The Serbian True Orthodox Church
Paschal Encyclical 2026
Hierarchical Council of the STOC
Let God arise, and let His enemies be
scattered.
-Ps 67:1
With Christ's descent into Hades, the gates of hell were shattered, and the bonds of death were broken. The risen Lord trampled death by His death, granting us a life that does not end in the grave. Not only that, He not only conquered physical death but also spiritual death by destroying the very power of the devil over humanity, for it is written: "Blessed and holy is he who has a part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power" (Revelation 20:6). For there are two lives and two deaths: the first life is temporary and physical due to the transgression of divine commandments, while the second is eternal life promised to the saints for keeping God's commandments. In accordance with this, there are two kinds of death: one is physical and temporary, and the other is the one given in the future as a punishment for sins, eternal. Therefore, the meaning of these words is as follows: one should not fear the second death if the one who has lived here on earth lived in Christ Jesus. After the first (i.e., physical) death, this person will come before Him fervently believing in Him and will be blessed by Him.
This victory over hell is the key to understanding our era. While the contemporary pseudo-Christian world, ensnared in the deceptions of Christian Zionism and Judaizing ecumenism, collaborates in the attempt to establish a global earthly kingdom through financial and political dominance of Judaism by creating a Greater Israel and rebuilding the Third Temple, we confess that the true Israel is solely the Holy Orthodox Church and that the only true renewal of the temple is the Resurrection of the Body of Christ.
According to Orthodox teaching, the Body of Christ is the true New Temple which replaced the Old Testament building in Jerusalem, as the Lord Himself confirmed when He said that after three days the temple of His body would be rebuilt (Jn. 2:19).
As the place where God truly dwells, the glorified Body of the Risen God-Man becomes the new center of worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23), while the Church itself, as His spiritual Body, grows into the living New Jerusalem. Saint Simeon the New Theologian states: “The Church of Christ is the New Jerusalem, the holy city which descends from heaven, from God... It is built from all the Saints as living stones, and God dwells in it. That city is the Body of Christ, which through the Holy Spirit is constructed from the faithful of all times, who are united with Him in one faith and one love, becoming one Temple and one Body.”
In this sacramental reality, the temple is no longer a stone building, but the God-man Himself and the community of the faithful united with Him through Holy Communion. Such an image is confirmed in Revelation where the Lamb of God is described as the one and final temple (Rev 21:22).
Every attempt by the Jews to assert their full dominion over the Holy Land and to establish their own temple is nothing but a continuation of their godliness in denying the fact that Christ as the Son of God became incarnate, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and established His eternal Kingdom with no end.
Christ descended into the deepest abysses of hell to destroy hell's power over the whole world, and today we see Him as the conqueror of hell standing once again against the same force that is rising in the Middle East. His Resurrection is the assurance that the kingdom of the Antichrist is already doomed to defeat. Just as darkness disappears before the light of dawn, so too will all the schemes of those who prepare the kingdom of the false Messiah vanish before the power of the Risen Lord. We do not fear the last times, great wars, sufferings, deceptions, apostasy, nor the earthly tyranny of the Antichrist. We fear none of those things because through Baptism and faith in the Risen Christ, we have already become participants in that Victory over evil which has swallowed even death itself and hell itself.
We react to eschatological events in the Holy Land just as Saint Cyril of Jerusalem reacted at the time of the forerunner of the Antichrist, Julian the Apostate. Like St. Cyril, we fervently pray that the Lord will prevent the completion of the eschatological process of establishing the Antichrist's state of Israel and the reconstruction of Solomon's Temple. Such a reconstruction would be yet another attempt to refute Christ's prophecy of the permanent exile of the Jews and the permanent destruction of the temple. Recalling Saint Cyril's prayers, which brough fire from the earth which stopped that godless construction, so today we, True Orthodox Christians, pray before the Lord for the same thing: 'Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.'
We are not possessed by fear of the Jews, for this too disappeared with the descent of the Comforter upon the Holy Apostles. We do not see the greatest danger to the souls of faithful Christians in anti-Christian persecutions from outside, but in the cunning deception of those who call themselves Christians and even Orthodox. The official Ecumenical Patriarchates, deeply immersed in heresy, today openly practice Judean ecumenism. By ecumenical flattery, by praying together to the Jews in the synagogues, lighting candles on their menorahs, these false shepherds thereby directly renounce Christ, His death by crucifixion, His resurrection from the dead, and His ascension to the right hand of the Father. Therefore, Judaizing Christians do not lead their followers to Christ, but, on the contrary, to the Antichrist.
These Judaizers ignore the words of St. John Chrysostom, who clearly testified that the Jewish people, because of their refusal to accept Christ, are cursed, which is symbolized by the cursing of the leafy but fruitless fig tree. The Jewish people had "leaves": the law, the prophets, the outward ritual, but they did not bring the expected "fruit" of faith that the Messiah had come. "That there may never again be fruit from you for ever! And immediately the fig tree withered" (Matthew 21:18-22 and Mt. 11:12-14, 20-25). This curse took place on the road to Jerusalem just before His sufferings and death by crucifixion (Holy Monday). The Fathers of the Church also assert that the Jewish people are forever deprived of all the promises of God, the promised land, the temple, the priesthood, and their emperor.
It is with disgust that we observe the emergence of western “Christian Zionists”, who, led buy benighted political figures like Donal Trump, have become a deadly weapon in the hands of the god-haters. These deluded people are ready to send hundreds of thousands of Christians to war for the antichrist state of Israel’s interests, which are diametrically opposed to the Gospel. They believe that by supporting Israel and the construction of the Third Temple that they are serving God, while in fact they are serving the devil.
The godless spirit of the Jews is reaching its zenith in our time. Israeli officials no longer hide their intentions: they openly speak of the coming of their “messiah.” We, however, know that the one they await is not Christ, but the antichrist, who will come in the name of Satan to deceive and subjugate all the peoples of the earth.
Saint Hippolytus of Rome, the great interpreter of prophecies, already in the 3rd century warned that the Antichrist would come from the Jews and would reign in Jerusalem, seeking to restore the Jewish kingdom (Greater Israel) in order to present himself as the Messiah. Also, Saint Ephrem the Syrian testifies that the Antichrist will particularly “love the Jewish people” because they will be his chosen and most loyal army in the war against Christ.
Likewise, the blessed Theodoret of Cyrrhus reminds us that the Jews, having rejected the true Son of God, made themselves susceptible to every deception of the devil. Therefore, today's wars and plans for the Third Temple must be understood as the return of the same spirit that cried, 'Crucify Him!'.
Saint Gregory of Omiritis, who in his famous dispute with the Jewish scholar Erwan exposed the stubbornness of their hearts, clearly testified that Jewish blindness is a punishment for their voluntary war against God. He steadfastly asserted that they, having rejected Christ as their Messiah, no longer have the right to be called the people of God, but have become a people wandering in darkness, led by the demonic spirit of hatred toward the Truth.
The same Gregory taught that their hope in the earthly restoration of the Jewish state and the Temple is nothing but a demonic delusion. According to him, those who do not recognize the Risen Christ as King, but await an earthly ruler, are in fact waiting for the devil himself. Therefore, the current efforts of the ecumenists to reconcile with this spirit through a 'dialogue of love' represent a betrayal of the Patristic confession that Saint Gregory sealed with his victory by which many Jews converted from Judaism to Christianity. We, the True Orthodox, stand on that very rampart of faith, knowing that the Light of the Resurrection and the darkness of Jewish godlessness cannot be reconciled. Our faithfulness to the Risen Christ obliges us to complete separation from this utmost darkness, 'for what partnership has light with darkness?' (2 Cor. 6:14).
Armed with the Paschal light, we know that the mystery of iniquity is today at its peak, but we also know about the possibility of restraining and pushing it back, as in the time of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem. We know, furthermore, of its final defeat at the Second Coming of Christ. Just as the Risen Lord in His descent into Hades defeated and bound the prince of this world, so at the Second Coming He will, "with the breath of His mouth" (2 Thess. 2:8), completely and finally destroy all satanic power and cast into Hades his anointed one, the Antichrist, along with their entire earthly kingdom.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, while the world writhes around the eschatological conflict in the Middle East, and the godless spirit tries to establish its temporary kingdom on crimes and deceit, we are not afraid. Let them toil to raise the walls of the Third Temple, let the ecumenists light Jewish menorahs, and let the Zionist powers draw maps of the new world order of the Antichrist – all of this is are futile blows against the Invincible. Our gaze is fixed on the Risen Lord, before whose face every devilish and earthly power turns to dust.
We, the True Orthodox, remain on guard in protection of the apostolic and fatherly faith, aware that our victory has already been won in the Tomb of Jerusalem. Let all clouds of the Antichrist's lies disperse, for the Sun of Righteousness already shines. Let us keep our souls pure, and our hearts in Paschal joy, loudly, before everyone, joyfully and victoriously crying:
Christ is Risen!
Your Prayerful Intercessors before the
Risen Lord
+Akakije, Bishop of Uteshiteljevo
+Nektarije, Bishop of Shumadia
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