To
The Holy Clergy and Christonymos Laon of our Holy Metropolis Kythira and Antikythira
«Lord our God... who in Your infinite mercy has deemed us worthy to enter into a new year of the riches of Your goodness, You, All-good Lord, bless this entrance with Your Divine Grace...grant us to pass through this cycle in peace and harmony, adorned with the crown of the glory of virtues, guided by the light of Your commandments, walking well as in the daytime...»
(A prayer for the beginning of the new year of salvation).
My dear brothers and fellow ministers,
My Christian brothers and sisters, my beloved children in the Lord.
May the New Year 2026 be blessed, peaceful, graceful, fruitful, and salvific!
«Many happy returns, with a pure and innocent soul,
with love, peace, and justice;
with joy and health, with God's blessing.» (New Year's Carols)
With Christian faith and the anchor of hope in God, let us sail across the open sea of the new year of salvation, which has begun today, in the goodness of our Lord and God., «looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith» (Hebrews 12:2).
The new year usually brings hopes and expectations, but also fears and anxieties.
Allow me, instead of other words and thoughts, to quote an excerpt from the Pastoral Circular of New Year's Day by the newly departed and most beloved Saint Kallinikos, Bishop of Edessa (who fell asleep in the Lord in August 1984), which, even though about five decades have passed, remains relevant and vital.
«... Many questions arise about the new year. Will it really be new, or will it be like the past? Will it be better? Will it be worse? Will it be like last year? Will we have pleasant or unpleasant events?;
We do not know this for certain. However, we do know that there is a Providential God. There is a God who cares for the birds of the sky, for the flowers, for things of little value, and even more so for man, the «in his image and likeness’ There is God the Father, Who gave the descendants of Adam the right to address Him and say «Our Father who art in heaven». There is a God of Love, Who loved sinful man to the point of sacrificing His Son. «For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son» (John 3:16) to death on the cross and shame for the sake of human salvation.
There is God, the Ruler of the universe. There is the Lord of Powers. Above all authorities and powers is the Almighty Lord. People forget God, and often despise Him, even fight against Him. «He who dwells in heaven will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them,» according to the Psalmist. He who dwells in heaven, the Almighty and righteous God, will mock them and ridicule them, making them a laughingstock before all.
Our earthly life is short. Let us not shorten it and poison it with thoughts of anxiety and despair. Above us all is the loving and almighty Hand of God the Father. Whatever happens, whatever occurs, the Lord will allow it. With trust in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, let us walk into the coming year. Let us place our hopes in God and the Father, that «He cares about us.» according to the Apostolic words (1 Peter 5:7).
«And now, brothers, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace» (Acts 20:32) and I pray that the New Year of the Lord's Christ will be healthy, fruitful, blessed, peaceful, and holy.’ (1981).
My dear brothers,
Then, now, and in the future, difficult years are coming, times of autonomy and apostasy from the Divine Will of the Almighty Lord and our God. «In the last days, the love of many will grow cold.» (cf. Matthew 24:12 and 1 Timothy 4:1).
«Those who are far from you are lost.», notes Prophet David. In the treatise of the Ecclesiastical Secretariat of the 2nd century «Teaching of the 12 Apostles» there is talk of «the way of life» and the «the way of death». As for the «way of life,» since it is a recommendation to avoid all that is wicked, evil, and shameful, the unknown author advises Christians to be gentle (praos), because «The meek shall inherit the earth». Let it be «long-suffering and merciful and harmless and peaceful and good and trembling before (uncles) reasons». The «way of death» is primarily wicked and full of curses, and is characterized by all deadly sins. «murders, adulteries, shameful desires, prostitution, thefts, idolatries, sorceries, lies, false testimonies, hypocrisies, deceits, robberies...» and all other accompanying elements. And the sacred writer concludes: «Be free, children, from all these things.», that is, may you be freed, my children, from all these things.
The moral and spiritual state of contemporary times and ages is subdued and degraded on a global scale. More than twenty centuries of Christianity, and the world and all of humanity are not enlightened, as they should be, by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Light and Giver of Life., «the true light, which enlightens and sanctifies every person coming into the world». For this reason, it is not easy for us, as contemporary people, to understand. «the Light of the Face of our Lord,» «that in Him we may see the Light that is inaccessible (of the Holy and Life-giving Trinity) and so that «May the Lord guide our steps toward the fulfillment of His divine commandments.». Self-centeredness, arrogance, selfishness, coldness of feelings, disrespect, indifference, insensitivity, and sometimes even apathy in the face of human pain and misery, apostasy from our Creator and Maker.
Wars and the threat of war are in danger of escalating and spreading on a global scale. Nations of the same faith are tearing each other apart, but people of different races and religions are also turning against each other for economic and geopolitical interests. Civilians and innocent children are bombed and killed without mercy. But there is also another, the peculiar global war against unborn fetuses through abortions and abortions rages and dominates our entire planet, with horrific results. Millions of innocent creatures every year, worldwide, never see the light of life and are buried in the sewers... However, there is no discussion, as there should be, through these «heroes» contemporary crimes, which weigh heavily on all of humanity.
What can we say about the legal overturning of human ontology and physiology, starting with our Greek Orthodox Nation? The legalization of same-sex «marriage,» which is anti-evangelical and unconstitutional, until its passage, with the right to adopt minors, who are born without the possibility of choosing the environment in which they will be raised. Speeches at international conferences on polygamy and the «coronation» by «priestesses» of Protestant offshoots of individuals, with more than one person («polygamy»), lead to degenerate «sodomitic» situations and atrocities.
However, the worst and most dangerous of all the above is the impetuous and unstoppable tide of ecumenism, «globalization,» the «new age,» and pan-religion, which tends to break down and abolish the boundaries and spiritual barriers of the Holy Canons, the Dogmatic Terms, and our long-standing Ecclesiastical Tradition and Heritage. This destructive and catastrophic trend is contrary and opposed to the commandment of «Do not change the eternal boundaries that the Fathers have set.».
My brothers,
Let us not be terrified and let us not be afraid of these manifold and varied moral and spiritual threats. Realizing this grim and suffocating reality, let us turn «with all my soul and heart» and let us invoke «from the depths of our soul and the center of our heart», As the long-suffering and much-tried Saint Nektarios, beloved by all of us, wrote in his poems, Bishop of Pentapolis, the grace-filled one, «only able to save» Our Lord and God.
Let us repeat the divine words of the contemporary Saint, Saint Kallinikos, Metropolitan of Edessa, who said: «There is a God of Love, Who loved sinful man to the point of sacrificing His Son... There is God, Ruler of the universe. There is the Lord of Powers. Above all authorities and powers is the Almighty Lord.».
Wishing with all my heart that the new year will be blessed by the Lord, peaceful, creative, healthy in both body and mind, and fruitful, I remain,
After Patrick's prayers and blessings
The Metropolitan
†Seraphim of Kythira and Antikythira
Happy New Year from Ollandia!!!