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Easter Bells

10 April, 00:00

By Klara Gudzyk, The Day From time immemorial the holiday of the Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter, has been called the holiest of all holy days, a great joy, the guarantee that the winter of our discontent is behind us. On this day everyone feels that now the sun, good, fine people, and happy relationships must all reign in the light. A symbol of awakening to the new light will always be the Easter bells, which on this day ring out throughout the whole land as if to say, "Get up! Arise from your winter slumber. Come out into the sun. Everything will be fine. Let hearts be glad. Rejoice in your labors. Christ has risen!" The bells resound, the skies are sown with the golden cupolas of churches, young girls sing traditional Ukrainian spring songs, and on green hillocks children hunt Easter eggs.

Whence has come so much evil into our lives? Whither is our indivisible and so brilliantly hued world spinning? Are we really living in the time of Armageddon or is the Last Judgment truly at hand? When one views the scenes from Yugoslavia: hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of their homes, ruined cities, villages, bridges, stolen humanitarian assistance, and "human shields" to defend military objects, one begins to doubt the existence of any kind of logic or sense in human life. And who of those in power are prepared to sacrifice in these times even a portion of their private interests for the sake of "their people." And what are the Ukrainian and Russian mercenaries in Yugoslavia now doing? Pardon me very much, but did they go there with all their wits about them? Ancient wise men put it tastefully: "Whom the gods will punish, they take from them wisdom." Perhaps there are still too few bells in our land...
Respected readers and editors of The Day: We sincerely greet you on the greatest of Christian holy days, Easter. We hope that the light of the Resurrection of Our Lord will overcome all the evils of our present and that the Risen Christ will grant tolerance, health, love, and Christian understandihg both to our state and to every single person. By celebrating Easter we call forth God's blessing on one and all!

Pavel, Bishop of Vyshehorod and Abbot of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery of the Caves

Newspaper output №:

№14, (1999)

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Day After Day