This month, we observe Memorial Day, a special day dedicated to the remembrance of our departed loved ones. Throughout our country, we gather on this day as families and as communities to pray for the blessed repose of their souls, that they might live eternally in God's Kingdom, and forever in our hearts and minds. So that we might express this spiritual yearning together as a Greek Orthodox family united in the Body of Christ, our Church has prescribed memorial services throughout the ecclesiastical year.

As we join our neighbors across America in observance of this national holiday, May 26, we also remember the heroic men and women of our armed forces who sacrificed their lives so that we may live in conditions of liberty and freedom. Our gatherings over the Memorial Day weekend are rightful occasions for the celebration of freedom in our blessed nation and also for the solemn remembrance of those who have defended liberty with their lives.

Our Creator has endowed our minds with manifold abilities and complex functions, among the most extraordinary of which is the faculty of memory. Our inclination to honor and revere our departed loved ones is not only natural; it is also sacred and God-given. Our memory connects us to the continual presence--the living reality--of those who have passed on before us. Our act of remembering our loved ones has the extraordinary capacity to bring us comfort, to renew our spirit, and to mend the fractures of our soul. Moreover, our memory of the departed brings us into communion with the collective memory of the entire body of the Church--with those who also shared the experience of our earthly life ages ago, even with the Saints.

Our reverencing of those who have departed this life is, thus, a collective act, which connects us ultimately to the mystical body of Christ, to the Savior of the world who paid for our freedom by His death on a Cross, "so that we would not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). In this sense, Memorial Day accords us the wonderful opportunity to affirm, through the sacrifice of Christ, that death has been overcome; and that He has granted us the joy of being in a lasting communion with our departed loved ones.

May our communion with God be also strengthened through our memory of all those who have departed this life; and may the joy of the Risen Lord strengthen your hearts, nourish your souls, and renew your spirit on this Memorial Day and throughout the Paschal season, as we draw closer to one another in fellowship and in love.

+DEMETRIOS
Archbishop of America