| Bulgarian Patriarchate
„Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace
and good will toward men.” (Luke 2:14)
Beloved in the Lord children of our holy Church,
The wondrous news about the Nativity of Christ, each time perceived and experienced in a new way, reminds us of the deepest joy given to the people. It detaches us from everything that is topical and transient and directs us to the principles and the deepest secrets of existence seen in the light of the event that once and forever changed and gave meaning to the whole history of mankind. It reconciliates us with the heavens and opens once again the doors of God’s Kingdom – the Kingdom of light and love, of peace and joy.
Proclaimed by the angels, manifested to the shepherds and the speechless animals, honoured with a bow by the human wisdom, the wonder of the Nativity of Christ helps us to seek and find the genuine meaning of our existence, to overcome each inconsolability and hopelessness, to live freely from the vanity of this world and to watch upwards: to God’s glory and to our heavenly Fatherland, knowing that „we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1).
In the world of pain and suffering, of corruption and death – a world that often forgets the supreme meaning of its existence and has completely headed towards the earthly and transient, the holiday of the Nativity of Christ again reminds us that „God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, […] having entrusted us with the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19). The peace brought to the earth by the Son of God with His Incarnation is that graceful condition which is established in the heart and soul of the man who have known in Christ the long-awaited Messiah and Saviour of the world and the whole creation.
The fathers and the masters of the Church from all times speak with a remarkable unanimity about the Incarnation of the God’s Son as a new creation – recreation of the world created by God in the beginning, but having fallen into sin – due to the disobedience of the first fathers, which, however, has not been abandoned by God, neither has God changed His initial plan for His creation. The Biblical revelation starts with the fundamental truth that: „In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). By the New Testament we also understand the way in which God created the world and everything that exists – by His Son and creative Word, Who is One of the Most Holy, Life-Giving and with God’s monarchy Trinity. And here is how the God-seer John starts his remarkable Gospel in full harmony with what was revealed earlier to the Genesis writer and he states: „In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1), so that he could preach also the new revelation about the restoration of God’s creation by the incarnation of the Only-Begotten Son of God: „The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us […] full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Therefore, it is not by chance that the nativity of Christ lays the foundation the beginning of a New Calendar that continues to this day. Because with the coming to the world of the One through Whom all things were made began a really New Era: an era of our reconciliation with the Heavens, of the renewal of God’s Covenant with mankind. An era in which God the Creator reconfirms His initial plan giving the opportunity to „as many as received him […], to those who believe in his Name […] to become God’s children” (John 1:12). In this era of reconciliation, of love and grace, the people are again „His own” to God, because the Son and the Word of God „came to His own” – regardless of the fact that „those who were His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). The new God’s revelation in Christ does not abolish the freedom endowed to man as early as at the time of his creation: freedom even to such an extent that he can reject his Creator. And that is why also the participation of men in the mystery of the world’s renewal is again a matter of personal choice and a free fruit of the free human will.
If in our world we continue to be witnesses of theomachism and sin, of the tragedy of corruption and death, of the destructive action of the powers of the darkness and the hell, that is so because man continues to be free with the same freedom that our ancestors had. With the Nativity of Christ, however, after God Himself lived in the world as one of us – similar to us in everything, except in sin – before man there has been opened also the prospect for renewal: „… when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born to a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the law and so that we might receive adoption as children” (Gal. 4:4-5). Said in the language of the Church Fathers, this means that really „God became man so that man could become god” (St. Athanasius the Great). Because namely such is also the deepest sense, such is the meaning of God’s incarnation and of the adoption of men that has come through it: in the given opportunity to become in the likeness of our Creator and Saviour Himself.
The holiday of the Nativity of Christ is a holiday of light and new hope. Since the day in which God came into the human history, lived among us and renewed our nature, we have been living in the era of love and grace, the era, in which God is calling us again „out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Petr. 2:9). And that is why – together with the God-enlightened Roman the Melodist – in unanimity and unspeakable joy and gratitude we proclaim with the whole holy Church that „Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One! Angels with shepherds glorify Him. The wise men journey with a star, since for our sake the Pre-Eternal God was born as a young Child” (Kontakion, Tone 3).
May the peace and benevolence that the Angelic hosts heralded to the whole world in the brightest night of the Nativity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ be with all of us!
We fatherly greet with the Nativity of our Saviour all the children of our holy Church, within the borders of our Fatherland and abroad, with most cordial wishes for light and joy in the souls and hearts.
Happy Nativity of Christ!
HEAD OF THE HOLY SYNOD
† DANIIL
PATRIARCH OF BULGARIA AND METROPOLITAN OF SOFIA
MEMBERS OF THE HOLY SYNOD:
† Metropolitan YOSIF of USA, Canada and Australia
† Metropolitan GRIGORIY of Veliko Tаrnovo
† Metropolitan IGNATIY of Pleven
† Metropolitan GAVRIIL of Lovech
† Metropolitan NIKOLAY of Plovdiv
† Metropolitan ANTONIY of Western and Central Europe
† Metropolitan YOAN of Varna and Veliky Preslav
† Metropolitan SERAPHIM of Nevrokop
† Metropolitan NAUM of Rousse
† Metropolitan CYPRIAN of Stara Zagora
† Metropolitan GRIGORIY of Vratsa,
Deputy Head of the vacant Throne of Vidin Diocese
† Metropolitan YAKOV of Dorostol
† Metropolitan ARSENIY of Sliven
