Message from Bartholomeos I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople

The second danger which often emerges is that we let ourselves be overcome with fear before we even start out on the path that leads to Mount Thabor. The greatness of God’s gift should not discourage us. The false modesty which makes us say that “these things are not for us” goes against the promise of the Lord who says: “the man who comes to me I shall not turn away!”(John, 6. 37). We should not therefore consider the manifestation of the “splendour” of the Godhead on Mount Thabor as something solely reserved for the select, but we must retain that all of us without exception, independently of age, sex, social class, inheritance and provenance, are invited to the same perfection as that to which the Lord invited his three disciples. We are all asked to observe the same commandments that the Apostles obeyed and we must recognize that the Lord “to this very day has not ceased nor will He ever cease to bestow the very same gift to all who follow Him with all their hearts” (Fr Sofronij).

The Transfiguration of the Lord, therefore, can constitute for all a beginning so that we transform our life in a life that is incorruptible and divine. Until we have made ourselves worthy of the vision of the magnificent glory of the Godhead, remorse will not cease, as the Church Fathers assure us. But if we grief and repent, if we recognize our insignificance and cry like St Gregory Palamas: “Lord, illuminate my darkness!”, we are sure that we shall be heard and that the inaccessible light “will shine on us sinners”.