https://ec-patr.org/patriarchal-encyclical-for-holy-pascha-2025

+ B A R T H O L O M E W
By God’s Mercy
Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch
To the Plenitude of the Church:
May the Grace, Peace and Mercy of Christ Risen in Glory be with you All
Most honorable brother Hierarchs,
Dearly beloved children,
By God’s mercy and strength, we have journeyed through prayer and fasting across the ocean of Holy and Great Lent, finally reaching the splendid feast of Pascha, and we praise the Lord of glory, who descended to the depths of Hades and “achieved the entrance for all to Paradise” through His raising from the dead.
The Resurrection is not the remembrance of an event from the past, but the “good change” of our existence, “another birth, an alternate life, a different kind of living, the transformation of our very being.”[1] And in the Risen Christ, the entire creation is renewed together with humanity. When we chant in the 3rd Ode of the Paschal Canon, that “Now everything is filled with light—heaven, earth, and all things beneath the earth; therefore, let all creation celebrate the resurrection of Christ, in which everything has been established,” we proclaim that the universe is founded on and filled with unfading light. The phrases “before Christ” and “after Christ” ring true not only for the history of the human race, but also for the sake of all creation.
The Lord’s raising from the dead constitutes the nucleus of the Gospel, the stable point of reference for all the books of the New Testament, as well as for the liturgical life and devotion of the Orthodox Christians. Indeed, the words “Christ is Risen!” summarize the theology of the Church. The experience of the abolition of the dominion of death is a source of ineffable joy, “free from the bonds of this world.” “All things are filled with joy upon receiving the taste of resurrection.” The resurrection is an explosion “of great joy” and permeates the entire life, ethos and pastoral ministry of the church as the foretaste of the fullness of life, knowledge and life of the eternal kingdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Orthodox faith and pessimism are contradictory phenomena.
Pascha is for us a feast of freedom and victory over alienating forces; it is the churchification of our existence, an invitation to collaborate for the transfiguration of the world. The history of the Church is rendered “a great Pascha” as the journey toward “the liberation in glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8.21). The experience of resurrection reveals the center and eschatological dimension of freedom in Christ. Biblical references to the Savior’s resurrection demonstrate the power of our freedom as believers; it is in this freedom alone that the “great miracle” is manifested, which remains inaccessible to every oppression. “The mystery of salvation belongs to those who desire it freely, not to those who are tyrannized against their will.”[2] Accepting the divine gift as a “transition” of the believer toward Christ is the voluntary existential response to the loving and saving “transition” of the Risen Lord toward humankind. For “without me, you cannot do anything” (Jn 15.5).
The mystery of the Lord’s resurrection to this day continues to shatter the positivistic certainties of those who deny God as “the denial of human will,” as well as the advocates of “the fallacy of self-fulfillment without God” and the admirers of the contemporary “man-god.” The future does not belong to those imprisoned in a self-sufficient, stifling and narrow earthly existence. There is no authentic freedom without resurrection, without the perspective of eternity.
For the Holy Great Church of Christ, one source of such resurrectional joy is also found this year in the common celebration of Easter by the entire Christian world, along with the commemoration of the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, which condemned the heresy of Arius, who “diminished within the Trinity the one Son and Word of God,” and which established the way of calculating the date for the feast of our Savior’s resurrection.
The Council of Nicaea inaugurates a new age in the conciliar history of the Church, the transition from the local to the ecumenical synodal level. As we know, the First Ecumenical Council introduced the non-biblical term “homoousios (of one essence)” to the Symbol of Faith, albeit with a clear soteriological reference, which remains the essential characteristic of church doctrines. In this sense, the celebrations of this great anniversary are not a return to the past, inasmuch as the “spirit of Nicaea” exists unspoiled in the life of the Church, whose unity is associated with the correct understanding and development of its conciliar identity. Discussion on the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea reminds us of the common Christian archetypes and the meaning behind the struggle against the perversion of our spotless faith, encouraging us to turn toward the depth and essence of Church tradition. The joint celebration this year of the “most holy day of Pascha” highlights the timeliness of the subject, the solution of which not only expresses the respect of Christianity for the decrees of the Council of Nicaea, but also the awareness that “there should be no differentiation in such sacred matters.”
With these sentiments, filled with the light and joy of the Resurrection, while proclaiming “Christ is Risen!” with jubilation, let us honor the chosen and holy day of Pascha with a heartfelt confession of our faith in the Redeemer, who trampled down death by death and granted life to all people and all creation, through our faithfulness to the sacred traditions of the Great Church as well as through sincere love for our neighbor, for the glorification by us all of the heavenly name of the Lord.
At the Phanar, Holy Pascha 2025
+ Bartholomew of Constantinople
Fervent supplicant for you all
to the Risen Lord

https://www.acrod.org/diocesan-life/news/2024/mg-2025-paschal-archpastoral

Protocol No. 7/2025
To the Very Reverend Protopresbyters, Very Reverend and Reverend Fathers, and Faithful of our God-Protected Diocese:
                          CHRIST IS RISEN!                    INDEED HE IS RISEN!
“Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him…likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”      (Romans 6:9 - 11)
Today I greet you with great love and joy in the Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ following His glorious Resurrection.  On Great and Holy Pascha, we behold the triumph of Christ, as He rose from death to life, from darkness of the tomb into the Light.  With the Resurrection of Christ, all Creation is filled with a new Light of life and joy.  On this Feast of Feasts, this Holy Day of Holy Days, we all proclaim the only truth that matters, the Truth that Christ is Risen!
Through this Truth, we are liberated from the power of sin and death, to receive God’s promise to live in eternity.  We feel the inexpressible joy of being united with real life in Christ.  We are overwhelmed by the awesome love and tender mercy of our God, Who gave Himself up to suffering and death for our sake – yet that was not enough, for He also rose from the dead to give us new Life and eternal Hope.
If we truly open our hearts, if we allow ourselves to be illumined by the glorious Light of  Pascha, we too will receive the Resurrection in our own hearts and lives.  The message of the Resurrection is that we can be transformed, and that Pascha is a call to all mankind to live joyously, to be filled with jubilation and love for one another, our hearts overflowing with His Grace.  Therefore, let us rejoice and be glad in the Lord’s Pascha, the Feast Day of freedom, life and light.


 Personal Greetings:
On this Bright and Holy Feast,  I  extend my prayerful best wishes  to you,  the Clergy and Laity, Friends and Supporters of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.  May you truly experience the love, joy, and excitement of the early followers of Christ when they first saw Him after His Resurrection. Christ is Risen!
Working in the Risen Lord’s Vineyard with much love,

+Metropolitan Gregory of Nyssa

he journey to Pascha was truly sweet and joyful as it is every year. After the prayerful, contemplative and repentant period of the Great Fast the parish community gathered on the morning of Lazarus Saturday to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and processed with the Cross around the Church. Father Paul emphasized the beautiful foretaste of the Resurrection that this feast proclaims and reminded us all to embrace the joy of the feast. 

After the Lazarus Saturday Liturgy and a delicious agape meal of Fish Soup, the community gathered for what is likely to become our annual liturgical arts and crafts day.  This was an opportunity for participants to learn and practice seasonal arts from a variety of Orthodox cultures: palm weaving, decorate Easter eggs (pysanky / писа́нки) and bake Lazarakia.​