EASTER MESSAGE OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF CETINJE AND METROPOLITAN OF MONTENEGRO AND THE COAST JOANIKIJ

ON EASTER 2025.

TO THE CLERGY, MONASTICS AND THE FAITHFUL PEOPLE OF THE METROPOLITAN OF MONTENEGRO AND THE COAST

My soul glorifies

The One who rose from the grave on the third day,

Christ the Life-Giver!

Christ is Risen, let the heavens rejoice and let the earth rejoice! May all the visible and invisible worlds celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, the Feast of Feasts and the celebration of all other celebrations. Let us cleanse all our senses, let our spiritual eyes be enlightened by the eternal light of God, so that we may see the glory of the Resurrection of Christ and hear the angelic joy. From the tomb, the Sun of Righteousness, Christ, shone upon us and illuminated everything with the divine radiance of His Resurrection.

The weeping of Good Friday turned into triumph, celebration, and victory. We watched with pain in our souls the suffering of Christ. We endured mockery and humiliation with Him, we were crucified with Him on the Cross, we experienced His life-giving death and burial, and now our souls are filled with the abundance of comfort and joy that we received from His three-day Resurrection. With Christ, we passed through fire and water, with Him we passed from death to life. The ancient passage of the Jews under Moses' leadership through the waters of the Red Sea is called Passover, but that event, although miraculous and saving, is only a picture and prototype of our walk with Christ from His suffering, cross, and death, to His and our Resurrection. That is why this Feast is called the New Passover, which surpasses the old one, just as the sun surpasses the light of the stars in its light. In the old Passover, Moses showed himself to be a faithful servant of God and a mediator of the temporary deliverance of the faithful people from death, and in the New Passover, the Son of God Jesus Christ personally leads and ministers our salvation, revealing to us the glory of His divinity through His victory over death. The salvation and deliverance that He has granted us is not temporary like Moses', but eternal. In Him is the fulfillment of the meaning of the Old Testament Passover, and through the New Passover, He has granted us Himself as eternal life, joy, and fullness of meaning. Therefore, the Church of God celebrates the Resurrection of Christ as a New Pascha and sings with one mouth and one voice: “The sacred Pascha has shone upon us today, the new and holy Pascha, the mysterious Pascha, the glorious Pascha, the Pascha of Christ the Savior, the immaculate Pascha, the great Pascha, the Pascha of the faithful, the Pascha that opens the doors of paradise to us, the Pascha-sanctification of all the faithful.”

Appearing to the myrrh-bearing women who, together with the Most Holy Theotokos, drank the cup of sorrow and bitterness on Golgotha, the Risen Savior consoled them with the words Rejoice! Do not be afraid! Their hearts, until then filled with deep sorrow, were suddenly filled with inexpressible and indescribable joy. These good news, which the Conqueror of death announced to the myrrh-bearing women, were not addressed only to them, nor only to the apostles, but also to every believing soul, to the whole world. Not only to the ancient generations, but also to us and future generations. For all those who are marked by the Cross of Christ, there is no longer any sorrow, grief, or suffering that the Lord the Resurrected cannot remove. There is no repented sin that He will not wash away, nor a spiritual wound that He will not heal. His boundless love for humanity, sealed by His sacrifice on the cross for the salvation of the world, shone forth in the Resurrection. From His open tomb it poured out like a mighty river upon the whole world, upon the righteous and upon sinners, upon all the children of God.

​We see how the Lord gathered His disciples after His Resurrection, even though on Good Friday all, except for Saint John the Theologian, fled when they saw His suffering, and Peter, out of human weakness, denied Him. We see the boundless condescension of His love to the human weaknesses of the apostles and to Peter’s sincere repentance. As touching as His encounter with the apostles was, it is even more glorious and significant because on that occasion the apostles became true eyewitnesses and witnesses of His Resurrection. He made them, until then subject to weakness and cowardice, fearless and invincible. Having made them worthy to be witnesses of His Resurrection, He filled their hearts with the peace of God and the fiery gifts of the Holy Spirit, thus giving them heavenly authority to preach His good news and victory over death to the whole world.

We Orthodox Christians, who recognize ourselves by the holy and pure apostolic faith, gather in these bright Paschal days around the Risen Christ in the temples of God, at holy services, to unite with the Lord through His holy mysteries and with one another in the same faith, hope and love. Knowing that the Savior's mercy is boundless in condescension towards our many weaknesses and shortcomings, for which we sincerely repent, strengthened by spiritual strength, we overcome our mutual misunderstandings and senseless enmities, we reject hatred, we renew our unity and brotherly love.

In the light of the feast of the Resurrection of Christ, we accept every believer and non-believer, people of other faiths, different and opposing opinions and beliefs, as our neighbors, respecting them as unique and free individuals. Bearing in mind that all people of good will, in accordance with their conscience, seek good and strive to achieve it, we are ready to work together with them to multiply good in our lives and in this world entrusted to us by God.

With the celebration of this Feast, we will begin the celebration of great and significant anniversaries in the Metropolis of Montenegro and the Littoral, first of all the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council, to lovingly remember the virtues and merits of its 318 holy fathers and to be spiritually enriched by their God-inspired teachings. We will also celebrate Njegoš's anniversaries: 180 years of the "Light of the Microcosm" and his burial church - the Lovćen Chapel, with a solemn commemoration of the centenary of its renovation in 1925. We remind and admonish all of Njegoš's spiritual descendants, in Montenegro and all over the world, that we are obliged to fulfill Njegoš's last will and testament that he left us! We know how the communist authorities sinned against Njegoš when they demolished his church, thus destroying his testament and desecrating his grave, and therefore we call on the current authorities in Montenegro to correct the mistakes of their predecessors and make a decision to restore the Chapel on Lovćen and fulfill Njegoš's will, that his holy relics rest in the church that he built and dedicated to Saint Peter of Cetinje. We also remind everyone of the dying cry of the late Metropolitan Amfilohije to Montenegro to restore the Chapel on Lovcen to its original appearance from 1845, to place the holy relics of Njegoš in it, with the current mausoleum being preserved as a monument. We hope that modern Montenegro will fulfill this cry of our great predecessor and fully carry out Njegoš's legacy, thus calling upon itself and all who live in it.

Seeing the horrific and apocalyptic scenes of war in Ukraine and Palestine every day, let us multiply and unite our prayers for the establishment of peace between the conflicting countries. We experience the dialogue that has begun between the most influential countries on the cessation of hostilities and the restoration of peace among the warring nations as a grace of God that gives us hope for the final return of peace. Let us pray fervently, dear brothers and sisters, to the Risen Lord to bless those who have begun the aforementioned dialogue, to enlighten them with His wisdom, and to establish a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and Palestine. In order to achieve such peace, the violence against the clergy, the seizure of churches, the desecration of holy places, and the threat to religious rights and freedoms that the current authorities in Ukraine are carrying out against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church should immediately cease. Unfortunately, the same pattern is being followed by state terror against the Estonian Orthodox Church, where the authorities there are preparing a law to ban that Church, which has a centuries-old history of evangelical activity in that country. The persecution of the Church in the aforementioned countries with the aim of forcibly changing the religious identity of Orthodox peoples is a disgrace to the entire enlightened world, especially to Europe as the cradle of civilization and the legal order.

When we talk about the violation of religious and other human rights, we are obliged to pay attention to the long-standing threat to the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija by the Pristina authorities. In that promised land, Serbian Palestine as Njegoš called it, Orthodox Serbs still suffer violence and seizure of property, unreasonable arrests and daily intimidation. In addition to all the resolutions and agreements that are valid on paper, in practice they are left without any legal security. This is evidenced by the many unsolved murders, persecutions, beatings, robberies and other acts of violence committed with impunity by Albanian terrorists against Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija over the past 26 years. However, despite all the injustices they suffer every day, they have remained faithful to their holy places and the homes of their fathers, enduring injustices and suffering for the sake of Christ. It is a great comfort to us that the faithful people of Montenegro are always ready to help and in every way support our brothers and sisters in crucified Kosovo and that they are wholeheartedly devoted to the great holy places on that holy Serbian land. In doing so, we follow our greatest teachers, Saint Peter of Cetinje, Njegoš, King Nikola and the blessedly departed Metropolitan Amfilohije.

These days, a controversy has developed in the Montenegrin public about the return of religious education to primary and secondary schools, which is opposed by important human rights advocates and alleged defenders of a civil and secular Montenegro. Regarding this important issue, we remind all participants in this controversy that Montenegro progressed the fastest in every respect and achieved the greatest international reputation while it had religious education in its schools. In addition, the right to education is a fundamental human right and cannot be respected unless it also includes the right to religious education. If Montenegro is not ready to respect the legitimate rights of all, including those of its citizens who want their children to have religious education in state schools, as is the case in most European Union countries, it is thereby undermining its secularism and showing that in this regard it is unable to renounce the dark achievements of the totalitarian communist system.

Celebrating the Feast of the Resurrection, the Feast of Christ's victory over death, the devil and all evil, the Feast of the light and glory of God, the Feast of forgiveness, peace and brotherly love, let us open our souls and hearts to all people, near and far, especially to children, orphans and the poor, to the sick and the bereaved, to all those who suffer and endure injustice in this world. Let us embrace one another, share both good and evil with everyone, so that, united with everyone in love, we may unite even more closely with Christ, the Source of eternal life and love, eternal light and joy, to whom all glory, honor and worship befits, together with His Beginningless Father and with His Most Holy and Good and Life-giving Spirit.

Congratulating our spiritual children and all people of good will on the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, we invoke the paternal and archpastoral blessing upon the entire clergy, venerable monasticism and all the pious faithful people of the Metropolis of Montenegro and the Littoral with festive greetings

Christ is Risen!

Truly Easter!