Τήν
Τετάρτην, 27ην Δεκεμβρίου
2012/ 9ην Ἰανουαρίου
2013, κατά τήν κρατοῦσαν συνήθειαν εἰς τήν Ἱερουσαλήμ αἱ Χριστιανικαί Ἐκκλησίαι
τῆς Ἁγίας Γῆς ἐπεσκέφθησαν τό Πατριαρχεῖον, ἵνα συγχαρῶσιν ἐπι τῇ ἀγομένῃ ἑορτῇ
τῶν Χριστουγέννων. Τό Πατριαρχεῖον εἶχεν ἐπισκεφθῆ τάς Ἐκκλησίας ταύτας ἐπί τῇ ἑορτῇ
αὐτῶν.
Πρώτη ἐπισκεφθεῖσα Ἐκκλησία
ἦτο τό μοναστικόν τάγμα τῶν Φραγκισκανῶν
ὑπό τόν κουστωδόν π. Pierre Battista Pizzaballa. Ἠκολούθησαν ὅλαι αἱ ἄλλαι
Ἐκκλησίαι ἐλθοῦσαι ἀπό κοινοῦ, ἤτοι τοῦ
Λατινικοῦ Πατριαρχείου, τῶν Ἀγγλικανῶν, Λουθηρανῶν, Κοπτῶν, Συριάνων καί Αἰθιόπων.
Διαρκουσῶν
τῶν ἐπισκέψεων τούτων ἡ ὑπό τόν Ἀρχιμανδρίτην π. Φιλόθεον ἡγούμενον τῆς
Μητροπόλεως Ἄκκρης – Πτολεμαΐδος βυζαντινή χορῳδία ἔψαλε ἀραβιστί
Χριστουγεννιάτικους ὕμνους τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Ἐκκλησίας.
Εἰς τάς ἐπισκέψεις τάυτας
ἀντηλλάγησαν αἱ εὐχαί καί αἱ σκέψεις τῶν Ἀρχηγῶν τῶν Χριστιανικῶν Ἐκκλησιῶν, αἱ
προωθοῦσαι καί εὐοδοῦσαι τήν εἰρηνικήν συνύπαρξιν μεταξύ αὐτῶν εἰς τήν Ἁγίαν Γῆν.
Τάς προσφωνήσεις τῶν Ἀρχηγῶν
τῶν Ἐκκλησιῶν ἐπεσφράγισεν ἡ Ἀντιφώνησις τοῦ Μακαριωτάτου πρός αὐτούς, ἔχουσα ἀγγλιστί
ὡς ἕπεται, ἴδε ἠλεκτρονικόν σύνδεσμον: http://www.jp-newsgate.net/en/2013/01/09/2273/
Μετά τήν λῆξιν τῶν ἐπισκέψεων
τούτων Ἀρχιερεῖς τοῦ ἡμετέρου Πατριαρχείου, ἐκπρόσωποι τῆς Α.Θ.Μ. τοῦ Πατρός ἡμῶν
καί Πατριάρχου Ἱεροσολύμων κ.κ. Θεοφίλου, ἀνταπέδωσαν τήν ἐπίσκεψιν ταύτην εἰς
τούς Κόπτας, Συριάνους καί Αἰθίοπας.
Ἐκ τῆς Ἀρχιγραμματείας.
Holy City of Jerusalem, 9 January 2013.
Your Beatitude,
Your Excellency,
Your Grace,
Your Eminences,
Reverend Fathers,
Dear Pastors,
Beloved Brothers and Sisters,
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
We welcome you with the joy of this Holy
Season and we thank you for your greetings for the Feast of the Nativity. In
the birth of the incarnate Logos, our Lord Jesus Christ, from the All-Pure
Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, we celebrate once again the triumph of
light over darkness, truth over falsehood, and goodness over evil.
We celebrate the Nativity of Christ once
again at a time of ongoing, and deepening, uncertainty and difficulty for our
region, especially in Syria. The political and social situation in which we are
living in the Middle East makes our proclamation of the Gospel all the more
urgent, and it makes our co-operation as Christians the more crucial.
Our peoples and our region are desperate
for spiritual leadership and for the hope that the incarnate Lord brings. For
the Nativity of Christ is not an event of the past; it is an event that is
taking place today. As we sing in our Liturgy:
Today
the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One,
And
the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One!
(Kontakion
for the Nativity)
We must not forget, too, that the world
watches us at this season with a careful and expectant eye.
In one of his letters, which he wrote in
the year 368, Saint Basil the Great praised the recently deceased Bishop
Musonius of Neocaesarea. Saint Basil said of Bishop Musonius that during his
life he had been “a pillar of his homeland, an
ornament of the churches, a pillar and support of the truth, a bastion of faith
in Christ, the protector of his friends… [and] a guardian of ancestral laws.” (Saint Basil Letters, 28:1).
May the same be said of us as Christian
bishops and leaders. More than ever before we are called to live in the Light
of the Eternal Son of Cod. For our struggle in maintaining our Christian
presence in our region “is not against enemies of blood
and flesh, but against the cosmic powers of this present darkness of evil in
the heavenly places.” (Eph.
6:12). As St Paul says, we must “keep alert, stand firm in [our]
faith, be courageous, be strong”, “doing everything in love” for the sake of the Holy Places of
which we are guardians and servants (cf. 1 Cor. 13). This is the vocation of us
all, members of our respective fraternities, as well as those of us who are
bishops and pastors.
As Saint Basil said of Bishop Musonius,
we must be “bastions of faith In Christ”those
who so overflow with “the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit,” that all may see beyond us and our
inadequate ministrations a glimpse of heaven. For at Christmas
heaven comes down to earth.
We should never forget that we are first
and foremost a liturgical community, and our celebration of the Feast of the
Nativity in Bethlehem, inspires and makes real for all our people, as well as
for so many pilgrims, the eternal and spiritual truths of the Incarnation. It is
our privilege here in the Holy Land to express the true ecumenical spirit: the
power of our unity rests in our spiritual and cultural diversity. This
diversity is the true strength of our togetherness.
At this great Feast, may we join our
voices, from the land of the justice and philanthropia of Cod that is
Bethlehem, and the land of the hope and resurrection of God that is Jerusalem,
in an appeal to all in authority to give their tireless efforts to work to stop
the bloodshed of innocent people, to alleviate poverty, to clothe the naked,
and give succor to widows and the orphaned around the world.
We pray to our newly-born Saviour Jesus
Christ, that he may be born in the cave of our hearts today. May the true Light
that is born into the world on this Feast be the same light that is reflected
in us, so that the World may see our good works and give glory to our Father in
heaven (cf. Mt. 5;16).
Christ is born!
Glorify Him!
We wish you all
a blessed and peaceful
New Year-
New Year-
Thank
you” .
His Beatitude
Theophilos
III,
Patriarch of Jerusalem
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