NEW YORK: 30 November, 2024
Advent epistle from Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York

Beloved in the Lord fathers, brothers, and sisters!

I greet you with the first days of the Nativity Fast, which prepares us to celebrate the Incarnation of the living God, Who became a living Man!

The fast is a time of intensified prayer and repentance, reading of spiritually profitable literature and doing of good works, when we especially focus our attention on our spiritual lives, on our relationships with God and our neighbors, preparing to celebrate the events of Sacred history.

The goal of this current fast gives it its name: it is not merely a preparation to hold a festal commemoration of an historical event 2,000 years past, but is our real entry into the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God. It is a preparation for the most intimate convergence with Christ, worshipping His manger, and glorifying His manifestation in this world. And in order to accomplish this, man must prepare his heart, or else the mystery of Christ’s Nativity may pass him by without touching his soul. On this path, we encounter the feasts of the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos, when for the first time this year we will hear the triumphal Nativity hymns, and of the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God "of the Sign," the Protectress of the Russian Diaspora. We will also prayerfully mark the feast days of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called; the Holy Hierarchs Nicholas the Wonderworker and Spyridon of Tremithus; Venerable John Damascene, Sabbas the Sanctified, and Herman of Alaska; Great-Martyrs Catherine and Barbara; the Holy Forefathers and other saints, who accompany us, as it were, to Bethlehem.

It is said that the Nativity Fast is the most difficult, taking place as it does while everyone around is already celebrating and merrymaking, and that what goes on at school and at work during this time distracts us from carrying out the ascetic struggle of the fast. As someone who was born and raised in the West, I wholeheartedly agree, but will add that the same could be said of the other fasting periods of our Mother Church. Temptations also occur during individual fast days. Nevertheless, when I was growing up and would come home from school, upon crossing the threshold, I found myself in an altogether different world. Here there was a Russian Orthodox order in all aspects of life. This was the achievement of my parents: they always strove to observe the fasts, feasts, and other Church-appointed practices, to say nothing of our pious national traditions. As youths, my brothers and I fasted – granted, to the extent that our boyhood constitutions allowed us – but we did fast. I would celebrate my pre-monastic namesday – the feast of the Holy Hierarch and Wonderworker Nicholas - first in church at the divine services, and later the celebration would continue at home with a magnificently prepared lenten meal, around which all of our family, friends, and guests would gather. Fasting all together as a family, we supported one another on the way to the feast. We also repented together, and our parents would take us to the evening services in order to make our confessions the night before communing, in this way not burdening the priest before Divine Liturgy or during its celebration. On the morning we were to commune, our parents would gather us for a rite of forgiveness. In our presence, they would ask forgiveness of one another and then we would do the same of them and each other, after which we set off for the service.

All of this contributed to the incredible joy we would experience on the feast days, both in our home church and in our parish family. For we fasted in both churches and, celebrating, broke the fast together. This powerfully united people. I experienced something similar when I lived at seminary in Jordanville, where I grew close to the monks of Holy Trinity Monastery and to the students. In general, friends from childhood and youth, with whom I studied at the parish school and in seminary, with whom I confessed, fasted, and communed, celebrated Christ’s Nativity, Pascha, and other feast days, have become lifelong friends. That is why it is so important to raise your children in the Church, to have them attend the parish school, and to encourage their participation in youth events and conferences organized by our Holy Church.

The emptiest person is the one who is full of himself and his own cares. A person in the Church, who strives to live piously both at home and in the parish, is filled by the people around him, who become his friends and relatives through shared struggles, temptations, and joys, prayers and sacraments. He cares for them, giving of himself for them and for the common good. In this way, he is not only saved, but also uplifts others on their path to eternal salvation. Thus, in these days of the fast, let us see to it that our homes become little churches, and that the Church becomes our family.

In connection with this, I humbly address every family: offer your Nativity gift, whatever contribution you are able to make, toward the renovation of the Synodal Headquarters in New York City, remembering that the House of the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God, the building of the Synod of Bishops, is also your house – the center of our Church, our greater family, which leads each of us to "newness of life" (Romans 6:4). Amen.