The spiritual messages of the Resurrection through the eyes of a Bulgarian theologian

published on 4/19/25 11:15 AM

Photo: Veselina Velcheva

This year, Orthodox and Catholic Christians will celebrate the Resurrection of Christ together. On the same date, the entire Christian world will turn its gaze to the empty tomb and will try, to the best of its ability, to empathize with the amazement of the myrrh-bearing women who were the first to see it. Although Catholics celebrate this day with appropriate solemnity, they attach more importance to the Nativity of Christ, while for the Orthodox Church, the "holiday of holidays" is precisely Easter.

According to Dr. Zlatina Karavalcheva, a historian and expert in Byzantine studies and a theologian, it is not important which is the greater holiday, but what is the meaning of Christ being born, dying and resurrecting.

Many of us celebrate according to tradition, without understanding the essence of the Resurrection and thus lose out on the fullness of joy that this day generously offers. They load it with symbolism about the rebirth of nature, but symbols do not nourish the human soul. What is it that we are missing?

"As Christians, we do not believe that it is about metaphors and symbols,". "Christmas is not about the birth of a new beginning, which we all welcome and know from our life experience. In the same way, Resurrection is not about the constant cycle of life, in which every death is followed by resurrection and a new life, which, however, sinks into death again, only to be reborn again - no, this reading of Christian holidays is rooted in our limited human horizon. And the Church calls us to look beyond it and understand that God does all this - He is born as a man, lives as a man and is resurrected, as no man has done up to this point, in order to solve humanity's great problem with death", says Dr. Zlatina Karavalcheva and continues:

"This is the core of the Christian faith - that Christ is resurrected not in the way he resurrects Lazarus or other people who died during their life on earth. Although resurrected, Lazarus later dies, as everyone dies. man. With Christ it is different – he dies like any other man, but then he does something that none of us can do: he is resurrected never to die again. The possibility of resurrection, that all people will be resurrected, not metaphorically, not figuratively, but actually, is the core of the Christian faith. Christianity is meaningless, it becomes light, it becomes relativized without this faith in the Resurrection, which is a final and lasting victory over death."

Christ's tender attention to social outsiders, whom society recognizes as immoral, unfulfilled people - this is very clearly and distinctly noticeable in the Gospel. Christ shows them special care, not to relativize their problems, to show them that it is possible, but to say that as you are, with all your wounds, with your bleeding soul and heart, you are My creations and bear My image and this image cannot be erased. And this is Christ's message to each of us: deep in the core of every person lives the indelible face of Christ. It is to him that Christ reaches out, it is this image that He wants to awaken in each of us."