Today, at the Theophany celebration in Belgrade, His Holiness Patriarch Irinej greeted all those gathered for the blessing of the waters with the Serbian festal greeting, “God has appeared. Indeed He has appeared.”
“Today,” he continued, “every river is the Jordan. …. On this day He, who had thus been unknown to the world, revealed Himself to the world as the Redeemer of the human race, to reveal to us the path that leads to God. And that path leads us to each other.”
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Today, every river is the Jordan, because Christ was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.
Baptism is the first sacrament in the Orthodox Church, and is required of all Christians in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.