This feast of the Synaxis of Theotokos was celebrated on 26 December 2021/ 8 January 2022 with Vespers on Christmas day afternoon and the Divine Liturgy on Saturday morning at the Church of the Synaxis of Theotokos in Beit Sahour which was founded by the blessed Hegoumen of Saint Savvas’ Monastery Archimandrite Seraphim.  The Services were officiated by His Eminence Metropolitan Joachim of Helenoupolis who was welcomed by the full congregation in an official reception. His Eminence celebrated the Divine Liturgy with the Spiritual Father of Saint Savvas’ Lavra Archimandrite Eudokimos, Archimandrite Philoumenos, the Priests of Beit Sahour and Saint Savvas and the Hegoumen of the Shrine Archimandrite Ignatios at the presence of a large number of faithful Christians.

The feast was organized by the Hegoumen of this Pilgrimage Monastery and Hegoumen of Beit Jala, Archimandrite Ignatios, who performs pastoral and charitable work there.

From Secretariat-General

On Saturday, 26 December 2021/ 8 January 2022, the Patriarchate celebrated the Feast of the Synaxis of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos.

As ‘synaxis’ the Church means the gathering of the faithful in order to honour especially the Mother of God, for her contribution to our salvation, which is the incarnation of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the human race.

In honour of the Theotokos this feast was celebrated at the monastic Church of Saints Constantine and Helen, with the Divine Liturgy at the presence of H.H.B. our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos.

This feast is also celebrated with the Divine Liturgy for the Brotherhood in the Patriarchate for the Feast of Christmas, due to the celebration of Christmas in Bethlehem on 25 December /7 January.

The feast was attended by representatives of the Russian MISSIA, the representatives of the Patriarchate of Romania, who came to the Patriarchate Reception Hall along with the Hagiotaphite Archbishops and Hieromonks and chanted Christmas hymns.

The reception finished with the brotherly osculation and the kissing of His Beatitude’s hand.

From Secretariat-General

1. On Friday, 25 December/ 7 January 2022, the Patriarchate celebrated the Feast of Christmas according to the established Status Quo.

On Wednesday 23 December 2021/ 5 January 2022 H.H.B. our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos presided at the reading of the Royal Hours of Christmas to lighten the program of Christmas Eve in Bethlehem.

On Christmas Eve the Patriarchal Entourage headed for Jaffa Gate accompanied by the Police Force

and the Scouts to get on the vehicles to go to the Monastery of Prophet Elias by the ancient Monastery of the Seat.

At the Monastery of Prophet Elias, His Beatitude was welcomed by the Mayors and Officials of the Beit Jala, Beit Sahour and Bethlehem, the representatives of the Israeli Civil Authorities and the representative of the Ministry of Religion of Israel Mr Cecar Marjieh. A prayer was read the Caretaker of the Monastery Monk Achilios offered a reception for all.

Then the Patriarchal Entourage left with the Israeli horsemen leading the procession until Rachel’s tomb. From there the Palestinian motorcycle riders escorted the Patriarchal Entourage to the Square of the Basilica of the Nativity, where His Beatitude was welcomed by the Patriarchal Representative in Bethlehem, His Eminence Metropolitan Benedictos of Diosaecarea.

From the square, the Hagiotaphite and Arab-speaking Priests along with a large crowd of people led the Patriarchal Entourage to the Basilica, under the chanting of Christmas hymns. The Entourage entered the Church through its humble door and proceeded from the Catholicon to Saint Nikolaos’ chapel, went down to the Cave and the Manger for veneration and came up to the Catholicon through the north gate.

The Service of the Royal Hours of Christmas began, followed by Vespers, the blessing of bread and the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, under the Greek and Arabic chanting with the attendance of local faithful Christians but not pilgrims due to covid restrictions. The Service finished at 15.30 according to the Status Quo.

The Service was followed by a reception.

In the evening the Hegoumen, His Eminence Metropolitan Benedict of Diocaesarea hosted a formal reception for his distinguished guests, among whom were, the Representative of Palestinian Autonomy, Prime Minister Mohammad Ibrahim Shtayyeh and the representative of Jordan, Mazin Abdellah Hilal Al Farrayeh, Minister of Interior. His Beatitude our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos addressed those present with an address which was read by Fr Issa Mousleh in Arabic.

In his address, His Beatitude underlined the pressures that the Christian Community faces by the radicals in Jerusalem and the power of the Church through the risen Sun of Righteousness to face and overcome those challenges, offering projects of benefit, such as the recent beginning of the construction of the project Lana/Jerusalem and the restoration of Prophet Elias Monastery. 

This was the conclusion of Christmas Eve by the Patriarchate in Bethlehem, in anticipation of the main Christmas Feast the next day.

2. Christmas Day

The Christmas Feast began with Matins on Friday night 25 December through the official entry from the Baptism Gate, with the Entreaty and the Six Psalms, led by the Patriarchal Commissioner, His Eminence Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias.

During Matins, His Beatitude our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos and His Entourage came from the Catholicon to the Holy Altar, where He put on His Patriarchal Liturgical vestments and by His blessings the Archbishops and Priests put on their liturgical vestments.

With the beginning of the Kathisma “Come all ye faithful let us see where Christ was born…” procession went from the Altar to the Holy Cave from its south gate, while the Representative of Palestinian Autonomy, Prime Minister Mohammad Ibrahim Shtayyeh, the President of the Palestinian Committee on Christian Affairs, Ramzi Chouri, and the representative of Jordan, Mazin Abdellah Hilal Al Farrayeh, Minister of Interior followed on the right side, along with the Consul General of Greece in Jerusalem Mr Evangelos Vlioras.

The Gospel narrative of the Nativity was read in the God-receiving Cave, followed by His Beatitude’s Christmas message, which was read in Greek by Geronda Secretary-General, His Eminence Archbishop Aristarchos of Constantina, and in Arabic by the Patriarchate’s press representative, Priests Issa Mousleh. The Christmas message follows below:

“Heaven and earth are made one today

for Christ is born.

Today God is come upon the earth

and man is gone up into the Heavens.

Today He Who by nature is invisible, for man’s sake is seen in the flesh”.

(Sticheron 2 of the Christmas Entreaty)

This event, this mystery, is celebrated today in a solemn way in praise and thanksgiving throughout the world by the Orthodox Church of Christ, especially by the Church of Jerusalem and the city of Bethlehem. The Church celebrates the superficial event of the meeting and union of heaven and earth, the fact that God descended to earth, to ascend man to heaven.

This happened “as God was pleased, as He knew”. The Father was pleased, the Word became flesh and we saw God become Incarnate. In His immeasurable love for man, according to the traversing into heaven Paul, “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). According to the hymnographer of the Church, “the One Who was born before Lucifer from the Father without a mother, became man from the Virgin on earth, without a Father”. “He Who Is, became for our sakes what He was not”. The Only Begotten Son and Word of God became also the Son of man from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, a God-man, in one hypostasis and two natures. He became poor for us, so that we may become rich, He emptied Himself, so that we may become full, He came down to earth for us, so that we may rise up to heaven, He became an infant for us, so that we may become adults, “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). According to Athanasius the Great, “for our salvation, He appeared to us in a human body” (On Incarnation, P.G.1, p. 228). According to Saint Chrysostom, “God of Whom no one can speak about, Who is without form and beyond knowledge and equal to the Son, came through a Virgin’s womb and condescended to be born by a woman” (Holily 2, On the Gospel according to Matthew).

Before the vision of this mystery, even the hymnographer of the Church proclaims in ecstasy: “A strange and marvellous mystery do I behold; the cave is a heaven; the Virgin a cherubic throne; the manger a space wherein Christ God the Uncontainable One hath reclined” (Christmas Katavasiae, ode nine). Indeed, the cave became heaven. In this cave of Bethlehem in Judea, in this particular time, during the monarchy of Caesar Octavian Augustus, God reveals Himself to men, in Christ, in a bodily form. The One without beginning receives a beginning, the Invisible is seen. God reveals to men the Incarnate epiphany of His Son using elements of nature; a bright star leading the Persian Wise Kings and scientists, who “came and stood at the place where the infant was”. This wondrous epiphany He also reveals through His Angels, who were chanting in choir: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill among men”, and calling the hard-working men, the shepherds who kept the night watch of their flocks. God calls both groups of men as witnesses and preachers, as accomplishers and partakers of His work. Responding to the Divine invitation, they came and “falling before their faces, they worshipped…for they saw in the cave an infant without beginning lying down”. They came to know and spoke about and proclaimed the mystery they saw, the shepherds in their town, and the Magi to their hometown Babylon, having escaped “Herod as a trifler”.

The Incarnation and Nativity according to the flesh of Christ, which we worship, awaiting the coming of the Holy Theophany, is only the beginning of God’s redeeming mysteries to man. Its succession of events is Christ’s full mission, which He inaugurated on earth “as the great angel of God’s will”. Having come from the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, lived on earth and communed with the people, He inaugurated, founded and established the Kingdom of God and His Kingdom on earth, which is one with His body, and that is the Church. The Church continues and perpetuates His mission of conciliation, reconciliation, peaceful coexistence and love among people. The Incarnate Lord established this work with His teaching and blood through His sacrifice on the Cross. He founded a mission of sanctification, remission of sins and of education, taming and transforming the ethics of the people. Starting from Bethlehem’s cave, Christ conquered, or better say, enchanted the whole universe, without an army, without weapons, but only through those illiterate to the world twelve Apostles, who, however, were educated by the Holy Spirit. The Church as the Kingdom of God on earth increased, multiplied and silently became great, without any fan recruitment, but with the integration of members through Baptism. Its head is the Incarnate Lord, the Redeemer of the world. As long as humanity does not agree and follow Christ’s message, the King Who was born, this life becomes a living hell, in battles, wars and injustice, which we often see even today; if however, humanity accepts and applies it, its life is transformed into heaven.

This Pastoral mission of sanctification, pilgrimage, reconciliation, the pacifying, does the Church of Jerusalem unceasingly apply since its foundation, at the Places of Grace, and today, at the very place of the Nativity in the flesh of its Founder, in the Holy Bethlehem, at the God-receiving Cave and the Basilica of the Nativity built by Constantine and Justine. From these holy places, it prays for the peace and good condition of the whole world, especially for its Rum-Orthodox flock living in the Palestinian State, as well as for all the Palestinian people, and supports with all its power and through all the peaceful means, its President, His Excellency Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen, who honoured our Feast through his representative Dr Mohammad Ibrahim Shtayyeh. It prays to successfully complete its campaign for the keeping of its established by the International Community Status Quo in Jerusalem and the full recognition of the Palestinian State by all the countries of the world.

In the Holy City of Bethlehem, Christmas 2021

Fervent supplicant for all before God

Theophilos III

Patriarch of Jerusalem”

After these, there was the veneration at the Star and the Manger and the procession exited the Cave from the north gate, to continue the litany around the Basilica three times until it stopped in the middle of the Church for a prayer.

The Service continued with Matins in the Basilica, led by H.H.B. our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos, with the co-celebration of their Eminences, the Archbishops; Theophanes of Gerassa, Aristarchos of Constantina, Philoumenos of Pella and Metropolitan Joachim of Helenoupolis, Hagiotaphite Hieromonks, the representatives from the Patriarchates of Mosco and Romania, Priests from Bethlehem and Deacons, as the chanting was delivered by Hierodeacon Simeon in Greek on the right, and the Bethlehem choir in Arabic on the left under the lead of Mr Laurence Samour.

The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom followed, with the dismissal at 03:30 a.m. according to the Status Quo. The Divine Liturgy was also celebrated in the God-receiving Cave by His Eminence Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias.  

At the end of the Service, the Patriarchal Entourage went to the Hegoumeneion from the Baptism Gate, where the new Hegoumen, His Eminence Metropolitan Benedictos of Diosaecarea hosted a reception.

At 09:00 a.m. on Christmas morning, the Elder Dragoman Archimandrite Mattheos went down to the Holy Cave for veneration and by this act, the Despotic Feast of Christmas in Bethlehem came to an end.

From Secretariat-General

On Wednesday afternoon, 23 December/ 5 January 2022, the Service of the Holy Unction was observed after the Vespers at the Holy Church of Saints Constantine and Helen as a preparation for the participation in the Despotic Feast of Christmas.

After the reading of the Canon, the troparia and the Apostolic and Gospel narratives, the sanctifying prayers and the oil of purification, His Beatitude anointed the Archbishops and the Archbishops His Beatitude and finally, His Beatitude and the Archbishops anointed the Priests, Deacons and Monks, exchanging wishes for Merry Christmas.

From Secretariat-General

On Wednesday 23 December 2021/ 5 January 2022, the Royal Hours of Christmas were read at the Patriarchal Monastic Church of Saints Constantine and Helen, transferring the day from Christmas eve, to lighten the program of the Feast according to the Status Quo of Bethlehem.

The Service was led by H.H.B. our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos, who read the 1^st Hour, while the others were read by the Archbishops according to their rank.

From Secretariat-General

The ordination to Deacon of Monk Dositheos Konidis was observed during the All-night Vigil at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Tuesday 22 December 2021/ 4 January 2022.

Monk Dositheos, with passport name Elias Konidis, came to Jerusalem and the Patriarchate as a novice Monk from the Monastery of his monastic training and was tonsured a Monk.

Having been tested at the Central Monastery of the Patriarchate in the appointed to him duties, he was found worthy to be ordained as a Deacon by the decision of the Holy and Sacred Synod.

The ordination was incorporated in the Divine Liturgy according to the Typikon Order of the Church. Before the ordination, the ordaining Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias admonished Father Dositheos regarding the importance and holiness of the Hierodeacon’s Office as follows:

“Dear Subdeacon Dositheos,

Great and honourable indeed is this day for you, when by the holy decision of our much-caring Father and Patriarch Theophilos III and the Synodical confirmation, you are deemed worthy of the high honour of the ordination to Deacon.

In exceeding love to our Lord and Saviour Christ, and in wholehearted devotion to the Most Holy Mother of Churches, you have forsaken your parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and came to the Holy Land to serve with all your strength and devote yourself to the All-holy places of our Lord, which are connected to the earthly presence of our Redeemer, and gush living waters and divine grace, along with rivers of blessings to those who come to venerate them in faith.

Within a short time of your presence as a Monk in our Venerable Patriarchate of Jerusalem, you have shown perfect obedience and exemplary willingness to do your duty, respect for the elders, love for the younger ones. For this and as a really short period that completed long times, you claim today with the grace of the Holy Sepulchre to enter the first degree of the Priesthood.

I am more than sure of the various feelings that overwhelm your noble soul and heart.  The joy and rejoicing are possessed by fear and awe because you certainly feel the magnitude of the responsibility you take on. Do not be cowardly though, but have courage in the benefactor Christ, whom you will serve actively from today.

With a humble mind face the Οne who extended Ηis hands on the Cross, out of His unspoken philanthropy to the human race. He is our consolation and strength in Him only do we hope. For this reason, in all your actions, you should try to follow His example as the safe type and order of salvation.

Your human weakness may make you believe this is a hard-to-bear achievement, but you should always have before your eyes, and hear the Lord’s philanthropic words: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30).

For this, come in sober mind and a contrite heart to receive from my unworthy hands the Grace of the All-mighty Holy Spirit, Who fills and safeguards the militant Church of Christ.

The prayers of His Beatitude, our Father and Patriarch, of the members of our Holy and Sacred Synod and all your Hagiotaphite brethren are always accompanying you, and especially at this honourable and sacred time of your life.

I pray that the Grace of the All-holy and Life-giving Tomb of our Saviour Christ will safeguard you all the days of your life.”

The about to be ordained Dositheos replied as follows:

“Glory be to God for all things!

Your Eminence Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias,

Your Eminence Archbishop Isidoros of Hierapolis and Sacristan of the Holy Sepulchre,

Reverend Elder Dragoman Archimandrite Mattheos,

Reverend Exarch of the Holy Sepulchre in Greece, Archimandrite Raphael,

Reverend Fathers,

Blessed flock,

With the wishes of His Holiness our Father and Patriarch Theofilos, we gathered today to honour our celebrated Saints, to be strengthened and to prepare for the great day of the incarnation of the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ and finally to give me double joy than I would receive, if it were not for your presence, this blessed moment of my personal Pentecost.

First I want to thank everyone who contributed to my biological and spiritual well-being, which made me stand here today. Starting from my relatives in the flesh, my teachers, the Metropolitan of Monemvasia and Sparta  Efstathios, the brotherhood of the Holy Monastery of the Forty Saints in Laconia and its Hegoumen, Father Ephraim, who taught me, strengthened and secured me in my first steps in the monastic life, I conclude cordially thanking the Holy Common of the Holy Sepulchre and its Hegoumen, our Father and Patriarch Theofilos, His Eminence, Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias, for the honour I receive to be ordained by the General Patriarchal Commissioner, the Elder Dragoman reverend Archimandrite Mattheos, who trusted and supported me in my first steps in these God-trodden places. In general, I thank the Holy and Sacred Synod for the trust it shows in me.

The joy is great. The grace of God brought me to the places where the righteous Abraham was led when obeying the will of God, went out of kinship and place that raised him. This is where the King-prophet David was when his son Absalom was chasing him to kill him to get his throne, but he prayed to God to have mercy on his child because what happens to him is due to his own mistakes. In the place where our Lady was born, where she offered us our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In the place where our ancestors have left us their indelible passage through the centuries to this day.

I will close my speech of thanks with a wish. Our Catholicon that dominates the Church of the Resurrection, after the great catastrophe it suffered in 1810, united the Greeks everywhere in its reconstruction, so that since then it is called “The miracle of the faith of the Greeks”. I wish in these special moments that we pass to maintain our unity and oneness.

Thank you all for your love and forgive any of my mistakes!”

At the invocation of the Divine Grace, the Monks, Nuns and laity present exclaimed “Axios!” for the ordained.

After the Divine Liturgy, the new Hierodeacon offered a reception to all who honoured him, at the office of Geronda Sacristan, Archbishop Isidoros of Hierapolis.

In the morning the newly ordained came to the Patriarchate Headquarters and received the blessing and Fatherly admonitions from His Beatitude.

From Secretariat-General

https://www.facebook.com/100024003007073/videos/1259410547888120/

The memorial service for the Hagiotaphite Fathers of old was observed at the Catholicon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday 20 December 2021 /02 January 2022, after the Divine Liturgy which was officiated by His Eminence Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias. The memorial service was held for the Patriarchs, High Priests, Priests, Hieromonks, Hierodeacons, Monks and Nuns of the Patriarchate.

The service was led by H.H.B. our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos, along with the Archbishops and Hieromonks of the Brotherhood, with the attendance of Nuns and laity and the Consul General of Greece in Jerusalem Mr Evangelos Vlioras.

After the memorial service, there was a reception for the everlasting remembrance of the departed at the Patriarchate Reception Hall. May their memory be everlasting.

From Secretariat-General

On Friday 18/31 December 2021, the Patriarchate celebrated the feast of Saint Modestos, Patriarch of Jerusalem.

On this feast, the Church and especially the Church of Jerusalem commemorates Saint Modestos who started as a Monk at the Holy Monastery of Abba Theodosios the Cenobiarch and was then called to serve the Church of Jerusalem as a Bishop and finally its Patriarch. He was a helper and an angel of comfort, who healed the wounds in the lives of the people after the total destruction of the Monasteries and the Churches in Palestine in AD 614 due to the Persian raid.

In honour of Saint Modestos, Vespers on Thursday afternoon and the Divine Liturgy on Friday morning were officiated by the Elder Dragoman Archimandrite Mattheos and Archimandrite Makarios, at the chanting of Mr Gotsopoulos, Archimandrite Eusevios and Nun Euphemia and the participation in prayer of Nuns and faithful Christians.

During the Divine Liturgy H.H.B., our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem came for veneration, accompanied by His Entourage. The hardworking caretaker of the Monastery Monk Antiohos hosted a reception for the Patriarchal Entourage and the congregation.

From Secretariat-General

On Sunday, 13/26 December 2021, the Patriarchate celebrated the feast of the Forefathers at their Holy Church in Beit Sahour, where the shepherds were keeping the night watch and they received the calling from heaven to go to Bethlehem and see the new-born infant, the Redeemer of the world.

On this feast, the Church commemorates the before and after the Law Righteous Forefathers of the Nativity in the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

In honour of the Forefathers, the Divine Liturgy in this Church was officiated by the Patriarchal Representative in Bethlehem, His Eminence Metropolitan Benedict of Diocaesarea with the co-celebration of the Hegoumen of the Monastery of the Shepherds Archimandrite Ignatios, the ministering Priests of this community, Fr Issa Mousleh, Fr Sabba Her, Fr Ioannis Rismawi and Fr George Banoura and Hierodeacon Athanasios. The chanting was delivered by the Beit Sahour community Byzantine choir as the service was attended by a large congregation and the Consul General of Greece in Jerusalem Mr Evangelos Vlioras and Mr Athanasios Abou Aeta.

Before the Holy Communion, the following Sermon of His Holy Beatitude, our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem was read on His behalf: 

“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth…put off the old man and his bad habits…and put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:4-11).

Beloved Brethren in Christ,

Noble Christians

“Light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Luke 1:79), the Sun of Righteousness our Lord Jesus Christ has risen and has gathered us in our Church to participate in His Eucharistic and Despotic supper, the supper of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Our Holy Church prepares us to celebrate the great and universal event of the Incarnation of God the Word through the pure flesh of the Ever-Virgin Mary, namely the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14), the Evangelist John says.

This Sunday is dedicated to our Forefathers, who are commemorated in the Old Testament in the Holy Bible. These Forefathers of ours are Christ’s forefathers on His human side. And this, because the Son and Word of God, namely Christ, is without genealogy according to His divine nature. Saint Gregory Palamas says that “Christ’s genealogy cannot be narrated according to His divinity; He has a genealogy though according to His human nature, as He became a descendant of men and Son of man in order to save the man”.

God without beginning, the invisible, incomprehensible, indescribable and unchangeable cannot have a genealogy: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), meaning Christ. Regarding these words of Saint John, the Evangelist, Saint Gregory Palamas says: “How would have a genealogy the One who was in the beginning, and was with God, and was God and God’s Word and Son, and He did not have a Father before Him and His Name is by the Father, a name above all names (Phil. 2:9), and above every word?”

Referring to “the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began” (Romans 16:25), which is the Nativity of Christ, Saint Paul says that the preaching, the gospel of the people’s salvation, was long ago promised by God to Jesus’ ancestors, who were the righteous and especially the prophets, who wrote all the prophecies in the God-inspired Scriptures. “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:1-3).

Christ, my dear brethren, took upon himself all our human nature, with flesh, bones, blood and soul, but without sin, and saved it, namely He glorified it, through the abolishment of the death of corruption and sin. He saved our human nature and glorified, or better say, deified it through His resurrection.

The salvation of man and his co-resurrection in Christ are achieved only through the Church, which is the body of Christ. And Christ is the head of the Church and He is the redeemer of the body (Eph. 5:23), Saint Paul preaches.

Behold, therefore, why our Host, namely the Lord has made a great supper and invited many, and sent His servant at the appointed time to call the guests, saying, Come, for I have prepared all things (ref. Luke 14:16-17). Interpreting this word of the Gospel, Saint Cyril of Alexandria says: “The Creator of all and Father of Glory set up a great supper, which means, He worked a universal feast.”

In other words, my dear ones, Christ calls every man “living on earth, in the universe”, to become a partaker of His body, the Church, and consequently a partaker of the Kingdom of God “Come; for all things are now ready” (Luke, 14:17), the Lord says.

To our question, “what were the things that the Host had prepared?” Saint Cyril replies they are the remission of sins, the adoption, the Kingdom of Heaven and the communion with the Holy Spirit.

“God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4), the wise Paul says. The knowledge of this truth did God reveal in the cave of Bethlehem, through the Nativity of His Only-begotten Son, Christ, in order to save us from the bondage of sin and of the law. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).

Come, therefore, my brethren, let us prepare ourselves so that we may accommodate in the cave of our souls the Light of knowledge, the Sun of righteousness, our God and Saviour Christ. And let us say along with the hymnographer of the Church: “He that is full is emptied out in the flesh for our sakes, and a beginning doth He receive Who from before eternity is without beginning; He that is rich becometh poor, and though He is the Word of God, He reclineth in a manger of dumb beasts as an infant, working the refashioning of all men from the beginning of time” (Minaion, Sunday of the Forefathers, Ode 5 Theotokion). Amen. Many happy returns and blessed Christmas!”

The Divine Liturgy was followed by a meal, hosted by the Community.

From Secretariat-General

On Saturday, 12/25 December 2021, the Patriarchate celebrated the feast of our Father among the Saints Spyridon, Bishop of Trimythus the wonder-worker, at the Holy Monastery dedicated to him, near Damascus Gate, inside the wall of Jerusalem.

On this feast the Church renews in its memory that Saint Spyridon came from Cyprus, he was a shepherd of sheep, married and virtuous, and when his wife and daughter died, he was called by God to become a shepherd of logical sheep in the Church, as the Bishop of Trimythus. God gave him the grace to work miracles, as his Apolytikion says, as he called his dead daughter above her grave and she spoke to reveal where she had hidden some treasure so that it would be given to the poor. He changed a snake into gold and again the gold into a snake, opened the heavens to rain heavily and stop the draught, he stopped the course of the river to cross over and had angels co-celebrating the Divine Liturgy with him. He participated in the 1^st Ecumenical Synod in AD 325 where he bravely defended the doctrine of the one essence of the Son with the Father.

In honour of this High Priest and Father of the Church, Great Vespers and the Divine Liturgy were officiated by His Eminence Metropolitan Joachim of Helenoupolis, with the co-celebration of Archimandrites Ignatios and Makarios, Priest Hader and Hierodeacon Simeon, at the chanting of Archimandrite Eusevios, Mr Gotsopoulos and the Patriarchal School Students, with the contrite prayer of Monks, Nuns, and other Orthodox faithful.

During the Divine Liturgy, H.H.B. our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem came for veneration, accompanied by Hagiotaphite Fathers.

The Patriarchal and Episcopal entourages were offered a reception at the Hegoumeneion by the good keeper of the Monastery, Hegoumen Archimandrite Sergios.

From Secretariat-General