Home page News
Metropolitan Hilarion: the whole experience of&nbs…

Metropolitan Hilarion: the whole experience of our Church and our own experience of life in the Church attest that Christ has Risen

On April 27, 2014, St. Thomas Sunday, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the church of Our Lady the Joy to All the Afflicted-in-Bolshaya Ordynka, in Moscow.

After the liturgy, His Eminence addressed an archpastoral homily to the congregation, focused on the truth of the Resurrection. “We can see from the Gospel that not only Thomas but also some other apostles had doubts about the Resurrection of our Saviour, while the disciples confessed Him not simply as Lord, that is Master, but also God Incarnate. This amazing combination of doubt and faith in the Divinity of Jesus Christ haunted Christians through centuries as some worshipped Him as God and Saviour while others doubted the truth of the Resurrection; some would build the Church of God and shed their blood for the gospel of Christ while others would create their own teachings, deviate from the Church and create schisms and sects”.

There were many such people in the modern time, he said, including the 19th century positive philosophers, who, while recognizing the existence of God, believed it impossible for a human being to be raised from the dead and for God to become man. They created their own versions of Christianity, as our great writer Leo Tolstoy did. For him, Christ was simply a teacher of morality, like Buddha or Confucius.

Such attempts, he said, were made and will be made, “but we, believers in Christ, know that Jesus Christ is not only our Lord and God and that He was raised from the dead. We know it not because we have read it in books but because the whole experience of our Church and our own experience of life in the Church attest that Christ has risen. We feel it with all our nature when the Pascha of Christ comes. We see with our mental eye that our Lord Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead because He is God Incarnate and this is for nothing but opening to each of us the way to resurrection.

“The Church has been created to raise the dead and heal the sick. How many people have received God’s grace in the Church – the grace that heals every disease and makes the dead alive. Who many people have come to the Church being spiritually dead but through their participation in the life of the Church and its sacraments, they have been raised to a new life to rise already here, on earth, to be reborn, to live here for some more time and then, like the Lord Himself, to go through death and to rise to the new eternal life!”

In his capacity as chairman of the ROC’s Dissertation Council, Metropolitan Hilarion invested with the doctoral cross Rev. Aleksey Kolcherin who has recently defended his doctoral dissertation. Until recently, he said, there were no dissertation councils in the Russian Church and no people who wrote doctoral theses. The Doctor’s degree was granted vary rarely and was rather an honorary title than recognition of a work that makes a weighty contribution to the development of theology. Nowadays there is this opportunity for graduates of theological academies and secular universities to write a doctoral thesis, to go through a difficult procedure of defence and to become Doctors of Theology, subject to approval by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

 

DECR Communication Service

Share:
Congratulations of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill to the President of Turkey on his 70th birthday

26.02.2024

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill's condolences in connection with the murder of the monks of the Ziquala Abo Monastery in Ethiopia

24.02.2024

Address by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill at the XII Christmas Parliamentary Meetings at the Federation Council of the Russian Federation

23.01.2024

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill: Patriarch of Constantinople is not a free man

07.01.2024

Christmas Message from Patriarch KIRILL of Moscow and All Rus’

06.01.2024

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill had phone conversation with Metropolitan Ioann of Belgorod and Stary Oskol

02.01.2024

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill expresses condolences over deadly earthquake in northwest China

19.12.2023

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill congratulates Mr Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on his re-election as President of Egypt

19.12.2023

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill welcomes the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the decoration of the Church of St Sava in Belgrade

19.12.2023

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill presides over jubilee meeting of Inter-Religious Council of Russia

07.12.2023

Address by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill at jubilee meeting of Inter-Religious Council of Russia

07.12.2023

Patriarchal greetings on the occasion of 60th anniversary of the Diocese of Vienna and Austria

26.11.2023

Primate of Russian Church presents historic miracle-working Kazan Icon of the Mother of God to the faithful and celebrates Liturgy in the Kremlin Dormition Cathedral

04.11.2023

Address by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ to the participants of the World Conference of Compatriots Living Abroad

01.11.2023

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill met with the Primate of the Assyrian Church of the East

31.10.2023

Metropolitan Hilarion: Many things in a person's life depend on faith

29.08.2021

Metropolitan Hilarion: The Holy Spirit is the main treasure of the Christian soul

01.08.2021

Metropolitan Hilarion: Holiness is a constant striving to imitate the Lord Jesus Christ

27.06.2021

Metropolitan Hilarion: God does not want to condemn, but to save us

07.03.2021

Metropolitan Hilarion: The Lord always grants to us the opportunity to display our talents

24.01.2021

Metropolitan Hilarion: The Lord has imbued the waters of Jordan with his divine presence to wash away human sins

19.01.2021

Metropolitan Hilarion: to repent means to change your way of life

17.01.2021

On commemoration day of St. Catherine, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk officiated at the Church of St. Catherine the Great Martyr In-the-Fields  the representation of the Orthodox Church in America

07.12.2020

Metropolitan Hilarion: We can always show compassion for people

29.11.2020

Metropolitan Hilarion celebrates on commemoration day of St. Varlaam of Khutyn at the church of ‘Joy to All the Afflicted’ icon of the Mother of God

19.11.2020

Metropolitan Hilarion: We should remember that the life of each human being is in the hands of God

06.11.2020

Metropolitan Hilarion: For God there is nothing impossible

25.10.2020

Metropoplitan Hilarion: The cross which was an instrument of dishonourable execution becomes the symbol of salvation for millions of people

27.09.2020

Metropolitan Hilarion: Eucharist is the wedding feast, to which Lord Jesus Christ invites each of us

13.09.2020

Metropolitan Hilarion: Faith alone is not enough for salvation

30.08.2020

Page is available in the following languages
Feedback

Fields marked by * are mandatory required

Send a message
Рус Укр Eng Deu Ελλ Fra Ita Бълг ქარ Срп Rom عرب