Today, creation has crucified its own Creator. What more dreadful sight has the Sun beheld, that it veiled its light? What greater wound has the Earth endured, that it trembled and split asunder? What can compare with such an atrocity—worthy of eternal judgment and torment? Yet He, the All-pure, All-merciful, Sinless One, cried out: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
O, fearful mystery! Unthinkable malice met with unfathomable depths of love! What did the Lord do when He formed man in Paradise—and what did man do to the Lord upon Golgotha? What utter ingratitude and shamelessness from mankind!
Today, the Jewish elders and chief priests seized Jesus and brought Him to trial. In their haste, they sought to condemn Him and crucify Him without delay. Their witnesses—liars all. Before Pilate, who found no guilt in Him, they cried out with one voice: “Crucify Him!” Their aim was none other than to put to death the very Author of Life. Yet wretchedly, they condemned themselves to death by rejecting the Giver of Life.
Still, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ went forth willingly to His Passion. In love, He embraced the Cross—upon which the sins of all humanity were laid. It was our sins that led Him to suffering; our transgressions that nailed Him to the Tree. He suffered for us, and with His precious Blood He washed away our iniquities—signing with crimson ink the decree that grants us freedom from sin and death.
Today, death was put to death by the One Who is Life. Today, evil was defeated, for it came against God Himself—He Who is the abyss of mercy and love.
Therefore, on this day above all, let us grieve over our own sins and turn to repentance. Let us resolve to change our lives for the better. Let us not be accomplices of the evil one—he who inflicted such torments upon the Lord—but let us become true human beings after the likeness of the True Man, the One crucified today on Golgotha. Let us also crucify sin within ourselves.
The Sacred Monastery of Bigorski, with holy trembling and reverent silence, prayerfully and grace-filled, lived through all the salvific events that today reached their climax on the dreadful hill of Golgotha in the Crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our beloved Elder, His Grace Bishop Partenij, bearing the Cross of Christ as once did Simon of Cyrene, ascended in spirit to Golgotha together with the brotherhood of monks and the multitude of faithful, with hearts sorrowful and voices raised in psalmodies of lamentation, glorifying the spotless Passion of Christ.
On this holy and fearsome day, as the Church bows with contrite heart before the Crucified Lord—and Heaven and Earth tremble before the Love that gives itself unto death—three human souls in our monastery, illumined by the power of the Cross, received the blessing to undertake the angelic path. Our brothers in trial—Stephen, Vladimir, and John—affirmed, in an atmosphere of repentance, their resolute offering of heart, will, and life to Christ, choosing to follow Him along the way of sacrifice and Resurrection.
With the blessing of our beloved Elder, His Grace Bishop Partenij of Antania, they were vested before the Lord’s Cross in the holy monastic habit, thus joining the ranks of Christ’s warriors. They became rassophores—witnesses to the new life that begins precisely at Golgotha. May their spiritual struggle and the cross they have embraced be blessed, and may the Crucified Lord comfort them with the power of His glorious Resurrection.
Grant us also, O Lord, to venerate Thy most glorious Resurrection.
