Orthodox believers on Friday (Jan. 7) celebrate Christmas – the great holiday of the Birth of Jesus Christ. On the occasion, the Macedonian Orthodox Church head, HH Stefan the Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia, has sent a Christmas message to the faithful.

The meaning of the Christmas celebration is in the joyful news that God was born out of love as a person in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the human race and all creatures may be gracefully immortalized in His Church. Therefore, let us constantly thank God through faith, love and hope, with prayers and good deeds, knowing that only with God’s help we can overcome all difficulties and all temptations. On this day of salvation, let us also remember the last difficult years, caused by the pandemic, which showed that man is too small and powerless to resist it alone. All troubles of modern humanity come from the moral crisis, from it are born all the misunderstandings between the nations and from it arise all the problems that this generation of ours faces every day. And if we celebrate this Christmas with concern for the health of the world and its consequences, let us not forget the promise of the Son of God that He will be with us to the end of the world, that God’s love is above all temptations and that the impossible for men is possible for God, reads the Christmas message.