'Death is overcome' - Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, challenged people in his Easter sermon on Sunday to accept the inevitability of death but also to receive the newness of life after death that only God can give.

"Celebrating Easter is celebrating the creator - celebrating the God whose self-giving purpose is never cancelled and who is always free to go on giving himself to those he has called," he said.

"And resurrection for us is that renewed call: when we have fallen silent, when we no longer have any freedom to respond or develop, God's word comes to us again and we live."

He pointed to a culture in which the thought of death had become "too painful to manage".

"Individuals live in anxious and acquisitive ways, seizing what they can to provide a security that is bound to dissolve, because they are going to die. Societies or nations do the same."

Dr Williams challenged people to instead believe in the promise of Jesus of eternal life and not to settle with the conviction that death is the end.

"We must prepare for [death] as people of faith by daily seeking to let go of selfish, controlling, greedy habits, so that our naked souls are left face to face with the creating God.

"If we are prepared to accept in trust what Jesus proclaims, we can ask God for courage to embark on this path.

"We don't hope for survival but for re-creation - because God is who he is, who he has shown himself to be in Jesus Christ."

He added, "Death is real; death is overcome."

The Pope, meanwhile, called for an end to injustice, hatred and violence around the world and particularly in Tibet, Iraq and Darfur in his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message delivered after Easter Mass.

In his sermon, the Pope decried "the many wounds that continue to disfigure humanity in our own day".

"These are the scourges of humanity, open and festering in every corner of the planet, although they are often ignored and sometimes deliberately concealed; wounds that torture the souls and bodies of countless of our brothers and sisters," said the Pope, who earlier baptised Muslim convert Magdi Allam, one of Italy's most outspoken critics of Islamic extremism.

He went on to call for "an active commitment to justice ... in areas bloodied by conflict and wherever the dignity of the human person continues to be scorned and trampled".

"It is hoped that these are precisely the places where gestures of moderation and forgiveness will increase!," he said, specifically mentioning Darfur, Somalia, the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon and Tibet.

For the patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem, Easter was a call to those involved in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israeli society to demonstrate "faith in more positive terms".

The group called on leaders in Palestine and Israel to change the violent means of security and on those elsewhere to join in the effort of ensuring peace.

"You too are responsible with us for restoring in it the joy of the Resurrection so as to lift the burdens of death, hatred, Occupation, Security Walls and the fear of taking the risk of peace," read a statement from Jerusalem church leaders.

"Do whatever you can and please involve your governments too to assume their responsibilities for the peace of this land."

In a radio address Thursday, President Bush spoke of the "gift that took away death's sting", and asked the public to pray for American troops in Iraq and to remember the lives that were sacrificed in working toward freedom in the country.

"These brave individuals have lived out the words of the Gospel: 'Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,'" said Bush in his Easter message. "And our nation's fallen heroes live on in the memory of the nation they helped defend."

The President had previously remarked in a speech for the war's fifth anniversary that the progress in Iraq has been "undeniable" and credited the surge for "a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror".