Let Us Worship Him with the Wise Men

Nativity Epistle of His Eminence Hilarion,
Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York,
First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad

NEW YORK: Nativity of Christ 2021/2022

With deep joy I greet the Most Rev­erend brethren-arch­pas­tors, most hon­or­able fathers, monas­tics, parish­ioners and faith­ful of our church­es scat­tered through­out the whole world with the Feasts of the Nativ­i­ty of Christ, the Bap­tist of the Lord, and the New Year! May the Lord send us all joy in the com­ing of the Son of God into the world. The ascetic strug­gle of faith and its fruit in our days must also bring forth in us joy from the hear­ing of the angel­ic dox­ol­o­gy and from the tri­umph of the Incar­na­tion of the Word of God.

The pass­ing year was for many of us a heavy and grief-filled one, but it also con­tained diverse bless­ings and gifts, for which it behooves us to lift up grat­i­tude to our Bene­fac­tor. We have reached this fes­tal time because the Prov­i­dence of God has not aban­doned us. If we have suc­ceed­ed until now to car­ry the respon­si­bil­i­ties laid upon us, this is only because the Lord Him­self gave us health, strength, food, drink, cloth­ing — and togeth­er with these, has poured out upon us His help and patience for the jour­ney through the path of our life.  But even beyond this, how much is impart­ed to us by the grace-filled Gifts of the Mys­ter­ies of the Church, in fast­ing and prayer, and in the mys­ti­cal life of the Church!

These holy days always arouse in a faith­ful heart feel­ings of love and grat­i­tude. Let us also in these days lift up our thank­ful­ness to God, let us bring our love to Him and our neigh­bors, and bring our Christ­mas gift to the tem­ple, in which we are grant­ed a won­der­ful, per­son­al meet­ing with Christ and salvif­ic com­mu­nion with Him. Let us open our hearts, dear fathers, broth­ers, and sis­ters; let us receive the Son of God who has come into the world, let us wor­ship Him with the wise men and rejoice in His love and mer­cy toward us.

Amen.

+Hilar­i­on,
Met­ro­pol­i­tan of East­ern Amer­i­ca and New York
First Hier­ar­ch of the Russ­ian Church Abroad