In the holy city of Jerusalem, Golgotha and the Tomb of the Lord are located so close to one another that it would have been possible to build a single cathedral over these two sacred sites in honour of Christ's Resurrection. In this, we see the providential indication that only through suffering for the Truth is pure incorruptible joy born, while joy without suffering, stolen, sinful joy, is in and of itself no joy at all.

Thus, the Golgotha of suffering and the Tomb of the Lord are located next to one another, and will always remain next to one another in the spiritual realm, as well, as long as the earth endures and humankind continues upon it. They are inseparable, complementing one another, giving birth to one another.

Some Christians, His chosen ones, the Lord endows with the great honour of spilling their blood and being slain for Him, in order to be crowned with the wreath of martyrdom and to commune of the eternal Pascha of Christ. While all those of us who remain off of this way of the cross, are also invited to Golgotha by the Lord, but to a volunteer Golgotha of the Christian podvig [ordeal] of fasting and prayer, bearing up under wrongs, to which we are so frequently, so completely unexpectedly, subjected and, the chief thing, the bearing of our own cross without murmuring. That is our mutual Golgotha, without which no one will be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

During prayers, we entreat the Lord, as the Physician of our souls and bodies, to cleanse us from our fiery passions; and, by means of bodily podvig, do we strengthen our prayer and thereby confirm its sincerity. But it is only Christ Himself Who cleanses and heals us; He Who, hearing our prayer and seeing that, through bodily podvig, our prayer is, as it were, all written in our blood, sends us His fiery grace, which consumes our passions. And then, for such a one, there is Pascha, regardless of when this might occur with him.

This is the day of all days, because it is the one «which the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad [in it]». And it is specifically to this joy that the Church of Christ invites and calls all of us, by way of Golgotha, to the Tomb of the Lord and to His Glorious Resurrection.

Amen.