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.