We are an American Orthodox parish in the Diocese of the West of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) and our services are entirely in English. A growing Christian community of people from various backgrounds, we share a common commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ, to each other and to the Apostolic Faith. Most of us, more than 95% of us, are Orthodox converts, and we warmly welcome families, couples and all those looking for a deeper experience of the salvation offered in Christ our God. Is there a meeting of Heaven and earth? Come and see.
The view from our new cross, looking toward the Columbia River estuary.
And with Christ, man’s nature ascends also.
“We who seemed unworthy of the earth, are now raised to heaven,” says Saint John Chrysostom.
“The terrible ascent....” Terror-stricken and trembling stand the angelic hosts, contemplating the Ascension of Christ. And trembling they ask each other, “What is this vision? One who is man in appearance ascends in His body higher than the heavens, as God.”
Thus the Office for the Feast of the Ascension depicts the mystery in a poetical language. As on the day of Christ’s Nativity the earth was astonished on beholding God in the flesh, so now the Heavens do tremble and cry out...
—V Rev Georges Florovsky, DD, on the Orthodox Church in America website, oca.org
CHRIST'S RESURRECTION TRANSCENDS TIME AND SPACE: "...(the) Resurrection, a power that cannot be contained by time or place. The Pascha of the Lord is not an event like other events, one more link in a chain of causality or knot in a string of happenstance. Through Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, divine eternity breaks into time; mortality encounters life everlasting. Christ’s Pascha is not just the resurrection of the dead at the end; it is the end of time itself. In the light of Pascha, all other events are bathed in the endless radiance of the unceasing and immeasurable age to come."
To the clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Orthodox Church in America, beloved in the Lord:
Christ is risen! Indeed he is risen!
A week ago (NOTE: on Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday), we heard the holy Martha (NOTE: the sister of Lazarus, who had recently passed away) express her faith in the resurrection of the dead when she said: “I know that my brother will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24). But our Lord replied to her, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” and that very day he called Lazarus forth from the tomb (John 11:25, 43–44).
He did this by the power of his third-day Resurrection, a power that cannot be contained by time or place. The Pascha of the Lord (NOTE: Pascha GREEK, from Pesach HEBREW: Passover, Easter) is not an event like other events, one more link in a chain of causality or knot in a string of happenstance. Through Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, divine eternity breaks into time; mortality encounters life everlasting. Christ’s Pascha is not just the resurrection of the dead at the end; it is the end of time itself. In the light of Pascha, all other events are bathed in the endless radiance of the unceasing and immeasurable age to come.
The uncontainable, all-encompassing power of the Lord’s Resurrection is reflected in the way that we celebrate the Paschal event. There is one day a year we call Pascha. And yet, all of Bright Week (NOTE: the week following Pascha, Easter) is also considered one day, a single celebration of Pascha. Then again, the feast actually continues until its Leavetaking on the eve of the Ascension (NOTE: in forty days, May 20). And even after that, we renew our Paschal celebration each Sunday, adorning our weekly observance of the Lord’s Day with a grand cycle of hymns in honor of the Resurrection.
Liturgically (NOTE: in our worship), then, we see that Pascha cannot be contained; its power cannot be circumscribed by a single day or even a whole season. This is also true in each of our lives. Christ is risen, and therefore each and every moment offers us the possibility of a new beginning. By the power of Christ’s Pascha, our entire life becomes a continuous opportunity to renew ourselves, to start again.
This means that the joy of this Paschal morning, the rejoicing we experience when we discover the empty tomb in the deep dawn, need never cease. Yes, Martha was right: the Lord will raise us up on the last day. But he is also ready to raise us up today, tomorrow, and every day of our lives. He suffered the consequences of our sin on the Cross so that he might free us from our bondage to its power. The joy of liberation need not come only at the end, or only once a year: Christ’s Pascha is with us always, in our hearts and in our lives.
It is my prayer that this experience of Pascha remain with each of you throughout this week, throughout these forty joyous days of celebration (NOTE: until the Ascension of the Lord, May 20) and throughout all the days of your life. I pray that, finding joy in his victory, you may experience that victory again and again each time you turn back to him and start anew. If we remain faithful to him—not by our instant moral perfection, but by our steadfast repentance and willingness always to begin again—he who is called Faithful and True will surely remain faithful to us, and we will know the happiness and power of his Pascha both now and throughout the age to come (Revelation 19:11; cf. 2 Timothy 2:12–3).
To him who passed through the darkness of hell in order to lift us up to the unfading light of his heavenly kingdom, henceforth and always, Christ our true God, the Paschal Lamb who lives forever, be all glory and adoration, together with his Father and his All-holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.
Christ is risen! Indeed he is risen!
Yours in the Risen Christ,
+ TIKHON
Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada
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