Ortodoxy

Njegova Svetost Patrijarh Srpski Gospodin Pavle

     If my Serbian Orthodox people (as well as the other Christians), want to live as people, in a dignified and righteous manner, on this planet made by God and then cursed (1. Mozes 1.1; 3.17-19), they must immediately 'come to themselves' and return to their origin: to their living and everlasting God, to their Church. Without that we have no future! Return to the living God and to the holy Orthodoxy is a contemporary imperative for every orthodox Christian, for every orthodox home, institution or society...

     What is the meaning of returning to God and Orthodoxy?

     According to the Holy Scriptures that is living in: 1. Holy faith (Orthodoxy); 2. Holy virtue; 3. Holy knowledge; 4. Holy abstinence; 5. Holy suffering; 6. Holy piousness; 7. Holy brotherhood in which Christian love rein (2. Peter 1.5-7); 8. Holy charity.

     All that together make a man noble, much better and more perfect, return him to God and to himself! The man is 'spiritually newborn' that way; he becomes the Son of God, and then the heir of God in this and in the next life, as well as the inhabitant of the heaven. It is said: 'What an eye did not see and an ear did not hear, and what did not reach a man's heart, that God prepared for those who loved them'. (1. the Kor. 2.9).

     Every man (especially a Christian) can and should obey all this, in this life, on condition that he 'get to know the Son of God' (Ef. 4.22-24); and equip themself in 'allarm of God': Truth, Justice, Peace, Word of God, Prayer...(Ef. 6.10-19).

     That is the way that the Bible recommends to the earthly wanderers like us, to return to God and to Orthodoxy. That is the only guarantee that we are going to live this life in a human and Christian manner, no matter of time, place or society. That is the best way to prepare ourselves for the eternal life in Heaven, where we are going to live peacefully!

     On the Transfiguration, 1998.