His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III Celebrates the Feast of the Holy Transfiguration of Christ the Saviour
You can find a video and photos below the text.
On Saturday, August 6/19, 2023, the Feast of the Transfiguration was celebrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem on Mount Tabor where the event of the Transfiguration took place.
During this Feast, the whole Church, especially that of Jerusalem, to which Mount Tabor belongs as a place of pilgrimage, remembers singing and glorifying the event of the Transfiguration of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Gospel accounts (Matthew 17:2 – 8 and Mark. 9, 2-8), because, a short time before His passion, the Lord took the three distinguished disciples and went up with them to Mount Tabor, and He was transfigured before them.
As the Fathers of the Church explain, He hid His human nature and revealed, as far as they could see, the glory of His divine nature.
His face shone brighter than the sun and His clothes became white as light and Moses as the representative of the sleeping and Elijah as the representative of the living appeared conversing with Him, while a bright cloud descended upon them and a voice was heard from the Father “This is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him”.
The Lord revealed this mystery to His disciples, so that, having seen His glory, they would be strengthened at the time of the cross and to show them what glory the righteous will enjoy in the resurrection of the dead.
In honour of this exquisite mystery, there was an all-night Vigil from midnight to 3 a.m., which was presided over by His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, with the co-celebration of their Eminences, Archbishop Aristarchos of Constantina, Metropolitan Theodosios of Tomis from the Patriarchate of Romania, Metropolitan Nikolaos from the Patriarchate of Georgia, and Archbishop Makarios of Qatar, the Elder Kamarasis Archimandrite Nectarios, Archdeacon Mark and many Priests from Orthodox Churches and Arabic-speaking Priests from the Galilee district. The chanting was delivered by Mr Angelos Gianopoulos in Greek on the right and Priest George from the Metropolis of Elia in Arabic on the left from the Byzantine choir of the blessed Archimandrite Philotheos. The vigil was attended by tens of thousands of pilgrims from various Orthodox countries who went up the mountain on foot due to the unacceptable restrictive measures by the Israeli police.
Before the Holy Communion His Beatitude Patriarch of Theophilos III blessed the grapes and delivered the following Sermon in Greek and Arabic:
“Thou wast transfigured on the mountain, O Christ our God, showing to Thy disciples Thy glory as each one could endure. Shine forth Thou on us who are sinners all, Thy light ever-unending, through the prayers of the Theotokos. Light-bestower, glory to Thee”.
Beloved brothers in Christ,
Reverend Christians and pilgrims,
The divine Grace of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, brought us all to this Holy Mount Tabor, so that we may thankfully celebrate His Transfiguration, listening to the call of the hymnographer saying: “Behold, we ascend to the mountain of the Lord, and in the house of our God, that we may behold the glory of His Transfiguration, glory as the only begotten of the Father, so that we may receive light, and being born together in the spirit, let us praise the Trinity forever and ever”.
The Transfiguration of our Saviour Christ is an event, during which the greatness of the Mystery of the divine Providence, the mystery of the salvation of man, the “mystery hidden from the ages in God” was revealed in all its depth and breadth (Eph. 3.9).
The second great mystery of godliness, (1 Tim. 3:16) is Christ manifested in the flesh, “who in the form of God is not raptured, he is equal to God, but he emptied himself in the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men and being found in the form of a man, he humbled himself by becoming subject to death, death on the cross”, as Saint Paul preaches.
This confession of the Apostle Paul expresses with precipitation and interprets the words of the hymnographer for the reason of the transfiguration of Christ: “On the mount Thou wast transfigured, and Thy disciples, as much as they could bear, beheld Thy glory, O Christ our God; that when they should see Thee crucified, they would know Thy Passion to be willing, and would preach to the world that Thou art in truth the Effulgence of the Father” (Kontakion).
In other words, during the Transfiguration of the Lord on this high place, the revelation of His theanthropic hypostasis, the mixing of the two natures in the person of Christ, but also the revelation of the glory of God, that is, the dawning of God, was born. The ‘Effulgence of the Father’ means the radiance or the shine as the hymnographer says: “The changeless nature, having been mingled with mortal nature, shone forth past all telling, and in part revealed unto the Apostles the Light of Its own Immaterial Godhead” (Ode 5, Troparion 3). And again, “being perfect God, Thou becamest perfect mortal, mingling manhood with the entire Godhead in Thine own Hypostasis, which Moses and Elias saw in his two natures on Mount Tabor” (Ode 3, Canon2, Troparion 3).
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, interpreting the words of Paul “Christ as the effulgence of the glory of God” (Cf. Heb. 1,3) says “Just like the ray of light is related to the sun and to the lamp, likewise the effulgence of light is related to the Father”.This example is used by the Holy Father Gregory of Nyssa, to make it clear that the Son and Word of God is the same as the Father and the Holy Spirit, therefore the “Father’s dawned light” is the inaccessible and uncreated light of the Holy Trinity.
Saint John of Damascus, dazzled by the mystery of the Transfiguration, says: because the Word ‘became flesh’ and the flesh the Word, even though it had not come out of His divine nature. A miracle that surpasses all understanding. The body did not acquire the glory from without, but it went from within itself from the inexplicably united with Him during the existence of the transcendental divinity of God the Word.
It is worth noting that during the Transfiguration of Jesus in this holy place, “the face of Jesus shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” (Matthew 17,2). On the other hand, “Behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice from the cloud said: This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 17:5)…
This news was originally published on the website of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Please click here to read the full text.
