His Beatitude tells why being in the cave the saints felt like in paradise

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

On March 31, 2024, at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry congratulated all believers on the feast of the Synaxis of All the Venerable Fathers of the Kyiv Caves. In his sermon, he recounted how the holy ascetics managed to live in caves for many years without light and practically without food, yet felt happy, as reported by the Information and Education Department of the UOC.

"Those ascetics who shut themselves in caves had a small window through which they received prosphora and a glass of water, and they lived like that for many years. For a person, it is physiologically impossible to live in such a place, surrounded by absolute darkness. But the holy fathers lived there, and for them, this cave was like paradise," said His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.

According to him, "the light of God filled them from within and gave them joy and happiness."

His Beatitude called on believers to try to find God in their souls, following the example of the saints.

"To find God not in space or in other places, but in one's soul, should be the main desire of man," he said. "The task of every person is to preserve spiritual and bodily purity, which makes a person a vessel of this Divine light called the grace of the Holy Spirit."

As His Beatitude noted, this light gives a person the happiness of existence, regardless of who they are and in what conditions they live.

As reported by the UOJ, His Beatitude called on believers to preserve the purity of Orthodoxy.

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