On 13 May the head of the Central Asian Metropolitan District, Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, led the festal Paschal service in our church.
Concelebrating with him were: the dean of the Samarkand Deanery, Archpriest Roman Zagrebelny; the rector of Saint Alexius Cathedral, Priest Igor Babakov; Priest Timofey Fishelev; Priest Vladimir Matveev; Priest Oleg Lin; Deacon Mikhail; Deacon Fortunat; and Deacon Sergiy.
Speaking with the flock after the service, Metropolitan Vikenty congratulated them on the feast of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and urged the faithful not to lose the spiritual state they had acquired during Great Lent.
"In these Paschal days we rejoice in the risen Lord. The Resurrection of Christ is the victory of life over death. By His Resurrection the Lord conquered death. To understand the essence of this victory, we need to know what led mankind to death.
We must understand that the Lord God created us, human beings, to live constantly with God, to live constantly in the Kingdom of God, to converse constantly with God. But man gave in to the temptation of the devil and broke God's commandment of abstinence, of fasting. The Lord gave only one commandment: not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree was not something magical, frightening or terrible. It was an ordinary tree, but it was bound up with obedience and devotion to the will of God. And the devil, when he approached man, approached Eve, began to tempt her to break this commandment, saying that if she ate this fruit she would know everything, both good and evil, and would become like God. That is, he planted demonic pride in the human soul, and man yielded to the influence of this demonic power. In this way he renounced God and fell under the power of the devil. And the devil is the source of evil, who dwells in hell and suffers various torments. This is the side man took. And since there is no place in Paradise for the devil, no place for pride, no place for disobedience, no place for self-exaltation, God drove man out of Paradise onto this earth. And so all of us, the descendants of Adam and Eve, are exiles from Paradise, sojourning temporarily on earth. Bodily death awaits us, but there is no death of our soul.
What does it mean that the Lord Jesus Christ delivered us from death? He delivered us from spiritual death, because if our soul, after bodily death, ends up in hell, that is a terrible, unending death. It is eternal death. A person neither dies nor lives, but is tormented and suffers. Such is the lot that awaits the sinner.
Before Christ the Savior, Paradise was closed to all: both the righteous and sinners. The glory of Christ the Savior is that He conquered hell, conquered the devil in hell, and led all the righteous out of it, opened the doors of Paradise, and gave all people the possibility of entering Paradise not by way of hell but directly. This is the gift of the risen Lord."
