Pascha in Antioch

His Beatitude Youhanna Yazigi, Patriarch of Antioch, concluded his visitation to the city of Antioch, Alexandretta and Mersin. I am not chronicling the visitation, but listening to the hymns of the Paschal Liturgy celebrated by His Beatitude and the delegation accompanying him on the ruins of the Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Antioch, which was destroyed by the earthquake. In all his stances, His Beatitude was Paschal in two respects, in strengthening the brethren whom he saw stronger than the earthquake, and in reminding the world that faith in Pascha is supposed to prove, in the midst of every destruction, that we are servants of life on earth. In the Paschal homily, the Patriarch did not say: “Antioch will rise”, but rather: “we will rise, God willing, just as Christ rose”. We are all, in the Living Christ, the broken and risen Antioch. On this great visitation, His Beatitude bequeathed that Antioch, which had offered itself to us, is today in need of our offering ourselves to it. This is a great Pascha.