CHURCH OF THE GENUINE
ORTHODOX
CHRISTIANS OF GREECE
HOLY
THEOPHANY 2026
FESTAL MESSAGE
OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF ATHENS AND ALL OF
GREECE
“Light of Light, Christ our
God shone in the world,
God revealed; all peoples worship Him”. 1
Dearly
beloved children in Christ,
The Grace of
the Holy Spirit has gathered us on this illuminated day to celebrate together
the holy Theophany or Epiphany, that Dominical Feast Day of the Baptism of our Lord Jesus
Christ by the Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John in the Jordan River.
During that
period of God’s earthly presence on earth, Saint John the Forerunner, through
the command of God, called people to repentance and baptised them in water. In
fact, he sought fruits worthy of true repentance, threatening using the metaphor
of every tree which does not bear fruit will be ut down and thrown into the fire.
He emphasised that the one Who will come after him, which is Christ, will baptise
with “the Holy Spirit and fire” 2 .
Christ also
came to John and was baptised by him, that is, He was immersed in water. When
Having been baptised, He immediately rose up from the water, being sinless;
then the heavens were opened to him and John beheld the Spirit of God descending
like a dove and coming upon Him, while there came a voice from Heaven which
said that, This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. 3
Through the
Incarnation of the Son and Word of God, our nature was renewed. Through Baptism
(which was handed down to us by Christ himself through his baptism) each
individual's personhood (hypostasis) is renewed. Great indeed is the Mystery
of the Baptism of Jesus Christ, which likewise revealed the mystery of the Most
Holy and Life-Creating Trinity. Also, great is the Mystery of holy Baptism which
is offered in His Church, for this is the gate of the Heavens where those who
are baptised enter.
Provided
that, one follows a life of repentance, adherence to all of God’s commandments,
having Love as the crown of virtues, and partaking of the Body and Blood of
Christ. These are what Christ Himself has handed down to us, and upon these
hangs our salvation, upon these do we bear fruits and upon these the Divine Oikonomia
recapitulated 4 , that is, the Will of God for the salvation of man and the entire
world.
Dearly
beloved children in Christ,
As has been
previously stated, during the Baptism of our Lord, the heavens opened. This
shows, as Saint Cyril of Alexandria highlights, that there now exists one
flock, the heavenly and the terrestrial, that is, the angels and human beings,
with only one Arch-Shepherd: Christ 5 . As the prayers declare in today’s
service of the Great Blessing of the Waters, that today and always for the
flock of Christ - which is His One Church: His Body - which He alone is the
Head, the “things on high celebrate together with things below, and
things below converse with things on high” 6 .
It is this
unity which for twenty centuries now that the adversary of the salvation of mankind
- the devil - frantically wars against. First and foremost, he endeavours through
schisms and heresies to cut and distance man from the Body of Christ: the Church,
so that his salvation is nullified. As the ruler of this world, he pushes humanity
to complete apostasy from God and life decisions that conflict with His salvific
will.
We live in an
age or rather in a disoriented world which is characterised on all levels by
confusion, uncertainty, relativism, syncretism, entitlement, corruption and perversion.
In such a world, which inevitably influences everyone and everything, in order
to not be deceived, we must: know who we are; where we are headed; what is our
destination; have clear opinions on all matters; and tread on a safe path.
The
criterion, measure and authority for all the above cannot be anything else or rather
anyone else other than One Who is “the way, the truth, and the life”
7 , the incarnate Son and Word of God, the Theanthropos (or God-Man) Jesus
Christ and only Saviour of the world. The One Who - according to His promise -
is and will be with us through His Church “even to the end of the age”
8 ! Provided that we remain united with Him being Her [the Church’s] members,
that is, as members of His Body!
Dearly
beloved children in Christ,
We must not
silence the fact that although today, while “the sacred and grandiloquent
festival of the Orthodox is glad,” 9 the majority of our Greek fellow citizens
have shunned their ancestral piety. In fact, the governing Church of the Greek
people in its recent decision, blasphemed against the Mysteries/Sacraments of
the Orthodox declaring that they are supposedly devoid of validity and
canonicity and considered as not having been performed 10 . At the same
time through its [i.e. the governing Church of Greece] equation with the
nucleus of Ecumenism, which is the Vaticanized Phanar [the Patriarchate of
Constantinople], it recognizes Apostolic Succession and sacraments in the
heresy of Papism, with which (as it has just been recently declared in deed
and word) it already has partial communion, urgently pursuing complete
unification! 11
Of course,
the little flock of Orthodox and its Shepherds are not perturbed by this indirect
form of persecution, as it is imposed due to the machinations by worldly authorities
and their refusal to register the Sacraments of the Orthodox in the State Registry
Offices. By God’s Grace, the validity of the Sacraments stems from the preservation
of the Orthodox Faith and Confession and the canonical continuity of Apostolic
Succession.
Although we
may be humble and unworthy, the Holy Fathers and Heaven itself console and
strengthen us. Though we are accused of supposedly being disobedient and
schismatics, on account of rejecting the imposition of the papal calendar Innovation
(it being the forerunner of anti-Christ Ecumenism, which is a pan-heresy per
se), we believe, as Saint Gregory of Nyssa points out, that by persisting in ansestral
piety, we tear ourselves from heresy and sew ourselves once and for all upon
the fabric of godly faith, seeing in this way the sacred Robe of the Church
intact in so far as it is disconnected from communion with heresy! 12
Finally, we
glorify the Triune God with gratitude, for, in addition to His many other benefactions,
He also granted us with a heavenly confirmation the sacredness of the struggle
for piety. Just as the star in the Nativity of Christ and the Heavens
in His Baptism became heralds, which like global and other-worldly mouths
declared the divinity of Christ 13 , in the same way, and in keeping
with such analogies, the Sign of Christ i.e. His Holy Cross, which appeared in
1925 during the night sky of Attica which saturated the church gathering of
over two thousand of persecuted Orthodox Christians, bore heavenly witness and
validated their stance and Confession to be God-pleasing.
It is in
their footprints that we tread and will follow, God willing, until our last
breath.
May the Grace
of the incarnated God who has been revealed to the world, always be with you!
With
blessings,
+ THE
ARCHBISHOP OF ATHENS
STEPHANOS
1 Verse from the Doxology of the Theophany
2 Cf. Matthew 3:11
3 Matthew 3:16-17
4 Gregory Palamas, Homilies 59 & 60 ,
EPE vol. 11. [in Greek]
5 P. N. Trembelas, Notes on the Gospel of Luke,
Athens 1958, p. 138.
6 Service of the Great Blessing of the Waters,
The Great Euhologion.
7 John 14:6
8 Matthew 28:20
9 From the Service of the Great Blessing of the
Waters.
10 Document of the “Holy Synod of the Church of
Greece”, Protocol No. 2877/9.12.2025.
11 The common Declaration of the Ecumenical
Patriarch and Pope Leo, 29.11.2025, Website “The Light of the Phanar”.
https://fosfanariou.gr/index.php/2025/11/29/koini-dilosi-ecum-patr-kai-papa-leonta-se-9-glosses/
12 “In tearing away from heresy, we are sewn
forever upon godly piety”; and “then indissolubly” we see the robe of the
Church, when it is detached from communion with heresy…”. Saint Gregory of
Nyssa (Homily 7, On Ecclesiastes, EPE 6, 485, Migne PG vol. 44, column
725D-728A).
13 Saint Gregory Palamas, op.cit.
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