Beloved members of higher orders of clergy, priests, deacons, monks and nuns, all residents of Georgia, and our spiritual sons and daughters living abroad, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16.33). “The world tried to detain me but failed” (Grigol Skavaroda).

Rejoice as “The night is far spent, the day is at hand” (Romans 13.12): the greatest sacral mystery of the Savior’s birth comes truth. All Heavens and Earth and Holy Church pray with glory, “Today Christ was born by Virgin in Bethlehem. Today the Savior was born, and the Word was realized. Today all Heavens sing glory and joy.” And, all of us share this great joy and together with Holy Church sing to the Savior, “Glory to Nativity, and glory to mighty God”.

One shall ask why God came down from Heaven? And why the whole earth was full of joy because of that? Mighty God became the man to show the saving path to the mankind sinking into eddy of sins, to let those being in daily life marsh know good and evil, to make us able to achieve victory over ourselves and feel everlasting bliss and regain eternal life.

God made man for felicity. Thus, seeking happiness and felicity is man’s natural character and spirit; and happiness and felicity lead to love.

A person loves what he wishes evermore and he wishes evermore what brings him happiness, joy and felicity.

When Adam and Eve were in Heaven their felicity came out of God. Their direct relation to God was their prior requirement and origin of happiness.

After droving Adam and Eve out of Heaven their nature changed. Their mind and conscience and heart and spirit full of divine love turned into sin and passion.

Adam and Eve lost Heaven and God as eternal origin of felicity and turned into mundane reality fitting their spiritual condition. After droving out of Heaven the man found inside him obsessions to collect wealth, be rich and authoritative, enjoy gambling, commit adultery, drunk, addict drugs, etc. changing time after time. Achievement of such momentary pleasures results in dangerous spiritual and body diseases instead of eternal felicity.

A wise man says, “Alike is pleased with alike”. And, truly, every single man makes his own choice whether reaching Heaven or turning to evil.

St. Grigol of Nose says, “A man stands between good and evil. He serves either to God or mammon. He is either sincere or adulterer. He seeks either for truth or false. He is either modest or ambitious. Victory of one side leads to complete destroy of another since serving God destroys idols, and truth defeats injustice” and so on.

Each man shall seek to find God here on the earth, and follow His path. And, this only happens when God’s will, i.e. His cannons, coincides with ours, and we live upon the Gospel. Coincidence of divine will and human will is called synergy. It is synergy that brings us to Heaven, helps us to overcome any difficulties, and makes us believe that the Heaven is inside each of us, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall be find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” says the Savior. But, quite often those considering themselves believers cannot receive what they ask for. Why shall this happen?! St. James says into his Epistle, “Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4.3). Yes, some people think they believe in God but keep competing in collecting wealth, insulting and judging that weakens their prayers. Some people make good deeds, share part of their income, help the poor, build churches… but if they do that for their own fame God will not accept and will not hear such praying. The abovementioned shall not be considered as though God demands to deny all mundane kindness. Truly not, God call us not to get into mundane slavery, not to make it our impetus. But if our power and wealth is used to glory God – as all cometh from God – and serve our brothers we shall live in good. The Holy Gospel teaches, “The friendship of the world is enmity with God” (James 4.4) “No man can serve two masters… Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Math. 6.24) “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4.7). We are sorry to note the fact that sin deepens its roots into our daily life. Sin like wart existed since Adam and Eve but man has always had confession. David the Prophet describes his condition, “My sin is ever before me”. Today sin is no more considered as sin but natural human requirement. They have been attempting to adopt the idea for a long time. They have begun human brainwashing with foreign soap operas, and now continued with demonstrating of immorality by our citizens. Accepting sin leads to complete exhaustion. Everyone shall bear responsibility for that, especially those inciting man made in the image of God. The savior says, “Woe to that man by whom the offence cometh” (Math. 18.7)… “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Math. 18.6). Similar fate shall be shared with anyone committing other offences. It is impossible and incompatible to be Christian and drug user at the same time, to be Christian and drunkard; to be Christian and adulterer, to be Christian and thief… They shall not lie themselves and shall not turn into false hope to reach Heaven. Man with his drown nature is turned to sin and can consciously or unconsciously drown into different offences, but he shall have will of confession and revival. He shall believe in God, and mighty Lord will certainly help and grant mercy. We would like to discuss other actual and morbid issues either. First of all let us pay our attention to spiritual and mental values of modern man. Misdeeds in educational reform have resulted in reluctance by adults to get education. Scientific work is considered less prestigious since intellectuals are not respected accordingly – they cannot feed their families even at average level. The situation shall be changed. No state has its future without development of science. Science is one of the most powerful forces of spiritual and educational basis of the nation. We shall bow down before our scientists for their deeds during the communist time and despite atheist period could give right direction to our people. Let us remember Eqvtime Takaishvili, Ivane Javakhishvili, Pavle Ingorokva, Dimitri Uznadze, Tedo Sakhokia, Grigol Lortkipanidze, Shalva Nutsubidze, Ivane Beritashvili, Maxime Sharadze, Philimon Koridze, and great many others. Despite being oppressed, insulted and terrified to be arrested they could protect and even enrich our national wealth and values. They saved and protected their own as well as the national dignity. We shall have ability of thinking analytically but based on truth. We shall have ability to separate good form evil. We shall determine what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. We shall share thoughts how to overcome difficulties, how to avoid repetition of early mistakes, how to correctly foresee the future. My long-lasting dream is to include analytical thinking course into school curriculum in order to adapt our adults to analytical discussions and right decision-making process. We believe it is also necessary to include a course of breeding into school curriculum equally with history, physics, literature, mathematics, etc. in order to get our future generation ready for life. The course shall include skills of relations among family members and relatives, friends and older and younger generations, rules of behavior at public places and at table, ways how to overcome difficult situations, and certainly devotion to knowledge and labour. We cannot acquire and utilize knowledge without hard work; we cannot build a state without hard work. It is absolutely necessary to combine intellectual labour with physical one for harmonic development of a person. Though, some consider physical work as humiliating. It is wrong attitude. God determined labour as lifestyle for man’s healthy and wealthy existence. Transitive period lasting for over 20 years has revealed great many problems, especially spreading false information about our past and present as though ancient Georgian lands historically belonged to our neighbours. They saw seeds of envy and hostility among the nations living in peace and good neigbouring for many centuries. For instance, the Ossetians densely live in different parts of Georgia, and those parts are as Georgian as Tskhinvali Region – the so called South Ossetia. Other autonomies are also artificially formed during communist regime. Despite current disagreement, we do hope Georgians, Abkhazians, Ossetians, and other residents of Georgia will be close brothers like in times of yore. We believe a day comes when all of us forgive fratricide to each other and together erect a brotherhood monument, which becomes a warning for future generations to avoid similar disaster. Love and mercy are natural Georgian characters. We did not study tolerance in books. It is our character. The brilliant example of my words is different nations and religious groups living peacefully for many centuries here. Georgians have only friendly and brotherly relations with them. One of bright examples of our character is expressed in a rhythm by Vazha Pshavela, great son of brave and courageous mountainous Georgia, “I’d rather be grass or pasture but not mower, I’d rather be lamb but not wolf”. This is true inner character of Georgian man. But, it does not mean that a Georgian ever accepts separation of his Motherland. The Motherland is a place that God grants to man on the earth. Certainly, the Motherland is a marked territory with its nature, natural resources, flora and fauna. But, the Motherland is far more… the Motherland is a piece of land enriched with your ancestors blood. It is air enriched with your tongue. It is environment enriched with your gene, your nature. It is a piece of space keeping the whole history of your country and nation. And, all of them are connected to us with invisible but very strong field. Therefore, the Motherland shall not be determined only from mundane and materialistic point of view. Its value greatly depends on number of saints praying for the nation before God. No nation shall compare with Georgians in that. Georgia has always had great heroes sacrificing their lives to the Motherland. The greatest treasure of our nation is our language. Each of us shall care it. Our language keeps our history, our stance, our cultural behavior. The language is not only means of communication. Let me site following words, “world”, “motherland”, “earth”, “pass away”, “freedom”, “education” and many others… each of them keep deep psychological idea in Georgian! Plenitude and perfection of the Georgian language originates from its diverse dialects and accents, deep sensitivity and rich spiritual world of Georgian man. We should especially note the fact that despite its ancient origins and changes which occurred for many centuries there is live relation between old and modern Georgian, thus proving its strength and vitality. Oh, our language, keeping sacral secrets of our joy and sorrow, peacekeeper like rainbow, calm and composed like glacial alp Mkinvartsveri, and rushing and challenging like the River Tergi. You are our ever-made column to Heaven; you are our slim stem passing through centuries’ turnover; you are our root and strong foundation; you are creator and savior of our treasures and values; you are our power, our ruler and guard of our faith, unity and integrity. Our enemies have tried your annihilation and obliteration for many times. Nowadays, while solving one of the most significant problems regarding restoration of our territorial integrity, another important danger of language separation is rising. Some forces provoke people with less intellect to translate the Holy Bible and other books in Mengrelian, Svani, Lazian languages thus preparing a ground to recognize them in near future as independent languages having nothing in common with Georgian. There are spread some maps throughout the world insisting Georgia as artificial unity of Adjarans, Lazians, Svans, Mengrelians, Tushes and others. Such maps state as though all parts of Georgia have their own language and culture. They wish to present Georgia as unity of different national tribes. And, there is only one step from such idea to state demolition. Mankind has moved to new stage of enmity, i.e. media war. It is obvious that media battle on different fronts is being conducted against us. Each of them should be properly responded. Our society returns back to church after long lasting estrangement, and that is natural and gradual process. There have been built great many churches, which are full of parish. Number of clergy has been raised significantly. Ecclesiastic ceremonies and sacral services (christening, wedding, house consecration, funeral service, etc.) are more and more attended. But, modern society needs deeper spiritual development. We came out of Egypt – eddy of sins, but we have not reached the Promised Land – spiritual Jerusalem yet. While walking through desert offences happen occasionally. The most acute examples of that are frequent divorces, drug addiction, and abortion. I can’t help to mention dreadful sickness – slander, turning so popular among the youth. Unfortunately, such vocabulary is regarded as courage and a good style. But, it only shows low culture and lack of intellect. Quite often young people mention their mothers with slander and do not realize what they say. It is extreme insult and dreadful sin leading man to join mammon. Man shall be responsible for every single word he says before God. Parents’ offenders shall bear heavy penalty. The Old Testament calls to throw stones at parents’ offenders. We shall kindly ask our youth to exile slander words, especially regarding their mothers, out of their vocabulary. Let us pray together and ask mighty Lord give us mercy, “O heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who art in all places and fillest all things; Treasury of good things and Giver of life: Come and dwell in us and cleanse us from every stain, and save our souls”. Each of us shall ask ourselves whether newly born Christ in Bethlehem be born in our hearts? We shall remember that the Savior was not born in luxurious palace or royal apartments but in a manger giving example of modesty to man. We shall keep in mind, “God obliterate arrogance and bless modesty”. Why do this happen?! The reason is disability of man to do any good only by himself. It comes only from God. Those thinking in other way and hoping to achieve any success by themselves, will drop into eddy of their own sins. God leaves them alone and takes all His blessing and power off them. Good example is King Saul’s story. The King was blessed by God. But, his own will and ambitions led him to arrogance and finally he lost his crown and all his power. King David the Prophet like King Saul was also blessed by God. And, King David became a brilliant example of modesty and confession to next generations. People love and honour the reserved and respectable leaders. The Georgian history is rich in similar examples. Let us remember Holy King David the Builder – his “Motet of Confession” is brilliant example of modesty; Holy Queen Tamar fed the poor and incessantly prayed for soldiers devoted their lives to the Motherland; great Georgian kings Demetre I, David X, Teimuraz I and many others admitted to the veil; King Erekle II was noted with his reserve and simplicity. When royal authorities show such unusual example of modesty in times of their glory we shall make an effort ever more! The Old Testament says the most reserved and composed man is Moses. Due to these characteristic features he is blessed and granted to talk to God. According to the New Testament, and beyond, the most reserved is Mother Virgin. Due to Her purity and distinguished blessing She was honoured to become Mother of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. She was able to bear the creator of universe. The initial problem for each of us, the whole our nation, is lack of modesty. We believe in our own power and mind to achieve success but lose divine blessing. No angels can do anything without God. And, what shall we expect from ourselves?! On this great day I kneel to the Holy Trinity and beg to grant us modesty and open our hearts to turn them in Bethlehem manger and let Jesus Christ cometh in. Glory to God, our Savior raising all fallen men! Glory to Savior, enriching us with His mercy and letting us share eternal felicity! Glory and thank to Savior filling us with joy, love, and hope! Rejoice Holy Mother of God, full of grace, Birth-giver of God! Rejoice Holy Virgin, who by the glorious birth-giving hast united God the Word with Man and linked our fallen nature with Heavenly Things. Georgians and all beloved residents of Georgia! “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall be find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Math. 7.7). Do not fall down! Do not fear facing the time! Do not lose hope on God! Do not lose hope on Future! Do not lose loving your neighbor! Love labour and knowledge! “Christ ever lightens all!” Rejoice in both worlds. God is with us! Praying for you with Christian love, Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II