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Christ is born, give glory! Christ comes from heaven, go to meet him! Christ is upon earth, be exalted!
Sing to the Lord all the earth; and all you peoples raise the hymn with joy, for he has been glorified
Katavasia of the Nativity Canon
He Who sits on the Cherubim is coming! He who was conceived without sin is born in this sinful world!
From the heavenly heights come the King of the Universe to save man who has deeply dirtied himself
with sin and lack of faith. Let us rejoice for the Son of God is coming to us!
The Messiah is not coming to justly punish us for our transgressions, but rather He is coming to save us
and deliver us from hopelessness. He, even though He as God is the most magnificent and mightiest, is
born in the most humble manner to show us by His example that humility is the greatest virtue ‘which
God will not cast away’ (Psalm 50. At the same time by this He warns man, who lavishly and irrationally
celebrates his own birth. Therefore, we celebrate only three births: the birth of Christ, the birth of the
Theotokos and the birth of St. John the Baptist. These births gave birth to a new epoch a new creation.
By these births everything is changed, the whole history of mankind is changed. Christmas is indeed
Christ’s day on which He performed a great deed for the human race. On Christmas God is indeed born
into this world. This becomes news and for this reason we celebrate this birth!
The Christ Child brings peace among those who quarrel and people filled with vanity.
Brothers and sisters, let us be reconciled; first of all with God if we have sinned against Him, let us
reconcile with God’s Church if we have slandered her , let us be reconciled to each other if we have
quarreled. For true peace can only exist if we at peace with God, the Church and each other. Only those
who find peace with God and their fellow man can have peace in their souls and in their homes and such
can be called true peacemakers. Such people have peace in their hearts and on their tongues but those
hide hatred and malice in their hearts cannot have and recommend peace, not even on their tongue.
“The kind of heart the kind of words, the kind of heart the kind of deeds”.
Christ says: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Let us prepare our hearts so that they
may be filled with the sincere peace of Christ. Let us, through our deeds, bring our lives into harmony
and manifest our readiness to welcome the Christ Child in a manner that befits His glory and consistent
with the faith of our glorious ancestors.
Christmas, according to its precedence is a day of joy, the day on which Eternity was born on our
tormented planet, the day on which the God-man was born, the day on which goal of our life is
transferred from creation to the Creator, from man to God. (Thoughts, A. J. p. 272)
Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us worthily and righteously the God-man Christ in this jubilee
year when we commemorate the freedom given to Christianity by the Holy Emperor Constantine
1,700 years ago. May the peace of Christ and joy rule in our hearts that we may love one another and
with one mind confess the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in essence and
undivided.
To the clergy, church-school congregations, all the members of our Diocese and all those who are in
peace with God, the Church and people Peace from the Newborn Christ Child.
CHRIST IS BORN!
Your, Bishop of Canada Georgije