UOC Primate: Last Christians' feat is endurance of sorrows and diseases

Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: news.church.ua

The main feat of the last Christians, which equates them to great ascetics, will be endurance of afflictions and diseases. The Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, said this in his homily on the day of Feast of the Synaxis of the Venerable Kyiv-Pechersk Fathers of the Far Caves (St. Theodosius). The video of the sermon was published by the Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

"Looking at the lives of our Venerable Fathers, everyone wants to learn a lesson for themselves," said the Archpastor. "Can we do something similar to what the Fathers did? Of course, today, none of us is capable of closing ourselves in a narrow little cave, as our hermits did. We will die there, even if we are supplied with full trays of all kinds of food and drink every day. We will simply not be able to withstand that closed space, embarrassment; we will fall into despondency and die of despondency. But there are other feats in which we must, if not become equal to the holy fathers, then at least be like them."

His Beatitude recalled the words of the holy fathers that the last Christians will be saved by enduring sorrows and diseases.

“There will be no more such feats that the ancient fathers would bear. But the endurance of afflictions and diseases equates the last Christians to those ascetics who struggled in the first centuries of Christianity," he said.

Today the world is full of sorrows and diseases, but, according to His Beatitude, in sickness one should not repine against God and blame Him but take from Him "these bitter medicines with which the Lord heals us."

"One shouldn’t be preoccupied with their illnesses – what it is caused by. We must tolerate them and try to correct ourselves, be attentive to ourselves so that we do not sin. We must follow the saints in patience and not think that it is so simple. Patience makes a person wise, it helps to understand the situation both externally and internally," His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry emphasized.

As reported by the UOJ, on September 10, 2020, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, in concelebration with the hierarchs and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, performed solemn services on the occasion of the Feast of the Synaxis of the Venerable Holy Fathers from Far Caves at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

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