SOUTH AMERICAN DIOCESE: May 1, 2019
Paschal Epistle of Bishop John of Caracas and South America

Christ is Risen!

Dear brothers and sisters,

I greet you all with the Feast of feasts, surpassing every feast, which through its infinite and absolute significance goes beyond the very understanding of a feast, the Resurrection of Christ.

With His Resurrection, Christ not only consummates His ineffable Incarnation, His earthly life, His teaching of the Gospel, His suffering on the Cross, sealing their significance, but moreso, He emparts them their eternal redeeming and saving character.

The Resurrection of Christ is not simply an historic event, but an eternal, abiding and ever present spiritual reality, which continues in His mystical body, the Church, which He Himself founded, and likewise in the heart of every believing Christian who abides and lives in Him.

If, instead of God’s peace, instead of God’s blessing, instead of Christian love, we see rivalry, enmity, discord and conflict, we must realize that this can only be there, where people have not accepted the Risen Christ, there, where they do not dwell in Him, there, where they have loved darkness rather than light (John 3. 19).

If we wish to be called Christians, to bear Christ’s name, we must accept the Light of the Risen Christ and live and walk in it. If we truly walk in the light of the Risen Christ, then we will never stumble, and His joy, His grace, His peace, His blessing, will always remain with us, and no-one will ever be able to take them from us.

The blessing of the Risen Christ be with you all!

Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

John, Bishop of Caracas and South America,
The Pascha of the Lord, 2019