His Beatitude Sava, Metropolitan of Warsaw and All Poland, congratulated His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on his 75th birthday.

Your Holiness, 

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain… I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far (Phil. 1:21, 23). 

With these words St. Paul calls all, especially the archpastors of the Church, to focus their life around Christ. For in Him we live and move and have our being…  (Acts 17:28). Each day of our life belongs to Him. Our life and our death are in His hands (cf. Phil. 1:20). Christ leads us through earthly life to today’s Golgotha and puts us, just as He did St. John, at the foot of the cross and asks us what else we can do for the Church. 

He has made everything, and we should preserve these inexhaustible reaches received on Golgotha, i.e., the faithful standing with Him in the evening of our life and in the morning of our resurrection.  

With the Easter’s “Christ is Risen”, we raise the depressed world and it becomes new. Never before has our service of Christ been so important as it is today. Concern for the healthy Orthodox ecclesiastical family has become for us the primary task of our archpastoral ministry. Faith, hope, love and wisdom are our success. Humbleness and unity are our fortress. The Word of God is our sword.

The destiny of our Church is victory and resurrection. Everything passes while Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb. 13:8). He is the corner stone. We and our Church are the foundation built on it. 

Your Holiness, today marks the 75 years of your life on earth and this year marks the 45 years of your episcopal ministry and 12 years of your Patriarchal service. 

Your Holiness, you, like a solid foundation, hold the walls of the Russia Orthodox Church. You take upon yourself all the blows of the wave of the modern world. Under your wise archpastoral omophorion the Russian Church is developing, and attention is given in much of this to the whole Orthodoxy, which is in crisis today. 

I congratulate Your Holiness on your 75th birthday and wish you much spiritual joy, good health and successful fight for the salvation of many. 

I remember with gratitude the visit of Your Holiness to the Polish land. Your Patriarchal blessing and witness to the Lord’s truth before our society stands to this day. May the Lord save you for this!

Once again, I greet you on your 75th birthday, brotherly embrace Your Holiness and exclaim, Many Years of life to Your Holiness!

With love in Christ, 

+ Sava, Metropolitan of Warsaw and All Poland