Serbian True
Orthodox Church
Nativity Encyclical
2014
Hierarchical
Council of the STOC
Under the
Presidency of His Grace Akakije
Bishop of
Uteshiteljevo
To All the Faithful
Children of St. Sava’s Church
Congratulations on
the great and joyous feastday of the Birth of Christ:
CHRIST IS BORN!
GLORIFY HIM!
But
when the fullness of the time was come,
God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made
under the law, to redeem them that were
under
the law, that we might receive
the adoption of sons.
(Gal. 4:4-5)
At the very beginning of mankind’s
existence, only Adam and Eve, the first-created people, lived in Paradise. They were especially blessed by direct
fellowship with their Creator and God, Who communed with them as Father with
His beloved children.
For all of Creation, surely there is
no greater blessedness or greater joy than to delight in looking upon its
Creator and communing with Him directly.
Alas, the fall of our first parents into sin with the breaking of God’s
commandments resulted in the human race falling out of communion with God, for
sin was like a sharp dividing stone that stood between Man and God. After that first blessedness, Man fell into a
state of miserable apostasy.