My beloved brethren and children in Christ,

“I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again” (John 10:18). Thus spoke our Saviour to the Jewish people before He came to His Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. As Saint John Chrysostom points out, even when our Saviour died, “He died with power,” and this too is why the Roman centurion believed; for the Holy Scriptures record:

When the centurion, who stood over against Him, saw that He so cried out and gave up the Spirit, he said, “Truly this man was the the Son of God.”

In their cruelty, the Romans had devised crucifixion as the most inhuman means of execution. They had perfected it to be the most barbarous, disgraceful, agonizing and prolonged means of killing a person. Essentially, the victim was positioned hanging on the cross with knees bent, so that he could breathe only with the greatest difficulty and would die slowly of asphyxiation. As John Zigavenos, a twelfth century commentator on the Holy Scriptures writes: “Tormented by the anguish of the nails, He cried out: ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God , My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’”

And Zigavenos continues: “Even as He had become man in truth, so too was He crucified in very truth and not in phantasy. For He would not have cried out thus were He not in anguish.” Despite this, as the Blessed Theophylact points out, “He died as Lord, and not as a common man”; indeed, He died with the words of the Holy Scriptures on His lips, instructing His people even at that dread moment. For these very words are the first words of the 21^st Psalm (Septuagint), one of the songs of David that foreshadows our Saviour’s Passion:

My God, my God, attend to me; why hast Thou forsaken me?

And further on, the Psalm continues:

All that look upon me have laughed me to scorn; they have spoken with their lips and have wagged their heads:

He hoped in the Lord; let Him deliver him, let Him save him, for He desireth him. . . .

For many dogs have encircled me, the congregation of evil doers hath surrounded me; they have pierced my hands and my feet.

They have numbered all my bones, and they themselves have looked and stared upon me.

They have parted my garments amongst themselves, and for my vesture have they cast lots.

Indeed, our Saviour was not only reminding all how the words of the Prophets were fulfilled in Him, in His Passion and Crucifixion; by this same Psalm, He was also foretelling His raising of the dead and the spread of His holy Gospel throughout the whole world:

All the ends of the earth shall remember and shall turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him.

For the kingdom is the Lord's and He Himself is sovereign of the nations . . . .

All they that go down into the earth shall fall down before Him.

The generation that cometh shall be told of the Lord, and they shall proclaim His righteousness to a people that shall be born, which the Lord hath made.

Furthermore, when the leaders of the Jewish people taunted him with the words, If He be the King of Israel, let Him come down now from the cross (Matt. 27:42), our Saviour again demonstrated that He died with power. For, as Saint John Chrysostom says, without even coming down from the Cross, He rent the rocks asunder, shook the earth, darkened the sun, tore the veil of the Temple, and raised the dead from the tombs!

Truly, this was the Son of God.

And this is why we are Orthodox Christians, my beloved. Only He had the power to lay down His life, and the power to take it up again. No one, neither of the spiritual guides God gave to His ancient people Israel, nor anyone of the philosophers and religious leaders of the fallen nations, ever arose from the dead: neither Moses or any of the Prophets, nor Plato, nor Aristotle, nor Buddha, nor Confucius, nor Mohammed no one, except our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

To Him, therefore, let us offer adoration, glory, honor, and dominion, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Pascha 2000                         Your fervent suppliant unto God ,

Protocol Number 1810                        X Ephraim, Metropolitan of Boston