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Beloved in Lord children of our holy Church,
The angels’ Good News re-echoes today throughout the whole Universe, heralding the revealing of the great mystery of godliness: “God was revealed in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). There is born a Saviour, Who is Christ the Lord (Luk. 2:11), and with His Nativity rose “the true light who enlightens everyone” (John 1:9). There rose “the Sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2) and for the humankind there came a new epoch: an epoch of light and new hope, an epoch of His own purpose and grace (2 Tim. 1:9) – an epoch, in which we are not alone anymore, because “God is with us” (Isa. 8:10; Matt. 1:23).
The Good News of the celestials today also sounds everywhere around us: in our homes and in our temples. It fills our souls and our hearts, making them warm with that most genuine and pure joy with which only the consciousness and the feeling of God’s presence can endow us. Abiding in this presence, revived by “the Word of life” (1 John 1:1), we are not hostages of the enemy of the human salvation anymore, because with the birth of Christ, with His Resurrection and glorious Ascension also came a new birth for the humans, which is a birth for the Heavenly Kingdom and the eternal life.
This angels’ Good News, which rang out for the first time at the night of the Nativity, remains a constant call to all the humans as well – everywhere and in all the times: to glorify God, to preserve His peace (cf. John 14:27), to have good will towards each other, to be worthy and grateful for His inalterable love and mercy to us.
Let us glorify Him because of His ineffable majesty, because of the wonder and the mystery of the Creation, because of His fatherly care for us in spite of our stubbornness in our sins and our ingratitude. Let us glorify Him because to Him belongs glory, and not to humans.
Let us desire, let us seek and appreciate highly the peace that Lord brought to the earth with His birth as a human, and let us not forget that although we have been fighting with our God and Creator since the very beginning of our existence, “while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:10). Because this reconciliation was on His, not on our initiative and because with it He restored us in our state of God’s sons and helped us accomplish the high purpose with which He created us – our God-likeliness.
Let us have goodwill towards each other – in the way He Himself first had goodwill towards us, as because of us and our salvation, in a greatest expression of His divine, sacrificial love “…He gave His Only-begotten Son, so that everyone who is believing in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And in this goodwill let us be like Him, Who is the only one who is good (Matt. 19:17; Mark 10:18), “kind [even] to the ungrateful and evil” (Luke 6:35). Because He became incarnate and became man not for few chosen, but for all of us and even now allows “His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).
Today, when our world is still being torn by internecine struggles and contradictions, when the goodwill among people more and more yields to animosity and intolerance to the other, when the military conflicts as a means of solving our arguments not only do not decrease, but they assume more and more worrying proportions and ruin millions of human fates, again we have one single genuine hope and it is our faith and our trust in God’s kindness and God’s all-forgiving love. This love which made God Himself assume the human nature, enter into our world and live among us as a man; which led Him to the Cross and the crucifixion, the suffering and death and even to the abyss of hell, in order to accomplish our redemption and salvation in this way.
Having in front of our eyes this infinite humility of God, this love of His that doesn’t know any boundaries, let us imitate Him, as we seek His, but not our truth, fulfilling His holy commandments. Let us be good-doers and peace-makers, let us have goodwill towards each other – even towards our enemies. Let us not allow our passions and our anger control us, but let us appreciate and respect every human life. Let us seek in everyone and find not our enemy and adversary, but a neighbour of ours – as well as all the others created according to God’s image and likeliness and called by our Heavenly Father for assimilation to God and eternal life.
In these efforts of ours to imitate God’s love to man, our most faithful companion and advisor is His Most Holy Mother who has given birth to the God-Man, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who came so that we can have life and have it “in abundance” (John 10:10).
To Him, Who is our salvation and our only genuine hope, to Him “be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen” (Eph. 3:21).
Let God’s all-forgiving love and His great mercy be with all of us!
HAPPY NATIVITY OF CHRIST!
We most cordially greet with the Nativity of Christ all the children of our holy Church, within the borders of our Fatherland and abroad, wishing them peace and joy in the Lord!
HEAD OF THE HOLY SYNOD
† NEOPHYTE
PATRIARCH OF BULGARIA
METROPOLITAN OF SOFIA
MEMBERS OF THE HOLY SYNOD:
† METROPOLITAN IOANIKIY OF SLIVEN
† METROPOLITAN YOSIF OF USA, CANADA AND AUSTRALIA
† METROPOLITAN GRIGORIY OF VELIKO TARNOVO
† METROPOLITAN IGNATIY OF PLEVEN
† METROPOLITAN GAVRIIL OF LOVECH
† METROPOLITAN NIKOLAY OF PLOVDIV
† METROPOLITAN ANTONIY OF WESTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE
† METROPOLITAN YOAN OF VARNA AND VELICKY PRESLAV
† METROPOLITAN SERAPHIM OF NEVROKOP
† METROPOLITAN NAUM OF ROUSSE
† METROPOLITAN CYPRIAN OF STARA ZAGORA
† METROPOLITAN GRIGORIY OF VRATSA
† METROPOLITAN DANIIL OF VIDIN
† METROPOLITAN YAKOV OF DOROSTOL
Note: Following a decision of the Holy Synod from their meeting on 13th December 2022, Protocol № 3 (full committee), this Epistle is meant to be read at the church pulpit on the Feast of Nativity of Christ, 25th December 2022.
