EUROPE/RUSSIA - Easter Vigil, Archbishop Pezzi to 18 catechumens: "Our life belongs to Christ"

by Chiara Dommarco

Moscow (Agenzia Fides) – "Christ is risen!" It was with this proclamation, repeated three times, dear to the tradition of the Eastern Churches, and to which the faithful responded "He is truly risen," that Paolo Pezzi, Archbishop of the Mother of God in Moscow, began his homily at the Easter Vigil. 'I have risen,' says the Lord, 'to be with you always': this is the Easter proclamation. Christ is risen never to leave us: 'Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age' (Mt 28:20). God never allows us to fall from His hands. And his hands are benevolent hands," he continued.

“An announcement addressed to every woman and every man,” the bishop emphasized in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception: “Today, the risen Christ also addresses this announcement to us: ‘I am risen and I will always be with you. My hand sustains you, and nothing will snatch you from my grasp. I will be with you even at the gates of death, where no one can accompany you and where you yourselves can do nothing. There, I will wait for you, and I will transform darkness into light for you.’ This message, this word of the Risen One, describes what happens during baptism. Baptism is more than a washing or a purification. It is more than entering a community: it is a new birth, a new beginning of life.” And addressing the 18 catechumens who received the three sacraments of Christian initiation—Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist—he added: “Dear catechumens, this is the newness of Baptism: our life belongs to Christ, not to ourselves. But it is precisely for this reason that we are not alone, even in death, for we are with the One who lives forever. In baptism, with Christ, welcomed by Him in His love, we are freed from fear.”

Referring to the icon of the resurrection from the Eastern tradition, in which Christ, during his descent into hell, frees Adam from death, he declared: “Through his death, he takes Adam and all those who await liberation by the hand and leads them toward the light. Light makes life possible. Light makes encounter possible. Light makes communion possible. It makes knowledge possible, access to reality, to truth itself. And, by making knowledge possible, it also makes freedom and progress possible.”

“Through the resurrection of Jesus,” he concluded, “love has revealed itself to be stronger than death, stronger than evil. It is through love He descended from heaven, and it is love that is the very force by which He now ascends to heaven. United to His love, borne on the wings of love, as people who love and are loved, we descend with Him into the darkness of the world, knowing that it is in this way that we will ascend with Him. We pray to You, Lord, on this night: reveal Your love, which is stronger than hatred, stronger than death. Descend, O Christ, into the hells of our time and take by the hand those who await You. Lead them to the light! Stay with us even in our darkest nights and guide us out! Help me, help us to descend with You into the darkness of those who wait, of those who call upon You from the depths of their being! Help us to bring them Your light! Help us to reach the "yes" of love, which allows us to bend down to others and, thus, to ascend with You! Amen."

The Archdiocese of the Mother of God, headed since 2007 by Archbishop Pezzi, covers an area of 2,629,000 km² and comprises about one hundred communities. The ecclesiastical province of the Catholic Church in Russia, in addition to the archdiocese, consists of three other suffragan dioceses: the Diocese of Saint Clement in Saratov, the Diocese of Saint Joseph in Irkutsk, and the Diocese of the Transfiguration in Novosibirsk. (Agenzia Fides, 5/4/2026)

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