CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS ALEXANDER II

A year of great temptations is behind us. Like all the nations, like every person, we have been through those temptations of ours trying not to be broken, trying to gain experience and a lesson for the future out of them, hoping for better and more successful times, hoping that today we are better than we were yesterday, that we are closer to God’s law and human justice. Time will show, and every morning and every evening that is coming, how successful in that we were, and we shall know the outcome by our conscience and in our hearts, and we will not hide it neither from ourselves nor from other people.

A year which is not like others is ahead of us. Two hundred years ago, on the day of the Presentation of Our Lord, our forefathers started an uprising and initiated a long and hard endeavor to reestablish the Serbian state. This is a memory that obliges us and a heritage that is looking for its heirs. We have to treat the 200th anniversary of the Modern Sate of Serbia with respect and responsibility. It should not be celebrated by speeches and shows, but by fulfilling the vows of the descendants not to destroy what the ancestors had built. The memory of Karadjordje and his uprisers is not the aim to itself, it is a warning for the present and a road sign for the future. It calls upon wisdom which is not weakness, strength which is not violence, will which is not lack of responsibility, justice which is not unfair. It requests of us to “dress ourselves in humaneness”, so that our country would look like our conscience is advising us, and God commands us. It tells us to be the conquerors of freedom, the knights of democracy, human rights, the champions of justice, the defenders of imperiled, the benefactors of talented. To be a nation among nations, people among peoples, neighbors among neighbors, brothers and sisters, and to work together for the common good of our nation respecting all citizens regardless of their religion or ethnic origin. That is the vow of the uprisers that is the message of my great ancestor Karadjordje that is the testimony of the one who was called “The Father of Serbia” by Njegos!

Expecting the most joyous holiday, when we look at Bethlehem and witness the birth of the Son of God, let peace fill our hearts, and let the hope and faith of the shepherds and the wise men who came to adore him be also ours. Let love for the world that was given to us and love for our Creator be in us, so that we could, with pure hearts and clear conscience, greet each other with the greeting unequalled:

PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL FOR ALL!
CHRIST IS BORN – INDEED HE IS BORN!
Happy and blessed New Year to all of us.

Alexander