Paschal Reflection 2026
My Brothers and Sisters in the Household of the God,
Tonight, we gather together with brethren throughout the world to celebrate --- (as a Paschal hymn reads) --- “this chosen Holy day, the first of all Sabbaths… the feast of feasts and festival of festivals in which we bless Christ to the ages.” (8th Ode of the Paschal Cannon) We celebrate the first day of the new creation, the day that knows no end. We celebrate Christ’s victory over our last enemy, death itself (1 Cor.15:26) for this is the day that was born through the death of death.
We rejoice in our faith that the Resurrection of Christ offers living hope to our world traumatized as it is by violence and war… A world where hatred has replaced love… Where fear has overcome faith.
The voice of death echoes in Russia and in Ukraine and every corner of the world. War reigns in the Middle East. Nations are shaken. Countless lives lost. Families displaced. The very lands where the Prophets and Christ lived are scarred by suffering and violence. War has even reached the very doors of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Yet, no war, no evil can prevent the light of Christ from shining.
Tonight we stand before the tomb of Christ into which He descended to fill the darkness of Hades where Satan held captive Adam and his descendants. He entered the Kingdom of death to declare to death’s prisoners that this Kingdom has come to an end. From now on, every death--- however sorrowful, however tragic, is overthrown from within because Christ accepted it… He suffered and overcame it. Christ accepted
death as his own destiny and filled it with hope and faith – therefore with life. Christ was the grain of wheat which was sown in the bosom of the Earth to shatter the gates of hell… To drive away darkness… To free all those in the tombs who were prisoners of death.
As St. Paul teaches, Christ’s triumphant victory is over our “last enemy,” death itself (1 Cor. 15:26). It is from this lifegiving tomb that a blazing light shines. It is the light that no darkness can overcome. It is the light of Christ the living Lord. It is the light that breaks forth from death and fills creation with divine radiance.
The light of the Resurrection is a pillar of fire guiding all of us who wander through darkness to the land of the living.
My brothers and sisters, may the radiant light that emanates from the life-giving tomb disperse all the darkness in the world, and may it ignite our lives with the fire of faith. “Come receive the light of the unwaning light.”
+ M E T H O D I O S
Metropolitan of Boston