Speech of His Holiness the Serbian Patriarch Mr. Porfiria held on May 29, 2024, on the feast of the Holy Martyrs of Surdulica, at the Holy Liturgy in the Church of the Holy Great Martyr George in Surdulica

Christ is risen, brothers and sisters! Our Lord is truly risen! Indeed, this is our faith. Truly, the Lord Jesus Christ did this for us humans, for the entire human race, but also for each of us individually, and this is what our deepest need is, what is the meaning of our existence. He made love possible, he made love a tool and a weapon with which we go through life, but also with which we open the door to eternity, because the Lord, who is love by his nature, love by his essence, came from love in relation to us humans among us to defeat our greatest enemy, to make life our reality, to defeat death, because man's greatest enemy is death. Why? Because it makes love meaningless, it interrupts it, it makes love have its own end. It does so if death is the last word a person can say about himself. However, here, Christ is risen! This is our faith, because it is our experience, because it is the experience of the Church. This is the experience of the female peace bearers, the experience of the apostles, the experience of the saints. This is the experience, brothers and sisters, of the faithful Serbian people, and it is the experience of the faithful and virtuous people of Surdulica and the entire surrounding area.

Surdulica and its surroundings are a holy region, a holy Serbian land, because this region and this land are soaked in the blood of martyrs, the blood of those who believed in Christ and precisely because of that faith they did not want to give up themselves, their family and from their Church, to the extent and to the point that they finally lay down their lives for the Archipelago, for their family and for their Church. And just as the people of Surdulica have always sacrificed themselves throughout history, especially during the First World War, for their family and for their Church, so our people have throughout their entire history, from Saint Sava to our days, and especially during the First World War. war, when so many of our people suffered that there is no other nation under heaven that suffered so much in relation to its number.

Therefore, our nation suffered more percentage-wise than any other nation, and not as one who set foot on other people's land, who went to conquer, who went to enslave and subjugate other nations, but as one who was on to his hearth, in the place where he was born, grew up and earned money, but at the same time he served and prayed to God and knew that his whole life belonged to God. Therefore, defending his hearth, defending himself, even in such situations, trying not to commit crimes, but to defend himself to defend what is his; defending his honor, of course defending his Orthodox faith, the honorable cross and golden freedom, our people suffered constantly in the Second War and whenever there were those who wanted to take away his freedom and who asked him to renounce himself. But always after the wars, our people showed generosity, they extended their arms towards those with whom they were in conflict and misunderstanding until yesterday, from whom yesterday they suffered cruelty, forgave their debts and tried to establish a normal life. That is why it is at least dishonorable and inappropriate, especially Surdulica knows this and it should be said in this place, that someone can - and that someone is not just anyone, but the one who came to Serbian land and who committed crimes in our nation - that someone wants to say that the Serbian nation is a nation that commits genocide. The first martyr is the Lord Christ who was crucified on the cross. Then he said may the Lord, God the Father, forgive the debts of those who harm him, because they do not know what they are doing. Then also the Holy Archdeacon First Martyr Stefan, who, when he suffered and laid down his life to bear witness to Christ, prayed to the Lord, saying: Do not write them, Lord, as a sin. This is how our people have always been, just as the Lord left an example for us to follow and as the Holy First Martyr Stephen did. He did not impute sin to those who harmed him, he forgave debts, wanted peace and wants peace and love. This is the once-for-all commitment of our people, because it belongs to Christ, because it is Orthodox.

Our nation is committed to lasting peace, because Christ is Peace. He is determined for a life that implies openness and understanding in relation to others and differently and will always be like that. However, it is important, as today's Gospel says, to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. What does that mean, brothers and sisters? This means that at the same time one should be wise and harmless, because if we are only wise as snakes then that wisdom can turn into cunning and wickedness, but if at the same time we are as harmless as doves, if harmlessness is the regulator, brake and check of wisdom, then that wisdom will be for the glory of God and for our salvation. However, harmlessness must also have wisdom as a companion, because if it does not have wisdom as a companion, it can turn into stupidity, into madness, into meaningless service to others, which is actually the antithesis of service, because it does not serve love. This is what the saints of God who have gathered us here today, brothers and sisters, teach us. They left us the Gospel of Christ, as a rule of life. They left us a bequest to be Orthodox Christians, and the Gospel of Christ is simple. Whenever we don't know what to do, let's open the Gospel of Christ. Let us not follow the wise men of this world who have not made themselves wise with the Gospel of Christ. Let's not go to seers, soothsayers and sorcerers to tell us what is best for us, but let's not go to ideologues who are foreign to the Gospel and the many ideologies that come to us from all over the world, especially from the side of the world where the sun sets, because those ideologies want to collapse everything that the word of God, the word of Christ, set as a rule of life and wrote in the Gospel, which is our commitment and which Saint Sava planted in our people once and for all.

Everything is mathematically clear in the Gospel. It is clear who a man is and what he should be, what is the goal of his life. It is clear what the community is. It is clear what the family is and that the family is the basic domestic Church, as the Gospel says, in which we learn to love God and to love our neighbors; in which a husband is taught to love his wife in order to learn to love all the people of this world; in which a woman learns to love, because by loving her husband as God commands, respecting His Gospel and the commandments of God, loving and loving her husband, she learns love that can love all people; and then when husband and wife learn to love each other, they also learn how to love children; and becoming an example to children through love, and children loving their parents and loving each other learn to love the whole world. This is what the word of the Gospel means: Love your neighbor as yourself. We cannot love our neighbor, we cannot love people, if we have not learned to love within the family, if we are unfaithful in relation to the love given to us in the family.

Therefore, in the Gospel, everything is simple and beautiful. Whenever you are not sure what you should do, open the Gospel. Whenever you have a doubt that an idea that comes to you from any side is not yours and that it is not correct, check it with the Gospel. The Gospel, brothers and sisters, is a mirror in which we should reflect ourselves, but also reflect everything that is offered to us as a way of life. We are always determined for Christ, brothers and sisters! Therefore, we should not be surprised, as the Gospel says even today, that many will be against us. They are not against us out of pure peace, but because those who cannot accept the Gospel as the rule of their lives are bothered by Christ; the Gospel bothers them, because it is a warning, because it is a mirror in which they can see themselves and recognize how far they have deviated from what is authentic human nature, what is healthy nature, what we as people should be.

We as Christians are witnesses of Christ and because we are His witnesses we cannot be accepted just like that and with joy by those who want to make us what we are not and will not be, by those who want us to make something else. That is why they will say sometimes about us Christians: Well, you are old-fashioned! You're behind! How can what is eternal be overcome, old-fashioned, or, on the other hand, modern?! What is eternal is true! And the very word truth says that this is what is always the same. The Gospel will not be checked by modern ideas that completely dehumanize the human being; in other words, they open the way so that a person no longer has to see himself as a person, and can also observe the other in his own way, in any case, not as he actually is.

Therefore, when we witness the Gospel of Christ, we must know that it is the cross, that we will have inconveniences and difficulties. But here, the Surdulic martyrs and so many martyrs from our generation warn us, precisely in the light of the Resurrection of Christ, that we do not have a second chance and that the ideologies and ideas of this world are short-lived, transitory and replace each other. Thank God, everywhere in the world, there are those who recognize the word of Christ as true. May the Lord grant that we always gather in our temples, that we pray to God for ourselves, for our neighbors, for our families and fellow citizens, but also for the whole world, that the word of Christ shines among us, that it shines among all people, so that we prayers of the Holy Martyrs of Surdulica were pleasing to God, and rejoiced in one another, and at the same time were a light to the world. May our gathering today be blessed, may God protect you and may today's jubilee be blessed - one hundred years since the consecration of the chapel where the relics of the Surdulika martyrs are kept, may their prayers be with us now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen! Happy Easter!

Source: SPC