Christmas Greeting of Bishop of Kashira Iov Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in Canada

Christ is born! Let us glorify Him!

Christ is born! Let us glorify Him! – Христос Рождается! Славим Его!

Dear Fathers, Brothers and Sisters in the Lord!
In the Holy Eve, when the Bethlehem Star, that was lit up on the night sky more than 2000 years ago, becomes visible and all our churches fill up with Christmas singing, – I greet you with the miraculous winter Holiday of the Nativity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ!
This majestic event changed the life on earth! In complete silence, far from hustle and bustle of the world, far from the worldly power and worldly fantasies, in a humble Bethlehem Cave, God unperceivably endowed humankind with the greatest gift: He became a human Himself in order to save us! God came to us in order to make us Godlike!
By being born down here on our earth, Our Lord lifts us up to the Heavens, makes us sons of God and invites us to “immigrate” into a better country – to the Heavenly Kingdom! God became human in order to teach us to be – according to our own powers and abilities – like Him: to imitate His Love and always chose the path of the utmost humbleness and self-crucifixion for the sake of others, – that magnificent path, by which Christ had gone before us. There is nothing on our earth that is more elated and more important, loftier and brighter than that path!
Today – on the Day of His Nativity – Our True Lord Jesus Christ reminds us that we are His subjects, that He granted to us the Eternal Kingdom – Heavenly Jerusalem. “Our true Fatherland and our home is on Heavens”, – says Apostle Paul (2 Cor. 5:1). As the citizens of any country, who live far away from home, always recall it and are not able to forget, – thus Christians always remember that the Heavenly Jerusalem belongs to them. Even if we are almost integrated into this world and live by its interests, Christmas always reminds us that we have yet another and more important citizenship.
In the Great Holiday, when Our Church celebrates the Nativity of Its King, let everyone of us find our own Bethlehem Cave and with a heart bow enter it in order to find happiness and the fullness of life in the tender embraces of the Divine Infant, in communion with God and in singing with the chorus of Angels!
I wish to everyone a Merry, Bright Christmas, a blessed meeting with the Newborn Divine Infant, who will fill up our hearts with bless-giving peace, and in the future grant us a blessed life in His Eternal Kingdom.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

With prayerful wishes for God’s help in the New Year and with love in the Christ-Child,
+Iov (Job),
Bishop of Kashira,
Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes
of the Russian Orthodox Church in Canada

Feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ * 2016 * Edmonton