“All generations offer these hymns, O Christ my Saviour, to honour Your entombment”…Thousands of devout Christians, of all ages, of Greek and other origins, flocked on the afternoon of Great and Holy Friday to the Archdiocesan Church of Our Lady “Axion Esti”, in Northcote, Melbourne, headquarters of the Holy Diocese of Chora, to pray with their Shepherd, His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia, and to chant the famous Lamentation Hymns, with feelings of deep emotion.
His Eminence was joined by Their Graces, Bishop Evmenios of Chora and Bishop Kyriakos of Melbourne, and a host of clergy from across the State of Victoria, while His Eminence Metropolitan Ezekiel of Dervis, was also present and joined in prayer. Also present were the Consul General of Greece in Melbourne, Ms. Dimitra Georgantzoglou, the Federal Member of Parliament, Ms. Maria Vamvakinou MP, the State Minister, Mr. Steve Dimopoulos, and a delegation of students from St. John’s Greek Orthodox College, Preston.
The emotion peaked during the procession of the flower-adorned Epitaphios through the surroundings of the historic Holy Monastery of “Axion Esti”. The magnificent procession, led by His Eminence Archbishop Makarios, stopped at the place where the statue of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is situated, and a prayer was offered for the health of His All-Holiness.
After returning to the church, the Archbishop addressed the numerous faithful with words of thanks, who, despite the fatigue of the days, came to venerate the Epitaphios and observe a sacred tradition that they received from their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. “Of course, today is not only a custom, but also an opportunity for contemplation and spiritual thought,” His Eminence then emphasised and continued: “Within this context, I ask you all to seriously consider the fact of God’s death. Why was Christ crucified and why was He sacrificed? We will all say that Christ was crucified to save us. But He could have chosen another way to save us. However, He chose the cross and death, precisely because He wanted to show us how much He loves us. He did not choose the easy way, but the sacrificial one. And this love of God must give us strength, but at the same time it must cause us to reflect, because at many differing times we are not worthy of His love.”
The Archbishop then focused on the meaning and value of the “memory of death,” that is, the awareness that each and every one of us, at some point, is going to leave this present life. “Today’s human being forgets the love of God,” he observed, “but he also forgets this very basic thing, which is death.” “Many of us,” he pointed out, “live and act in our daily lives as if there was no other life and as if we were not going to die. And things would be very different in our spiritual life if we had a memory of death. If we thought about death, our lives and our decisions and our choices would be different. For example, think about what our lives would be like if we knew that tomorrow morning when we woke up, we would have to go to the hospital to start chemotherapy.”
Continuing his address, imbued with paternal concern and love, His Eminence emphasised: “I am not telling you this to terrify you or disappoint you. But I want to help you understand how important it is to think differently, that is, to think with Christ present in our lives and to reflect that we are in this world, but our path and our perspective are indeed for the other world. The human person is created for eternity.” In closing, he wished everyone a Blessed Resurrection and for them to have abundant blessings from God in their lives and with their families.
