Message of His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church addressed on the occasion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, 18-25 January 2012:

Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord,

The words of Saint Paul the Apostle addressed to the Corinthians: “We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51) which make the theme of reflection of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, in 2012, have a deep theological significance from the point of view of the Christian eschatology.

At the second coming of the Saviour, those who will be still alive will be changed all of a sudden, so that their bodies will no longer be decayable, just like the Body of our Lord, Jesus Christ, was after His resurrection from the dead. The humans will take off their “skin coats” that Adam and Eve put on when they committed the sin of disobedience and greed, namely they will be released of the opacity of the corruptible nature and will have spiritualized bodies. The spirit will be more “visible” in man than his body at the time.

Today, many people behave as if there would be no resurrection of the dead, as if this terrestrial life were the only possible one and once finished everything would be finished too. The temptation to accumulate more and more wealth on the earth, limited and temporary, at the expense of the concern for the spiritual enriching of the soul in love and kindness, generated the spiritual and economical crisis of the contemporary society. We cannot help noticing that changing wealth into an idol or of the economical criterion into the only criterion of value is the result of the diminishing of the people’s faith in resurrection, in the divine justice, and in the eternal life.

God wants man to gather more eternal spiritual treasures in heaven than temporary material treasures on earth. This is why the urge of Jesus Christ, our Lord, is to change, through mercy or help given to the poor, the material treasures on the earth into heavenly spiritual treasures, in order to get, in this way, resemblance with the Merciful God (cf. Luke 6:36) and the salvation of the soul, or the happiness of eternal life.

We must behave as people aware of the fact that the time of our life on the earth is given to prepare us for the life beyond the physical death. The resurrection of the soul from sin and the heavenly spiritual joy begin in the terrestrial life manifested through the faithfulness of man towards God – the Source of the eternal life – and through the love for one’s neighbour. While working for salvation, the Church works for the welfare of the entire world, from a deifying perspective that announces all people and the entire creation, the gift of the resurrection of all people in Christ, our Lord (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:22) and the renewal or transfiguration of the world (cf. Revelation 21:3).

This is the basic truth of the social missionary spiritual work of the Church, namely the resurrection of Christ and of all people, a sign of the final victory over sin and death, as finality of the entire existence.

May the grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord, the love of God-the-Father and the Holy Communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all! (1 Corinthians 13:13).

† Daniel
Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church