† NICOLAE
by the mercy of God
Archbishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of the United States of America and
Metropolitan of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas

 

To the beloved clergy and Orthodox Christians of our holy Archdiocese,
peace and unwavering hope from Christ the Risen Lord,
and from us a hierarchical blessing.

 

“You went down to the nether regions of earth, and You broke apart the bars that forever were closed on those who were held there,
O Christ. From the sepulcher, as did Jonah from the whale, You arose on the third day” (Resurrection Canon, 6th Ode).

 

Most Reverend Fathers, Beloved Faithful,
Christ is risen!

A fitting time it is today for us all to shout the words spoken by the blessed David: “Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can declare all His praise?[1] For behold has come to us the desired and saving feast, the day of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the cause of peace, the source of reconciliation, the ceasing of wars, the trampling of death, the defeat of the devil,” St. John Chrysostom teaches us.[2]

The songs of this glorious feast reveal to us the multiple meanings of the Lord’s Resurrection for man and the entire creation. The 6th Ode of the Resurrection Canon shows the liberation of man from hades, where he had been held for eternity: “The words the bars that were forever closed show that those locks were powerfully fixed and immovable and had never been broken by a man,” says St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite.[3] Christ, descended into hades, smashed the bronze gates and shattered the iron bolts, according to Isaiah’s prophecy: I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places.[4] The author of the Resurrection Canon adds that “You, O Lord, after you had broken the bars of hades, arose from the grave on the third day, as also Jonah came out of the whale on the third day, as You Yourself predicted: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”.[5] The God-bearing Maximus interprets the above-mentioned words of Jonah anagogically and says: he called ‘earth’ the gross condition of their evil, and ‘eternal bars’ their depraved bent towards material things, which creates the most pitiable condition.”[6]

In his commentary on the songs of the Resurrection Canon, St. Nicodemus repeatedly takes up one of the fundamental aspects of the Lord’s Resurrection, that of the liberation of the righteous souls in hades. The descent of Divinity into hades meant the shattering of the eternal bars, the destruction of hades, the abolishing of the dividing wall between Creator and creature that had been erected by the sin of Adam. It is not by chance that the proper icon of the Lord’s Resurrection is the one that shows this reality of the liberation of the souls held in hades, and certainly not the scene which represents Christ as victor over death risen from the tomb and holding a white flag. This reality is presented also by St. Basil the Great in the Divine Liturgy which bears his name: “descending through the Cross into hell, that he might fill all things with himself, he loosed the pangs of death. And when he had risen on the third day, having made for all flesh a path to the resurrection from the dead—since it was not possible for the Author of life to be held by corruption—he became the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep, the first-born of the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence over all.”

But St. Nicodemus goes further in explaining the 6th Ode, reminding us of the interpretation of St. Maximus the Confessor: the shattering of the eternal bars refers not only to the destruction of hades, but also to the raising up of human nature from its attachment to the earth, to the re-orientation of man from material things to God, to spiritual things.

St. Dumitru Staniloae explains this transformation of the human nature of Christ through the humility of the Son of God in taking on our body and through His Resurrection from the dead.  His Resurrection is a radical transformation of the mortal body through a creative work accomplished upon the old body. Christ arose because through His life He triumphed over the weakness of human nature with its effects, in the manifestation of this spiritual strength going so far as accepting death for others. St. Dumitru Staniloae tells us further that according to teachings of the Holy Fathers, Christ divinized His body already during the course of His earthly life, filling it with power also through His efforts to remain pure. At the time of death the body could not be emptied of this divinization. The divinity was not separated in the time of death, neither from his soul nor from His body. Christ’s Resurrection was prepared by this union of His humanity with divinity through His divine hypostasis which also carried in it His human nature. As such, the risen Body of Christ is a fountain of divine life for us in our earthly life, it is a source of power and of purity. It is a fount of power, of pneumatization, that we also may be kept and increase in purity and in the pneumatization which brings us to resurrection. St. Cyril of Alexandria says, “for Christ arose, trampling upon death, that He might rescue also us from decay and, ending the lamentation arising from this, He might persuade us to cry out full of joy: ‘You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness’” (Ps. 30:12)[7] The final verse of the 6th Ode of the Resurrection Canon confirms this theology of the restoration of human nature through sacrifice and Resurrection: “My Savior, the live and unslain sacrificial victim, as a man You did offer Yourself to the Father of Your own will; when as God You rose from the tomb, with Yourself, You raised the whole race of Adam.” The transfiguration, the pneumatization of Christ’s human nature through the Resurrection has been transmitted to Adam and all humankind.

Most Reverend Fathers, Beloved Faithful,

Discovering these meanings of the Lord’s Resurrection through the songs and explanations of the Holy Fathers, it is fitting that we challenge ourselves as well to the living out of these understandings, to the proclaiming of them, through the example of our lives, to the world that has become not-understanding. Namely that the Resurrection of Christ represents our transfiguration and the world’s, that we no longer live according to the understandings of the world that is fallen and attached to material things, but according to the things related to the freedom of the Spirit and the renewal of life. In our world ever more estranged from God, ever more marked by egoism, indifference, and violence, we Christians can bear witness through our lives that the world can be different. The holy women saints of the Church calendar that we honor especially this year (mothers, wives, nuns, martyrs, confessors) are for us examples of this courageous path. In times of peace and in times of the persecution of Christians, they, as well as Christian families, showed the family to be a “home church,” in which the Orthodox faith is lived and passed on in a living way. The holy women reveal in their faces precisely the light of the transfiguration of man through the Resurrection, light offered to others to drive out the darkness of the lack of the knowledge of God. Christian families have passed on this light to their children and grandchildren as a witness of an exemplary Christian way of living. Let us follow their example!

I embrace you in Christ the Risen Lord and I wish you health and joyous Feasts!

Truly He is risen!

Your brother in prayer to God,
† Metropolitan NICOLAE
Chicago, the Feast of the Lord’s Resurrection, 2026

 

[1] Psalm 105, 2.

[2] Predici la sărbători împărătești și cuvântări de laudă la sfinți, trad. de Preot Prof. Dumitru Fecioru, București, 2002, p. 148.

[3] Sfântul Nicodim Aghioritul, Eortodromion sau tâlcuire la Canoanele Sărbătorilor împărătești, Editura Sfântul Nectarie, 2024, vol. 2, p. 189.

[4] Isaia 45, 2-3.

[5] Matei 12, 40.

[6] Sfântul Nicodim Aghioritul, Eortodromion..., p. 189.

[7] Cf. Preot Prof. Dr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologie Dogmatică Ortodoxă, vol. 2, București, 1997, p. 106-112.