Pascha in the time of the “Corona Virus” Persecution of the Church

During the anti-christian persecution under the pretence of the corona virus pandemic, the feast of feasts, the Resurrection of Christ, was celebrated at Uteshiteljevo.

The festive services could only be attended by those who had been staying at the monastery during the 90 hour lockdown ordered by the anti-christian authorities in order to prevent the national celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. As the capacity for a several-day-long stay at the monastery is quite modest, only about twenty people were able to attend the festive divine services.

On the previous weekend on Palm Sunday, the police had come to the monastery during the Holy Liturgy and demanded the personal info of all those present at the Holy Liturgy. Therefore Holy Friday, Holy Saturday and Pascha itself were celebrated in uncertainty as to whether a police patrol would show up and again disturb the peace and holiness of the services, and that our bishop, priest and faithful would be again obliged to show their personal documents, as if they were being caught in some criminal act.

Nonetheless, by the mercy of God, the festive services took place without disturbance by the police, with great, grace-filled radiance of all of those present.

In his sermon, His Grace Bishop Akakije mentioned that this great festive grace and joy were nonetheless, unfortunately, accompanied by a bitter feeling knowing that the majority of Serbs’ ability to celebrate this feast of feast in their churches, with their clergy, has been curtailed. For this reason he asked all of us to pray for all of our Orthodox brothers and sisters who have been forced into confinement in their houses, that the Lord grant them grace-filled Paschal comfort in their homes which have been turned into prisons for Christians world-wide.

His Grace defined the “Corona virus” persecution of Christians as demonic hypocrisy, which under the pretence of “philanthropic” concern for people’s health is closing churches and preventing the faithful to participate in the services, and in this way suspending the celebration of the Christian Pascha.

Bishop Akakije compared this situation with one in the beginning of the 20^th century, the artificially created famine in the Bolshevik satanocracy of the Soviet Union, which Lenin’s god-fighters, directed by Trotsky, used as an excuse to pillage all of the treasures from the churches as a supposed humanitarian aid to the millions who were starving to death. At that time, the bishops, clergy, monastics and believers in Russia were annihilated in the most brutal persecutions, being declared enemies of society as they “opposed fighting the famine.” At that time, Lenin cynically declared, “Let the priests feed the hungry, because they are Christians, they are generous. If they refuse, we will put the blame for the famine on them, and then we will destroy them.” 

After the Paschal Matins and Liturgy, while the first light of dawn was breaking through the night, with the joyful singing of many birds, the faithful enjoyed the meal of love with the traditional cracking of Pascha eggs and joyous shouts of “Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!”  

CHRIST IS RISEN

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