Patriarchal and Synodical Paschal Epistle 2025

Archpastoral Paschal Greetings 2025 from His Eminence Metropolitan Joseph

ARCHPASTORAL PASCHAL GREETINGS 2025
from His Emi­nen­ce Metro­po­li­tan Joseph

Christ is risen! Inde­ed, He is risen! (John 1:1–17)

Dea­rest Beloved,

Today—thanks be to God—there is good news! On this bright and holy Pas­cha, all the news is good: glad tidings, joy­ous tidings, tri­ump­hant tidings! It is the Resur­rection of our Lord and Savi­or Jesus Christ from the dead. This is won­drous news not only for Christ’s sake—for death could not hold Him in the grave—but also for ours, for His victory is our victory. We pro­claim this tri­umph in the joy­ful tro­pa­rion of the Feast: “Christ is risen from the dead, tram­pling down death by death, and upon tho­se in the tombs bestowing life!”

Time and again, this hymn echo­es through our churches—and yet we never tire of it, for it is full of life and hope.

Christ is risen from the dead”

This is no mere metap­hor; it is fact. Jesus died on Gre­at and Holy Fri­day and was laid in the tomb. A gre­at sto­ne sea­led the gra­ve. Sol­di­ers stood guard at its entran­ce. But no eart­hly power could impri­son the Lord of life. At dawn on that first Pas­chal mor­ning, Christ bro­ke through eve­ry bar­ri­er and rose in glory from the dead! When the holy women came to ano­int His body, they found the tomb empty—and an angel pro­clai­m­ing: “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen!” (Luke 24:5–6) From that moment to this very day—two thous­and years later—the fait­h­ful con­ti­nue to echo the ange­lic gre­e­ting: Christ is Risen! And each one of us is cal­led to respond in joy and faith: Inde­ed, He is risen!

So cen­tral was this mira­c­le that the Apost­les chan­ged their day of wors­hip from Satur­day to Sun­day. The first day of the week beca­me the Day of Resur­rection, the day of God’s new cre­a­tion. And to this day, we Ortho­dox call Sun­day the Lord’s Day—the Day of Resur­rection. Eve­ry Sun­day is a “litt­le Pas­cha,” and the hymns and rea­dings of our ser­vi­ces throug­hout the year pro­claim this mes­sa­ge again and again: Christ is risen!

Tram­pling down death by death”

Death—the anci­ent ene­my of mankind, fea­red and relentless—has at last been overt­hrown. For cen­turi­es, death clai­med count­less lives and left behind sor­row, fear, and des­pair. But now Christ has bro­ken its power. He ente­red into death wil­ling­ly, and then rose again in glory. What power does death hold if it can­not keep its prey? The Lord shat­te­red its grip once and for all. This is why we rejoi­ce! This is why we pro­claim Jesus Christ as Victor, the Conqueror of all conquerors!

As St. Paul exclaims: “O death, whe­re is thy sting? O gra­ve, whe­re is thy victory?” (1 Cor. 15:55). The sting of death is no more, for the tomb is no lon­ger the end. Christ’s open and emp­ty sepul­cher reve­als the gre­at myste­ry: that death itself is now but the gateway to eter­nal life.

And to tho­se in the tombs bestowing life”

Some may won­der: “What does Christ’s Resur­rection have to do with me?” It has eve­ryt­hing to do with us. Becau­se Christ is risen, our belo­ved dead shall rise. Becau­se He lives, we too shall live—freed from cor­rup­tion, sor­row, and pain. The Resur­rection means life for all: life in abun­dan­ce, life ever­la­sting, life wit­hout sor­row, tears, or sick­ness. So let the good news be heard far and wide! Let eve­ry heart rejoi­ce, and eve­ry tongue pro­claim with one voi­ce and one spi­rit: Christ is risen from the dead, tram­pling down death by death, and upon tho­se in the tombs bestowing life!

Christ is risen! Inde­ed, He is risen!


Påske­bud­ska­bet blev oplæst Påske­nat, den 20. april 2025:

Hellige Johannes Chrysostomos’ Påskeprædiken

Oplæst af f. Poul, Påske­nat, Søn­dag den 5. maj 2024:

Metropolit Josephs Påskebudskab 2022

Metro­po­lit Josep­hs Påske­bud­skab 2022, oplæst af f. Poul, Påske­mor­gen, Søn­dag den 24. april 2022.

Hellige Johannes Chrysostomos' Påskeprædiken, Påskemorgen, 24. april 2022

Hel­li­ge Johan­nes Chryso­st­o­mos’ Påske­præ­di­ken, oplæst af f. Poul, Påske­mor­gen, Søn­dag den 24. april 2022.

Kristus er opstanden!

Hel­li­ge Johan­nes Chryso­st­o­mos’ Påske­præ­di­ken, oplæst Påske­mor­gen, søn­dag den 19. april 2020:

Se video­op­ta­gel­se af Påske­mor­gens Gudstjeneste

Radioprogram om ikoner og Påsken

Tirs­dag den 16. april 2019 med­vir­ke­de f. Poul i radiopro­gram­met “De Høje­re Mag­ter” på Dan­marks Radios P1. Pro­gram­met omta­les såle­des på DRs hjem­mesi­de: “Kan iko­ner­ne hjæl­pe til at gøre Gud nær­væ­ren­de? Skal de være frem­stil­let på en sær­lig måde for at vir­ke? Og hvor­dan bin­der iko­ner­nes ver­den sig ind i påskens fortælling?”

Lyt til pro­gram­met via det­te link

Se også det­te ind­læg på blog­gen, som rela­te­rer til radiopro­gram­mets emne:

Iko­ner er hel­li­ge bil­le­der – teo­lo­gi i farver

Hellige Johannes Chrysostomos' Påskeprædiken

Lyt til Hel­li­ge Johan­nes Chryso­st­o­mos’ Påskeprædiken:

Video:

The Paschalion Question – Historical, Canonical, Mathematical and Astronomical Aspects

Den Ortodokse Kirkes Kalender

F. dia­kon Irakli har fået publi­ce­ret en dyb­de­gå­en­de arti­kel i  tids­skrif­tet Inter­na­tio­nal Jour­nal of Ortho­dox The­o­lo­gy, num­mer 8/1, 2017 med tit­len “Histo­ri­cal, Cano­ni­cal, Mat­he­ma­ti­cal and Astro­no­mi­cal Aspects of the Pas­cha­li­on Question”.

An arti­c­le by f. dea­con Irakli with the tit­le of “Histo­ri­cal, Cano­ni­cal, Mat­he­ma­ti­cal and Astro­no­mi­cal Aspects of the Pas­cha­li­on Question” was recent­ly publis­hed in a a sci­en­ti­fic, peer-review and open access jour­nal – Inter­na­tio­nal Jour­nal of Ortho­dox The­o­lo­gy, issue 8/1, 2017.

Abstra­ct:
The­re are dif­fe­rent calen­dar systems in use among Ortho­dox Chur­ches wor­ldwi­de. Non-movab­le Ortho­dox Chri­sti­an feasts like Nati­vi­ty, Annun­ci­a­tion, Trans­fi­gu­ra­tion, and so on, are cele­bra­ted accor­ding to two dif­fe­rent — Juli­an and Revi­sed Juli­an — calen­dars. Howe­ver, when it comes to the question of the Easter date, most of the chur­ches with some excep­tion cele­bra­te the feast of the Resur­rection of our Lord Jesus Christ on the same Sun­day. Despi­te dif­fe­rent calen­dar systems, it is pre­ci­se­ly the Easter date deter­mi­na­tion question on which all calen­dar systems are based. Pre­sen­ted paper stu­di­es the Easter date (also known as Pas­chal) rela­ted question from histo­ri­cal, cano­ni­cal, mat­he­ma­ti­cal and astro­no­mi­cal points of view. Two exi­sting pas­chal systems — Ale­xan­dri­an and Gre­go­ri­an — are pre­sen­ted here. Accor­ding to the­se systems, the dates of the Easter for the peri­od of 2000 — 2050 are calcu­la­ted and com­pa­red with the astro­no­mi­cal dates defi­ned by the Church cano­ni­cal requi­re­ments for the Easter date deter­mi­na­tion. Obtai­ned results reve­al that the Ale­xan­dri­an met­hod used in most Ortho­dox chur­ches often devi­a­te from the astro­no­mi­cal rea­li­ty and cano­ni­cal rules, and its accu­ra­cy can reach only 31% for the given peri­od of years. On the other hand, the accu­ra­cy of the Gre­go­ri­an met­hod used in the Catholic/Protestant wor­ld can be as high as 92%. 

The Calendar of the Orthodox Church

Neden­for kan høres et fored­rag som f. dia­kon Irakli Tsa­kadze holdt lør­dag den 15. maj 2010 i Guds­mo­ders Beskyt­tel­ses Menig­hed om Den Orto­dok­se Kir­kes kalen­der. Under lyd­af­spil­le­ren kan man læse nog­le noter til sær­li­ge emner i foredraget.

Tro­pi­cal year
Year, rep­re­sen­ting a time inter­val betwe­en two suc­ces­si­ve ver­nal equi­nox. Its dura­tion is 365.242199 days. This quan­ti­ty is not a mul­tip­le of 24 hours, so after 365 days the­re is a remai­ning of 5 hours 48 minu­tes and 46 seconds.

Egyp­ti­an calen­dar
It, pre­de­ces­sor of Juli­an calen­dar, con­si­sted of 365 days. So this calen­dar gave an error in one day eve­ry four years (1 / (365,242199–365) ~ =3D 4), whe­re 365.242199 is the dura­tion of the Tro­pi­cal year. In this system, a certain fixed date (e.g. the ver­nal equi­nox) was gra­du­al­ly shif­ted in the calen­dar, moving from spring to sum­mer, autumn, win­ter and, having made a full cyc­le in 1460 years, was retur­ning to its ori­gi­nal location.

Juli­an calen­dar
It was offi­ci­al­ly intro­du­ced on the 1st of Janu­ary, 45 BC. In order to improve the accu­ra­cy of the Egyp­ti­an calen­dar, eve­ry 4th year of the calen­dar was a leap year, i.e. one extra day was added to it. By this sche­me the dura­tion of this new calen­dar beca­me 365+1/4=3D365.25 days. But this improve­ment was just ano­t­her approxi­ma­tion, as it car­ri­ed its own inac­cu­ra­cy, name­ly it accu­mu­la­ted error in 1 day during 128 years (1/ (365.25 — 365,242199) ~ =3D 128). Note that if the year in the Egyp­ti­an calen­dar was shor­ter than the Tro­pi­cal year, the year in the Juli­an calen­dar was lon­ger than the Tro­pi­cal one. Howe­ver, this calen­dar was 30 times more accu­ra­te than pre­vious Egyp­ti­an one.

Gre­go­ri­an calen­dar
Intro­du­ced in 1582 by the pope Gre­gory. Calen­dar reform was imple­men­ted in such a way that in that year 10 days had been “thrown out” and Octo­ber 15 went imme­di­a­te­ly after Octo­ber 4. The system of inser­ting the leap days was chan­ged. In par­ti­cu­lar, over 400 years, their num­ber decrea­sed by 3, i.e. 100, 200 and 300 years of eve­ry 400 years were not leap years, whi­le year 400 remai­ned a leap year. In the result ano­t­her, impro­ved approxi­ma­tion to the length of the tro­pi­cal year had been obtai­ned: 365 +97 / 400 =3D 365.2425, whe­re 97 is amo­unt of leap years over 400 years. Error of this calen­dar was 1 day in 3322 years, (1 / (365,2425–365,242199) ~ =3D 3322). Cur­rent­ly, the dif­fe­ren­ce betwe­en the Juli­an and Gre­go­ri­an calen­dar is 13 days, and it will increa­se up to 14 days in 2100, which accor­ding to the Juli­an calen­dar will be leap year, but accor­ding to the Gre­go­ri­an one =96 non a leap year.

Revi­sed Juli­an calen­dar
Ano­t­her important calen­dar improve­ment was made in 1923 during the mee­ting of the Ortho­dox Chur­ches in Con­stan­ti­nop­le (not all Ortho­dox chur­ches were pre­sen­ted in that mee­ting). The mem­bers of the coun­cil appro­ved the impro­ved or “Revi­sed” Juli­an calen­dar. It has a peri­od of 900 years, during which the num­ber of leap years is redu­ced by 7. The new leap year rule was adop­ted, which dif­fers from that of the Gre­go­ri­an calen­dar: years even­ly divi­sib­le by four are leap years, except that years even­ly divi­sib­le by 100 are not leap years, unless they lea­ve a remain­der of 200 or 600 when divi­ded by 900, then they are leap years. This means that the two calen­dars will first dif­fer in 2800, which will be a leap year in the Gre­go­ri­an calen­dar, but a com­mon year in the new calen­dar. The dura­tion of the year defi­ned by the Revi­sed calen­dar is 365 +218 / 900 =3D 365.24222, whe­re 218 is amo­unt of leap years in 900 years. Error in 1 day will be accu­mu­la­ted in 47619 years (1 / (365.24222 — 365.242199) ~ =3D 47619) sug­ge­sting that this calen­dar is more pre­ci­se than pre­vious ones.

Based on an arti­c­le by Fr. Dr. V.F. Khulap.


Se også:

The Pas­cha­li­on Question – Histo­ri­cal, Cano­ni­cal, Mat­he­ma­ti­cal and Astro­no­mi­cal Aspects
F. dia­kon Irakli har fået publi­ce­ret en dyb­de­gå­en­de arti­kel i  tids­skrif­tet Inter­na­tio­nal Jour­nal of Ortho­dox The­o­lo­gy, num­mer 8/1, 2017 med tit­len “Histo­ri­cal, Cano­ni­cal, Mat­he­ma­ti­cal and Astro­no­mi­cal Aspects of the Pas­cha­li­on Question”.