IEPA APXIEIIZKONH TNHZIQN OP@OAOEON XPIZTIANON AYETPAAIAL HOLY ARCHDIOCESE OF GENUINE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS OF AUSTRALIA 40 Kenyon Rd Bexley, Sydney NSW 2207 Tel. (02) - 95539030 - 95887143 Christmas 2017. Ref. No. 7978 FESTAL ENCYCLICAL TO The pious Orthodox Christians of the Holy Archdiocese G.O.C. Australia On the Birth According to the Flesh of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Beloved Brothers and Sisters and spiritual children in Christ. “Christ is born; glorify Him! Christ comes from heaven; come to welcome Him! Christ is on earth; lift up your hearts!” are the words we have heard our Church chant for the past month or so, beginning from the feast day of the Entry of the Theotokos. The Church’s aim in chanting this hymn has been to prepare us properly for today’s Great Feast, which is the feast and festival of the Birth according to the flesh of Christ the Saviour. Great is today’s feast of Christ's Nativity, beloved Brothers and Sisters. It is a feast of joy and hope for he who is of God. It is a feast of glory and thanksgiving to our Man-befriending God and Father. It is a feast of man’s going forth and welcoming his God. It is a feast which gives man the capacity to turn towards heaven and lift himself up to things eternal and spiritual. God, as Man-befriending Father, judged that the time had come for Him to offer to man the capacity to reacquire the primordial beauty and happiness which He had given him, when He Himself created him as the All-Wise Creator. And this work of God’s man-befriending dispensation (otzovop(a.) took place with God’s incarnation, namely the birth according to the flesh of Jesus Christ, which event we celebrate today. Saint Gregory the Theologian, the composer of the above-referenced hymn chanted throughout all these days, mentions three things required in preparing ourselves properly for today’s feast. First, we are to give glory to God because Christ, the Saviour of the world, is born. This was the joyous message that the Angels brought to the shepherds who were abiding in the field on the night of Christ’s nativity. Second, we are to go forth and welcome Christ, Who is coming to the world as a man to be amongst men. This verything the shepherds did on the night of Christ’s nativity. Third, we are to lift ourselves up spiritually, and look towards heaven, our real journey’s end. This is the joy and hope of today’s feast. This is the giving of glory and thanksgiving of today’s feast. This is the happiness and gladness of today’s feast. Today, the feast celebrating the birth according to the flesh of Christ the Saviour, is man’s going forth and welcoming his God, Who came to the earth to find man and lift him up to that eternal homeland and kingdom in heaven, which has been “prepared from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). However, Beloved Brothers and Sisters, on the night Christ was born in the Bethlehem cave most people were sleeping without understanding of Christ’s nativity and without notification of His birth. Likewise now, most people fail to comprehend Christ’s nativity, for there is no room in their heart for Christ to be “born” and offer them the joy, the hope, the happiness and the peace-making welcome of His birth. Worse still, many people today, when presented with the opportunity, attempt, even in the name of Christ, to exercise authority and to impose their will on other people, be it a brother or someone older than they. These people neither heard nor understood the great and exemplary humbleness of the Son and Word of God, Who was born as a man to both welcome man and in this way save man. For this reason, blessed and Beloved Brothers and Sisters and children of the incarnate Saviour Christ, do not trust them who seek the obedience and submission of other men, as do “they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles”, but let us go and see where Christ is born, and let us go and welcome Him, and let us follow His humble example. For He indeed will lift us up from the things of earth and man to the things of joy and happiness, which the All- good God has prepared for every human soul that with humility, love and faith will go forth and welcome and follow Him. With many blessings to all my Brothers and Sisters and spiritual children in Christ, towards the incarnate Saviour Christ. AO ropolitan of Patra and Acting Bishop of the Holy Archdiocese of G.O.C. of Australia