Together

A holy day message from the General Secretary

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world,

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

As representatives of 12 Christian World Communions, present in every nation on earth, we are moved and grateful to speak with one voice and one heart about our Lord’s resurrection, which we have witnessed and profess together.

Together — from East and West, North and South — in this year of our Lord 2025, we have been given by God the great gift of a shared date of Easter. Devout Christians have prayed for generations that this may be possible. Though we have not yet achieved agreement on the date of Easter in perpetuity, we have no doubt that the Lord calls us to agreement, and unified witness, so that the world may believe (John 17:21).

As a further summons, God in his mercy has enabled us this year to mark the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and its Creed.

We are humbled and amazed that we can, on this Easter, profess together the fact that

On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

In the light of these gifts, we call upon the Holy Spirit to move our Communions to live and walk together, in obedience to the call of Jesus’ that all his disciples may be one. We hope to hear his ‘words’ anew, just as when he appeared to his disciples after his resurrection and ‘opened their minds to understand the scriptures,’ namely, that the Messiah must suffer and rise, ‘and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations’ (Luke 24:44-47).

At this time of great political instability in the world, when so many live with fear, suffering, persecution, famine, and other forms of instability and vulnerability, we would seek together to be ‘witnesses of these things’ of God, accomplished by our Lord and Saviour (24:48). For this purpose, we pray over and over again with eager expectation and hope that we may all be one, ‘clothed with power from on high’ (24:49).

May the Lord grant us his Spirit of cooperation and obedience, forgive us our sins, and use us as his instruments of reconciliation and healing in the world.

And may God bathe our hearts and minds in the cleansing light of his resurrection from the dead.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

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