Easter Liturgy at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Great-Martyr George in Novi Sad

His Grace Irinej, Bishop of Backa: Even in the circumstances in which we are celebrating it this year, Easter is for us a source of eternal joy and gratitude to the Lord. All potential viruses, infections and epidemics are a menace, but the greatest menaces are spiritual epidemics of evil.

On Sunday 6/19 April 2020, the feast-day of Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Grace Bishop Irinej of Backa and Novi Sad officiated Paschal Matins and presided over  the archhierarchal Liturgy at the Cathedarl Church of the Holy Great-Martyr George in Novi Sad. He was concelebrated by His Grace Isahije, Bishop of Mohacs, and presbyters and deacons of the Cathedral.

Paschal encyclical of the Orthodox Archbishop of Pec, Metropolitan of Belgrade and Karlovci and Serbian Patriarch to all the clergy, monastics, and all the sons and daughters of our Holy Church was read by protopresbyter-staurophor Milivoj Mijatov, Bishop’s dean of Novi Sad. The Paschal sermon of St John Chrysostom was read by His Grace Irinej.

Adressing to the faithful after the dismissal of the Holy Liturgy, His Grace Irinej congratulated the most holy, the greatest and the most joyful Christian feast-day – Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Even in the circumstances in which we are celebrating it this year, Easter is for us a source of eternal joy and gratitude to the Lord. All potential viruses, infections and epidemics are a menace, but the greatest menaces are spiritual epidemics of evil. Nowadays, it has been greater menace than any material virus. You have all witnessed that the enemies of God and the Holy Church have been developing the hatred and propaganda that anyone of us has ever been remembered of. I think that I’m the oldest of you all here and I spent my youth and childhood in the time when Church was mercilessly persecuted, priests were humiliated, often they were killed, without any trial or with it, but I have never experienced such assaults on everything holy in us; mockery of the Holy Liturgy, mockery of the Holy Church Sacraments, mockery of the Holy Communion - who gave them the right to do so? Who are those people who want to spy us in order to slander us and humiliate us later? Do we have any right, at least as a pet as one saying goes? It is not up to us to revenge, especially not on this holy day when we are celebrating Resurrection. Neither do we mean evil to anyone. But we all have to be aware of the time we are living and we have to unwaveringly save both our faith and our shrine, convinced that The One Who is Conqueror of Death, Our Lord, will conquer those minor things - no matter how much suffering and turmoil they have caused to us and He will do it not so much because of us but more because of the general atmosphere of a spiritually stray humanity. We know that Christ trampled down death by death and on those in the tombs bestowed life and by His Resurrection in Himself, in His divine-human Person, He con-resurrected our human nature and through it all His creation, in the way as it has to be and is appropriate. That is why, at the end of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, it is that the saved new humanity is not only mentioned, but the new Heaven and the new Earth as well, and that is the restored creation of God.

May the Lord grant us that these distresses never be repeated in these most holy and joyful days, curfew, various epidemics - all those things actually produced by humans. For nature, the creation of God, defends itself against a person who is selfish, interested only in himself, and when one is self-concerned, he surely is suicidal, in the short or long term, first spiritually and often physically. It is not that, as they have attributed it to us that we believe in God that punishes, who readily waits that we do wrong. God warns, advises with love, reminds, invokes, and  some of these exhortations, for those who have an open soul and heart for them, are understood as expressing His love whereas the others understand them as punishment. Everyone is free to choose their own path and experience of the presence of God, the action of God here among us, said the His Grace Irinej, sending everyone the most joyful Christian greeting: Christ is risen!

The Paschal worship in all the churches in the Diocese of Backa was officiated at Easter at 6 am. The faithful could have watched live broadcast of the Divine Liturgy from the Cathedral church in Novi Sad on Radio Television of Vojvodina.

Source: Diocese of Backa

Translated into English by Sanja Simic de Graaf