"Word of Primate": We have no right to take God-granted life of children

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: news.church.ua

If God gives children, they should live, and we have no right to take this life from them. The Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, spoke about this in the new episode of the weekly programme “Word of Primate”, released on the Inter TV channel on October 17, 2020.

Murder is a great sin, which causes great pangs of conscience in the person who committed it, the Archpastor noted.

“The Lord doesn't like it when people kill each other. And especially the Lord does not want us to kill our children. The sin of killing children is even harder to God,” he stressed.

The Primate told the story of the captain of a sailing ship who once took on board a woman who killed her children. When the ship went to sea, it suddenly stopped dead and stood there for 15 days.

“The captain began to pray and suddenly heard a voice: “Throw Mary into the sea, then you will safely sail,” said His Beatitude. “The captain was at a loss and continued praying. And again, he had the Voice: “I told you – throw Mary into the sea, and you will be saved. "The captain, even more confused, involuntarily called Mary loudly. The woman approached him and he told her everything, adding: "I came to the conclusion that it is because of my grave sins that the Lord does not allow us to sail further." Hearing his words, the woman cried and said: "It’s my sins, not yours, are the reason."

The woman said that she was married and had two children but was soon widowed.

“Then she fell in love with one soldier and wanted to marry him, but he said that he did not want to marry a woman who had children from another man,” the Primate continued. “She came home in madness and stabbed her children to death. One was 9 years old, the other - 5. After that she came to the soldier and said that she no longer had children, she had killed them, and now she was ready to marry. And the warrior was horrified and said that he would never marry a woman who killed her children. And she, falling into the fear that she would not be caught and executed, boarded this ship in order to go to distant lands, where no one knows her, ‘and now the Judgment of God found me on the ship’. <...> They lowered the boat on the water, and as soon as the woman stepped into it, the boat whirled and went like a stone underwater. And the ship, caught by the wind, rushed forward at high speed."

God does not like it when we kill our children, “especially when the children are still in the womb,” emphasized His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.

“Let's take care of our children! We must not kill them! If God gives (children – Ed.), they should live. God gave them life, and we have no right to take this life from them. We must have children. We should educate them in the faith in God, in the fear of God, so that they know God so that they fear sin, evil, and unrighteousness. Then these children will be a consolation for us in old age and will be an adornment to our future,” resumed the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

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