Time for Change By Metropolitan Sotirios

We are tired. We are fed up. We are filled with indignation Enough is enough. It is time for change.

The economic crisis has crushed us. Our mistakes are burying us. The weight of our sin makes us curl. It causes us to hunch. It makes us to only look towards the earth. It does not allow us to look towards the heavens. No longer, though. We must shake off this yoke. We have lived as if we were only earthly beings. We forgot our origins. We forgot where we are from and where we are headed to. We lost our direction. We do not see our true destination. It is time for change.

The promises of plutocracy, of an earthly paradise, have been proven false. Many government leaders, instead of being ministers and servants of the people, became tyrants. They live in lap of luxury. They waste away our lives and we suffer. We groan. We languish. It is time for change.

“For here we do not have an enduring city, but we seek the city that is to come.” What voice is this? Where does it come from? Whose voice is this?

It comes from heaven. It is the voice of the heavenly herald, St. Paul the Apostle. We should pay attention to it.

Do we know who we are? Do we know Who our Creator is? Do we know what are composed of? Do we know what the Creator has destined for us? 

Along the journey, we lost our way. We forgot that we are not simply material beings, but spiritual also. We forgot that we are not the only beings on this earth. We forgot that death exists. Furthermore, we forget that death is not the end. We do not remember that death is the beginning of a new life. Death is the gateway that leads us to eternal life. To a more pure life. To a more spiritual life. To a better communion in the glory and bliss of our Creator God.

As it is the beginning of the new ecclesiastical year, I ask all of you to think seriously about our Metropolis’ new theme, “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

Let us reconcile and balance our material and spiritual life. Let us not show injustice to the heavens and our earthly hypostasis.  Let us live as workers upon this earth, working all the while for our eternal life in heaven. Our psychosomatic hypostasis demands this balance. Only with this balance can we find true joy. 

And now to the practical side. For this balance that brings joy, make your home a small church. The family should pray together. Eat together. Celebrate together. Go to Church every Sunday and great feast day together.

Children should go to Sunday School. They will not learn our Orthodox faith anywhere else, nor about our heavenly and earthly hypostasis. 

All children should attend Greek schools: afternoon, Saturday and especially day schools. Parents should spend their money towards the best education for their children. What can you do with money if you lose your children to drugs, a prodigal living, a sinful life?

 All of us live on earth, but we should think of heaven. For, truly, “here we do not have an enduring city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

With fatherly love and fervent prayers,

Metropolitan Archbishop Sotirios of Toronto (Canada)