that love is everlasting, and that God is the God, not of the dead, but of THE LIVING.

This greeting also means that Christ's Resurrection makes human hope indestructible, renders every hopelessness ABSURD. It means that human society is not just a senseless earthly "bazaar", but a community full of eternal significance, inviting one and all to ceaseless growth, both in time and for all Eternity, into the immeasurable measure of Christ's divine-human stature. It means that Mankind is created for permanence, not fleetingness, for immortality, and not Death. This greeting and Event means that the world is not the grindstone of Death, but the workshop of Eternal Life. It means that human works and creativity, when they are true and virtuous, can become lasting testimonies to human creative cooperation with God!

It means that Man truly has reason to be born!

This wonderful greeting also means that the Resurrection of Christ not only blends the leaven of Eternal Life into human nature, but into the totality of God's Creation, for by It everything that exists has been filled once and for all with Immortality!

Christ's Resurrection means that Life is not given just to be taken away and destroyed. Earthly life rather becomes the yeast of Heavenly, Eternal Life, a foretaste of the everlasting Kingdom of Gjod. Through the Resurrection of Christ, Heaven calls us out of the darkness of Death into the fullness of immortality.

The Resurrection of Christ is the Guardian of the sanctity of life - of children born and unborn. It is the living witness that abortion is as much a sin AS ANY OTHER MURDER, because life in the Light of the Resurrection is revealed to us in all its entirely, as sacred.

The Resurrection of Christ also means that God remembers with an everlasting memory, and that He preserves every creature, especially reason-endowed human beings, for eternity.

We Christians greet each other with this holy Greeting because the Resurrection of Christ bestows and reveals the sanctity of the human body. It is a testimony that, just as abortion is a sin, as is every murder, so also is cremation a sin. Whoever cremates the dead, whoever steals relics in this way, shows their lack of faith in the living God and in the resurrection of the dead. Cremation represents a hidden desire for self-destruction and the destruction of Mankind. Had Christ not risen, there would be no Holy Relics of the saints. Holy relics are human remains filled with the warmth and power of the risen Christ [even after death]. Does not the Serbian word "to bury" the deceased [sahraniti] mean, "to protect him," and not "to destroy him"?

Just as the majestic Church of the Holy Resurrection in Jerusalem grew out of the LIfe-bearing tomb of Christ, so have many churches grown up around the tombs of His martyrs and faithful witnesses all over the world, just as the great cathedral Church of the Serbian people has sprung up out of the ashes of our Holy Father Sava on Vracar.

In all these places and in all these temples, the Church of God gathers from all corners of the world around the Bread of Life, the Risen Christ, Who came down from heaven so that all those who eat of Him may not perish, but have everlasting Life.

Is it therefore any wonder that we greet each other with this most joyous Greeting: 'Christ is Risen! Indeed He is risen!,' rejoicing in the holiness of the Bread with which we are fed, in the holiness of the Wine and water which we drink, in the holiness of the sun which warms us and in the holiness of our everlasting human brotherhood and community rooted in the Risen Christ!

And especially as this Event and this Greeting also remind us that the Day of Judgement awaits all Mankind at the end of this age and of this world, when every deed will be revealed. They remind us that the Risen Christ will judge both the living and the dead with His co-suffering love and justice, and that His Kingdom will have no end.

And so, filled with eternal joy and ILLUMINED WITH THE EVERLASTING LIGHT OF THE RISEN CHRIST, let us greet one another, and every being and all of creation, with this most joyous greeting: "CHRIST IS RISEN!"...

And finally, our dear spiritual children, illumined with the Light of the Resurrection, let us all forgive one another by Christ's Resurrection, let us embrace each other joyously, and sing together with one heart and one soul the song of Light and Eternal Life: CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD, TRAMPLING DOWN DEATH BY DEATH, AND UPON THOSE IN THE TOMBS BESTOWING LIFE!"

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

Your intercessors before the Risen Lord: Patriarch PAVLE, and all Serbian Bishops worldwide.