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Sermon

From the publisher

In 1999, a collection of sermons and talks by Hegumen Hilarion "The Night Has Passed, and the Day Has Drawn" was published. Almost immediately after publication, this collection, containing 22 sermons and several conversations, became a bibliographic rarity.

The collection now published contains sixty-two sermons, including twenty-two previously published ones. Almost all of the sermons published today were delivered by Father Hilarion in the Church of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine in the Fields, where he carries out his pastoral ministry.

Hegumen Hilarion (Alfeyev) was born in 1966. He received a musical education. At the age of twenty, he became a monk in the Vilnius Holy Spirit Monastery, was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon and then hieromonk. In 1990-91 he was rector of the Kaunas Cathedral of the Annunciation. In 1991, he graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy with a PhD in Theology. From 1991 to 1993 he taught homiletics, dogmatic theology at Moscow theological schools, New Testament at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Institute, and patrology at the Russian Orthodox University named after St. John the Theologian. From 1993 to 1995 he studied at Oxford University, graduating with a Ph.D. degree. Upon his return to Russia in 1999, by decree of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, he was appointed a cleric of the Church of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine in the Fields. Since 1997, he has been secretary for inter-Christian relations of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations and a member of the Synodal Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1999, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology by the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris.

Hegumen Hilarion is the author of more than ten books, including monographs on the Church Fathers, translations of patristic texts from Greek and Syriac. Fr Hilarion's books enjoy well-deserved recognition from readers. They are highly appreciated by the Supreme Authority of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The publishers express the hope that this collection will serve the spiritual benefit of readers, strengthen their love for the Holy Orthodox Church, to the service of which Father Hilarion devotes all his strength.

About the meeting with Christ. Christmas

"Christ is born – glorify! Christ from heaven – welcome! Christ on earth — ascend! With these words St. Gregory the Theologian began his Nativity sermon, and since then, for sixteen centuries, they have been heard in our church services, posing the same questions to us: what is the meaning of the Nativity of Christ for each of us; how can we meet Christ coming from heaven; how can we ascend from earth to heaven; How can we glorify Christ with our lives?