by Fernando Filoni
Cardinal, Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem
Easter is the central point of the Christian faith. As St. Paul writes: “If Christ is not risen, vain is your faith and you are still in your sins” (1Cor 15:17). Simple and clear.
Over the years the Church has interrogated and worked to elaborate this truth that is at the heart of faith. In the Council of Nicea, of which the 1700th anniversary resorts this year, we reached the compilation of the creed that we still recite in the Holy Mass on the liturgical holidays:
“I believe in a single God, almighty father, creator of heaven and earth …
I believe in a single Lord, Jesus Christ, an unigenite Son of God …
I believe in the Holy Spirit who is Lord and gives life …
I believe the Church, one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic … ».
After the edict of Constantinian tolerance, the church began to leave the catacombs and persecutions and in 325 Constantine summoned a council, the first after that of Jerusalem that is told to us in the acts of the apostles (Acts 15,1ss); In Nicea the bishops gathered to discuss and define together some fundamental points of faith. The divisions and heresies were many and this comparison was really necessary to continue walking together.
And the mystery of Jesus (together with the uniqueness of God, to the gift of the Holy Spirit and the reality of the Church) is clearly and precisely outlined: he, the one -year, “born of the Father before all the centuries”, who “embodied himself in the breast of the Virgin Mary and made himself a man”, who “was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, he died and was buried” and “the third day”.
The risen changes history. From that tomb, outside the city of Jerusalem, in which a “evildoer” had been placed, the “emptiness” imperate. That void that is not absence, but fullness and supreme sign of love, of a love that “explodes” and moves the stones, as on that Easter day on which the stone he couldn’t staying in front of the sepulcher: death has been won and forever; For us Christians this is a certainty, it is our faith.
While the many wars bloody the world, including the Holy Land, we cannot forget that it is this love of God, poured into us through the Spirit, to give us comfort and to push us in our mission. We are heirs of the “witnesses” of the empty tomb, of the open sepulcher from which the eternal life that pushes us, in turn, to testify to it in the world, also where the sound of the sirens and the tears of mothers, fathers, children who have lost a loved one, are dramatic. Disciples of the winner of death, we lift our gaze having a word of hope at heart even for those around us.
In this jubilee year in which Easter is extraordinarily celebrated on the same day by Catholics and Orthodox, we raise together the common acclamation: “Christòs Anésti, Christ is risen”: this is the faith that we profess in the Niceno-Costantinopolitan creed and for which many have given life to martyrdom.
In this Easter we ask that the peace of the Risen One is the real gift for everyone.
