Patriarch sends Christmas message

The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), Patriarch Irinej, sent a his message ahead of this year's Christmas. In it, he said that Christmas was a holiday of peace and love, forgiveness and reconciliation, unity and concord. Patriarch sends Christmas message Irinej wrote that the measure of true love was in marriage, family and society as a whole, and represented the presence of God and divine love in people. "Without God as love, human love loses its measure and higher meaning. It is brought down to the biological plane, to mere survival, to the idolatry of carnal desires; hedonism becomes the supreme human value," the message reads. "The people of our time are on that road of making idols of carnal lust and carnal wisdom, of a carnal way of thinking. And whenever any human society in history has set on this road, it soon found itself in the entranceway to its own catastrophe and standing before the fall of its civilization," warned the patriarch. The message also mentioned the subject of abortion, to wonder, "does not abortion represent the idolizing of selfish living and egotism which, when taken to its conclusion, leads to the dehumanizing of man, his inclination toward death and nothingness?" The patriarch also mentioned HIV/AIDS, to say that the disease was "in most cases, a consequence of the desecration of the sacredness of marriage and the misuse of sexuality and physical love, and often a consequence of their unnatural use". Irinej also looked at the modern means of communications in the Christmas message, to say that as when used for the transmission of spiritual, scientific, practical, esthetic, cultural, and other values and human experience, they "can bring no small benefit to humanity" But he warned that "if these gifts and means are misused, just as anything else in a man or around a man if misused, they are in danger of becoming a source of man's estrangement and disaster. Instead of being a source of man's illumination, transfiguration and healthy improvement, they are in danger of becoming a source of darkness and poison for human sense and conscience". "The despising of the healthy, God-given laws of human nature, transfigured by Christ's Birth into the unlimited "measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", and the idolizing of unnatural fornication and adultery cannot but, according to the very nature and moral order of things, end up in the demonization and annihilation of humanity in its very essence," wrote Irinej. He condemned "the attitude of many powerful people towards the rights to life, freedom and the future of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija". "In addition to everything else, the dreadful crime of trading in the internal organs of innocent Serbian victims of hatred and terror was taking place in the coldness, indifference, and in many cases in collaborative silence of representatives of the international community, whatever this term might mean, and they definitely knew what was happening 'in the field'. Moreover, they engaged in building somebody's alleged independence precisely on this foundation. But, truth and God's justice always have the last word. That is guaranteed by Christ's Birth, which we already feel and know," said the patriarch in his Christmas message, ending it with the words: Peace from God - Christ is born. Patriarch Irinej (Beta, file)

Patriarch sends Christmas message

Irinej wrote that the measure of true love was in marriage, family and society as a whole, and represented the presence of God and divine love in people.

"Without God as love, human love loses its measure and higher meaning. It is brought down to the biological plane, to mere survival, to the idolatry of carnal desires; hedonism becomes the supreme human value," the message reads.

"The people of our time are on that road of making idols of carnal lust and carnal wisdom, of a carnal way of thinking. And whenever any human society in history has set on this road, it soon found itself in the entranceway to its own catastrophe and standing before the fall of its civilization," warned the patriarch.

The message also mentioned the subject of abortion, to wonder, "does not abortion represent the idolizing of selfish living and egotism which, when taken to its conclusion, leads to the dehumanizing of man, his inclination toward death and nothingness?"

The patriarch also mentioned HIV/AIDS, to say that the disease was "in most cases, a consequence of the desecration of the sacredness of marriage and the misuse of sexuality and physical love, and often a consequence of their unnatural use".

Irinej also looked at the modern means of communications in the Christmas message, to say that
as when used for the transmission of spiritual, scientific, practical, esthetic, cultural, and other values and human experience, they "can bring no small benefit to humanity"

But he warned that "if these gifts and means are misused, just as anything else in a man or around a man if misused, they are in danger of becoming a source of man's estrangement and disaster. Instead of being a source of man's illumination, transfiguration and healthy improvement, they are in danger of becoming a source of darkness and poison for human sense and conscience".

"The despising of the healthy, God-given laws of human nature, transfigured by Christ's Birth into the unlimited "measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", and the idolizing of unnatural fornication and adultery cannot but, according to the very nature and moral order of things, end up in the demonization and annihilation of humanity in its very essence," wrote Irinej.

He condemned "the attitude of many powerful people towards the rights to life, freedom and the future of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija".

"In addition to everything else, the dreadful crime of trading in the internal organs of innocent Serbian victims of hatred and terror was taking place in the coldness, indifference, and in many cases in collaborative silence of representatives of the international community, whatever this term might mean, and they definitely knew what was happening 'in the field'. Moreover, they engaged in building somebody's alleged independence precisely on this foundation. But, truth and God's justice always have the last word. That is guaranteed by Christ's Birth, which we already feel and know," said the patriarch in his Christmas message, ending it with the words: Peace from God - Christ is born.