With this greeting, I wish to announce to each of you in our Eparchy of Bratislava, on this Sunday of Pascha, the most joyful news that humanity has ever heard: "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; that He was buried; and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Cor 15:3–4). These words of the Holy Apostle Paul are even more familiar to us Greek Catholics from the Troparion of Pascha: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." At the very beginning of the Paschal Matins, we hear the priest sing this troparion outside before the closed doors of the church, and then we sing it many times throughout the forty days of Pascha.

Why do we need to repeat these words so often? So that we do not forget, and so that we do not believe this world, which says that everything ends with death and that our lives have no meaning. The truth about the risen Christ, who by His death conquered death and granted us eternal life, is ignored and rejected by this world. Even many Christians have believed the lie of the world, having ceased to believe that Christ has given them a new eternal life that will never end.

The society in which we live tries to prove to man that death does not exist. During my ministry in the United States, I attended funerals. When I first entered a local funeral home, I was stunned. I thought I had made a mistake and walked into someone’s living room. The effort to ensure that no one noticed the grief and sorrow of the loved ones—and to turn the funeral rites into a literally pleasant experience—was far too glaring. The face of the deceased usually had heavy makeup to hide the effects of death. The secular world has created its own religion, its own doctrine, eschatology, and ethics. It justifies this by saying that it works and "helps" the individual cope with death.

However, for one who believes in Jesus Christ, the criterion is not whether something "helps." The criterion of the Christian faith is truth. The mission of Christianity is not to help people come to terms with death, but to reveal to them the truth about death and life. Jesus Christ Himself is that Truth and Life. He alone provides the answer to the question of eternal death by offering His life for our lives out of love for us, dying on the Cross, and thereby destroying the power of death. The tomb is empty. God shows His power in fullness, and the lie of the devil is exposed and destroyed. By His own death, Christ changed the very nature of death and made it a pascha—a passage from death to life—transforming the greatest tragedy into the ultimate victory of life. Today we celebrate Christ's Resurrection, and He makes us participants in His Resurrection. Today we celebrate our freedom, which we received freely. Today we celebrate our passage from death to life, a passage that took place in our baptism. For by immersion into the waters of baptism, we died to this world with Christ and accepted the calling to die daily to our self, our lusts, and our sins.

I encourage you to this, dear brothers and sisters. Let us not be afraid to be joyful witnesses of the risen Christ in this world. Let the light of Christ shine within us. Let us pray for peace in Slovakia and in the world, and for the end of all senseless wars that cause suffering to hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Let us live our lives with Christ and in Christ, so that with Saint Paul we may cry out: "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Phil 1:21).

Dear brothers and sisters, on this wonderful occasion, together with Bishop Peter, I wish to express great gratitude for your spiritual and material support of our Church, our Eparchy, our priests, and their families. From our hearts, we pray for blessed and joyful feasts of the Pascha of Christ for you and your loved ones, and we bless you.

Bishop Milan – Eparchial Bishop of Bratislava
Bishop Peter – Emeritus Eparchial Bishop of Bratislava