Message of His Eminence Metropolitan Aetolia and Acarnania and Damascenes for Sunday, October 25, 2026translated

My beloved Fathers and Brothers,

My beloved children in the Lord,

Who is God? What does he want from us? Should we fear Him? Should we expect His punishment every moment? Are we to believe that he watches our mistakes to punish us? Is God something completely different?

These questions are not new. Since ancient times, man has been trying to understand who God is. And many times he made a big mistake: he made a god to his own standards. He put into the image of God his own fears, his own desires, even his own cruelty.

This is how the image of a strict and distant god was created many times. A god who waits for us to make a mistake in order to punish us. A god who demands obedience and returns with favor. A god who, when man sins, responds with anger and vengeance.

But if we believe in such a god, how can we love Him? And even more: how will we learn to love one another? Really, how are these two connected? The answer is simple:

The God we believe in, we imitate. The God we believe in shapes us, after we have surrendered our mind and heart to him.