Message of His Eminence Metropolitan Aetolia and Acarnania and Damascenes for Sunday, November 15, 2026translated

My beloved Fathers and Brothers,

My beloved children in the Lord,

With a desire for eternal life, a Jewish teacher of the law approaches Christ today and asks Him what he must do to inherit it.

Christ does not give him any new commandment. He reminds him of what the Law of the Old Testament teaches:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27).

Many think that this double commandment is an exclusive teaching of Christ. And yet! The first comes from Deuteronomy (verse 5) and the second from Leviticus (verse 18).

Well; Did Christ have nothing to add? What new does it bring to the understanding of love? For the Jews of His time, religious and ethnic differences were often obstacles to relations with other peoples.

Many took it for granted that love was primarily about their own people.

Thousands of years have passed since then. And yet, our mentality has not changed much.

Really, who do we usually consider close to us? But of course, the person who looks like us, who thinks...