“Christians are getting ready to commemorate the passion and death of Christ, to celebrate His resurrection in glory, in a completely new way. This Easter, believers will not have the opportunity to meet and pray and sing, to gather to stay silent in front of God, to listen to His Word, to meet and share the bread and wine”.

A joint Easter message has been issued today by card. Jean-Claude Hollerich, archbishop of Luxembourg and president of Comece (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union), and by rev. Christian Krieger, president of Cec (Conference of European Churches). “This year, we celebrate victory over death in Christ at a time in which the world is fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, which is devastating the world, causing mourning and grief among all peoples”, they state. “Confined in our homes or in voluntary self-isolation, this year believers will celebrate the victory of life, hoping to defeat death”. “Now more than ever, the current events remind us of how much hope a dimension of faith can bring, ‘for in hope we have been saved’, as Paul the Apostle says in his Letter to the Romans; and then he goes on: ‘but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.’ (Romans 8, 24-25)”.

The Easter message goes on like this: “May the Easter Gospel move this breath of hope into the hearts and into the thoughts of Christians, may God’s breath give life to our firm wait, so that the Church and we all can become bearers of hope and light in our world, upset by so much grief”. Lastly, Hollerich and Krieger write: “May God, three times Holy, He who is, was and will come, bless and retain His humanity. Christ has resurrected, He has really resurrected!”.