To our dear, spiritual and venerable, cor-episcopos and monks, priests and deacons and deaconesses, teachers and all parish councils for men and women and for youth, as well as all other Syrian organizations; to all the faithful of our blessed diocese preserved in the grace of God.
The peace of the Lord and fatherly blessings in the Lord to all of you. In connection with the feasts of these days – the Nativity of the Lord, the New Year and the Baptism of the Lord – we wish you all the best. With the angels in heaven and the shepherds of Bethlehem, those who, in our Syriac language, announced the joyful tidings of the birth and praised God, we want to praise: glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. With them we proclaim the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God: God has become incarnate and become man.
“Light of light, true God of true God.”
Our beloved, we Christians believe that Jesus Christ is God, which is illustrated in the following way: If we take some water from the water in the sea and put it in a glass or a vessel, we still call what is in the glass or vessel water, that is, water of water. If we take light from a lit candle to another candle, we call it light of light. And if the light or a ray from the sun shines through a window into a room in a house, we also call it light of light. It can also be explained as oil of oil or fire of fire. If we put some water in a glass and then mix some oil in the glass, they will never mix together in the same way as water and sugar. The oil remains above the water. In this analogy, the deity is likened to the oil and humanity to water, which were united with each other, that is, human nature was united with the deity in Jesus Christ, who is true God and true man.
In the Christian Creed we proclaim: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made, of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and took on manhood by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary the Mother of God and became man. And now Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, has come from the Sun who is God the Father. Therefore we also believe in the formulation, light of light and true God of true God. And in this way our faith is in Jesus Christ our God.
Praise be to God, for when He created heaven and earth and all creation, visible and invisible, He finally created man in His own image. He gave man, this man in His image, a holy commandment to keep. But man did not preserve his holiness and he did not honor his God and Creator, but dared to break God's commandment and fell from his state of grace, died and became enslaved under Satan. But the merciful God wanted to give life to man and restore him to his original glory and grace. God showed this to his prophets from the beginning with the eye of the Spirit and with various models and signs He showed the mystery of the Incarnation, the coming of God into the world. God therefore wanted to be born as a man, whom He Himself created, in order to give him life again. Therefore, He came into the world, became man and was born and saved us and brought us back to the original glory as it was in His heavenly kingdom.
Our dearest ones, with our Christian faith we also need to know our history and Syriac identity. Above all, it is important that we learn and teach the holy Syriac language, to our children and youth. For it is through language that we can know that we are a living people and nation. Every nation is recognized by its language and that which does not have a language is not formally counted as a people on earth. And we Syrians love our language because our Lord Jesus Christ spoke it with his holy mouth and sanctified it and preached salvation with this language. And through this we also know that Syriac is the language spoken in heaven, with which God speaks with his holy angels and with Adam, the father of humanity, and with his prophets; with this language the angel Gabriel spoke to the priest Zechariah and announced the birth of his son John. With the same language the angel announced to the Virgin Mary the Conception of the Lord and with this language the angel announced to the shepherds in Bethlehem the birth of the boy Jesus. And we today, belonging to the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Syrian nation, can say with all pride that for thousands of years both before and after Christianity we have spoken and speak this holy language. In the same way, all our prayers, church, national and historical orders – books – are written in Syriac. Through this we have knowledge of our identity and that we are still a people and a living Syrian nation.
Finally, we pray to the God who was incarnate and became man of the Holy Virgin Mary that he extends his peace throughout the world and strengthens our Syrian people everywhere and saves our Syrian and Christian people from the wrath of barbarian peoples in the regions of Iraq, where they are murdered without mercy, they are persecuted and put in hardship by them so that they leave the land of their fathers. This also happened to our people in Turabdin and to all Christians in Turkey. Today we also find that they in Turkey want to forcibly confiscate the lands of our people in Turabdin, and especially in the monastery of St. Gabriel but also in general for the other monasteries and their holy lands.
We pray that you may celebrate the feasts of joy and goodness for many years to come. We pray for blessed feasts for our Patriarch, His Holiness Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka I and the rest of the clergy of the Syriac Orthodox Church throughout the world. May the Grace of the Lord be with you all.
Dioscoros Benjamin Atas Patriarchal Deputy in Sweden
Translation: Gabriel Bar-Sawme, Västerås, December 24, 2008