the Annunciation to the most Holy Theotokos – the event that ushered in a new era in human history and formed the basis of a very big change, said the Patriarch.
– by the Way, today we often hear the word “crisis” – people use this word, not always knowing its intended purpose and meaning. A crisis is a change; in antiquity, the word meant a change. Not necessarily for the worst, – he stressed.
He noted that today, many “full of fear for their lives, their health”, and these fears of course, there are reasons. “Around the world, spreading a terrible infection, and it covers not individual regions or countries, and indeed the entire universe. This is a global attack, which in history was not. The most terrible epidemic smote the people, great and small, and even continents, but the world always remained a life-saving place, where there was a guarantee not to get sick and not die. Today, these places almost no, because we – in the face of global infections,” – said the Patriarch.
Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the Annunciation
He believes that “we all need to think very seriously what the meaning of this universal attack, a disease from which no escape?”
– God sends disease as punishment or correction, and sometimes the two are connected. It is very important that this disease, this fear of death was to all of us in a fix, – the Patriarch said. – We are, after all, needs to realize the truth, which is obvious for a person living according to the laws of faith, but it is not obvious to unbelievers. Now the hour to think about! What is this truth? But the truth is that God is the Creator of the world, and It determines human destiny.
In the late nineteenth century, the whole XX century and early XXI century, the tremendous development of science led to statementsth autonomy of the person, including God. “We all can, we are great and strong, we are in the center of the world, people in the center of being! Man – it sounds proudly”, and “there is No other force that would be in the centre of being.
But anthropocentric civilization, said the Patriarch, makes a terrible mistake. Because man is a transient phenomenon. He’s changing tastes, morals, customs, beliefs, even a system of moral values, and this variability is not provided neither spiritual succession of generations, nor the integrity of human life. But God is immutable, It is the absolute truth, the absolute truth. “And if It is in the center of human existence, the task of man… to accept Him in your heart and in your mind and through this become a new man, living according to God’s law, and ustrojowe life under this law,” – said the Patriarch.
the Annunciation: the main lesson of the holiday in the year 2020
Called to remember that “crisis is a change, and it depends on us whether it’s a change for better or for worse”, he called in difficult circumstances instead of panicking and losing the human image to go to God. “Even if the difficult circumstances of life will not lead us to God if we once again lose the chance to become the people of God, then we fall under the power of the people is changeable, which today formulate the same values, ideas, tomorrow – others, and very often start to suppress their neighbors to only those values and ideas they proclaim have become the values and ideas of all the others,” he said.
to change was for the better, we must remember that God created man, and in the center of a person’s life should be God with His law is righteous, infallible, the law, the execution of which results indit man to true happiness. Not only in his personal, hidden from other life, but in the construction of social relations, relations between man and nature, between man and cosmos. If the center is God, nothing gives a person the right to destroy the world around him, said the Patriarch, namely, the consequence of this destruction are disasters, epidemics, and personal and public misfortune.
the crisis, the disease is a chance for us to open heart and mind towards God, he said. According to him, we must pray and, concentrating his will and strength, try to do everything in order not to facilitate the spread of infection and avoid causing harm to themselves and others. “Then we can all come out of this ordeal completely different – with strong faith and with a clear understanding that God is Lord of history.”
