| Patriarch Kirill congragulates Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and all Ukraine on his 70th birthday Source: DECR Natalya Mihailova 07 November 2014 His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has sent the following congratulatory message to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine on the occasion of his 70th birthday: Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine Your Beatitude Beloved in the Lord, I am glad to cordially congratulate you on your 70 th birthday. Already in your early youth, you decided to dedicate your life to the service of God and His Holy Church. From that time till your mature years, you have followed Christ with courage and patience, faithful to your calling and unshakeably committed to the all-good will of the Heavenly Lord. The promise of Christ that “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother… for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Mt. 19:29) is being fulfilled in your life. On all the paths of your service, the Lord has invariably strengthened and blessed you. For the last years, you have gained high spiritual authority, wisdom and rich pastoral experience, which you generously share with fellow archpastors, clergy and the faithful of the Church. The years of your Beatitude’s 70 th birthday have become for you a time of calling to a new lofty feat. It is not an easy feat, but it has had to happen according to the word of the Gospel: “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl” (Mt. 5:15). In your election to the old and glorious see of the Metropolitans of Kiev, just as in all your life lived in monastic efforts and humble obedience to the Mother Church, we see an edifying action of Divine Providence, which leads a Christian from strength to strength (Ps. 84:7) and enkindles in each of us the fire of faith necessary for our growth till we “attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). The important service of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church entrusted to you at a time difficult for canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine requires a special ability for sacrifice, courage and devotion. It is not the love of power or vanity of this world that has elevated you to this high see but meekness with which you have emulated Christ the Founder of Feat Who “a bruised reed will not break, and a smoldering wick will not snuff out” (Mt. 12:20). I trust that this humbleness and all-conquering love of Christ will give you the power to bear without stumbling the primatial cross, so that the words of the holy apostle may be fulfilled: “And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever” (1 Jn. 2:17). |
| What would you now, brethren, from the ministers of the word? The Word Himself is no more! The Word, co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit, born for our salvation, the Author of every quick and powerful (Heb. 4:12) word, is silent, dead, buried, and sealed up. The more plainly and convincingly “to show man the path of life” (Ps. 16:11) this very Word came down from heaven and put on flesh; but men would not hearken unto the Word, they tear His flesh, and lo, “He is cut off out of the land of the living” (Is. 53:8). Who then shall now give unto us the word of life and salvation? Let us hasten to confess the mystery of the Word which shall disarm His persecutors, and restore Him to souls ready to receive Him. The Word of God is not bound by death . As a word from the lips of man dies not entirely away at the moment its sound ceases, but rather gathers new strength, and passing through the senses, penetrates the minds and hearts of the hearers; so also the Hypostatical Word of God, the Son of God, in His saving incarnation, whilst dying in the flesh, “fills all things” (Eph 4:10) with His Spirit and might. Thus when Christ waxeth faint and becometh silent on the cross, then is it that heaven and earth raise their voice unto Him, and the dead preach the resurrection of the Crucified, and the very stones cry out. “And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose” (Lk 23:45; Mt 27:51-52). Christians, the incarnate Word keepeth silence only in order to speak unto us with greater power and effect; withdraws, that He may the more inwardly “dwell among us” (Jn 1:14); dies, that He may grant us His inheritance. Assembled by the Church to hold converse with the departed Jesus, listen ye unto the quick and powerful word of the dead (Heb 4:32); listen ye to the testament He has left unto you, “And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me” (Lk 22:29). |
| Now, to sum up this section. I have presented all of this material not as negative, destructive criticism. We may love science and understand that it is a human activity and, as such, has limitations. We, humanity, are not the infinite, omnipotent God. The temptation to become gods at the tree of knowledge persists. (Look, for instance at the Apple logo!). Myths abound about science and technology. Many people believe in the infallibility of science and its capability to answer, at least eventually, all of mankind’s questions about everything. Other people see science and technology as products of demonic activity bound to lead to the eventual destruction of nature and mankind. These fears are not helped by the behaviour of some high-profile individuals who present themselves as high priests of the New Age of science and viciously attack those people who hold “obscurantist” religious views. The cosmos of faith In the late 60’s, rock culture power surges were electrifying the youth. I was a teenager. At that time my father introduced me to Christian apologetics and the great Christian writer, Dostoyevsky. My spiritual father (Fr Rostislav Gan, +1975) made me aware of a spiritual reality that is not perceived by the world. I say this to introduce the subject of faith. The first level of faith is “faith from hearing”. We believe those people for whom we have respect. No form of teaching in any discipline is possible without trust. We have seen that that level of faith is also important in spiritual life. What many people don’t understand is that spiritual life does not consist entirely of following figures of authority from the past. People who think that science is only about tangible facts are sceptical about spiritual life and believe that faith always remains “blind”. They are wrong. The Gospel tells us that when Phillip told his friend Nathaniel about finding the Christ, Nathaniel clearly wished to believe but showed caution. Phillip then said: Come and see (Jn 1:46). The Samaritan woman invites her townsfolk to come and see if He is the Christ (Jn 4:29). The Lord invites doubting Thomas not only to see but to touch as well (Jn 20:27). The Gospel teaches that finding the faith that is beyond the level of “faith from hearing” involves seeing and touching. In other words, faith is an experiential, empirical phenomenon. |
| 3. Faced with this situation, which has led to a degradation of the notion of the human person, the duty of the Orthodox Church today is, by means of preaching, theology, worship and pastoral activity, to reveal the truth of freedom in Christ. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth … for why is my liberty judged of another man’s conscience? (I Cor. 10: 23-24, 29). Freedom without responsibility and love leads eventually to the loss of freedom. 3. Peace and Justice . 1. The Orthodox Church has since time immemorial recognized and proclaimed that peace and justice occupy a central place in the life of peoples. Christ’s revelation is characterized as the gospel of peace (Eph. 6:5), for Christ made peace through the blood of his cross (Col. 1:20) and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh (Eph. 2:17). He became our peace (Eph. 2:14). This peace, which passeth all understanding (Phil. 4:7), as the Lord said to His disciples before His crucifixion, is wider and more important than the peace which the world promises: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you (Jn. 14:27). For Christ’s peace is the ripe fruit of all things united in Christ: the revelation of the dignity and majesty of the human person as the image of God, the manifestation of the organic unity of the human race and the world in Him, the commonality of the principles of peace, freedom and social justice and, ultimately, the offering of the fruits of Christian love among people and the nations of the world. True peace is the fruit of the triumph on earth of all these Christian principles. It is the peace that is from above, of which the Orthodox Church constantly prays every day, beseeching it of almighty God Who hears the prayers of those who approach Him in faith. 2. From the above it becomes clear why the Church as the body of Christ (I Cor. |
| But it will be too late: life is already over and no one will have the power to return one hour, or even one minute. And there will be that hour when the Lord commands our bodies, returned to dust, to rise, to unite with our immortal souls, and commands us to stand before Him (cf. Jn. 5:25, 29), before the face of His angels (cf. Mt. 25:31), before the face of the innumerable host of God’s faithful children, holy God-pleasers, and simple people faithful to the Lord, who were able to live and die with the Lord in their hearts. We will stand before them with our innumerable sins, with all our falls, and with all our filth. And in the hour of the final and Dread Judgment, will not these words erupt from our souls, to the Righteous Judge: “Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me?” This will be our last cry, which can only be addressed to the Lord, for this judgment will be final, and after it will be either eternal joy for Christ’s faithful children, or eternal tribulation for unrepentant sinners and for those who have pushed Christ’s hand away, and who lived without Christ and died without Him (cf. Mt. 25:46). So, my dears, the manifold repetition of this prayerful lamentation reveals our whole life to us—from beginning to end and to the final Dread Judgment of God. What the Lord will say to each of us—that’s His holy will. But, while we yet live, while we yet walk this earth, while we yet have these great and saving days of repentance given us by the Lord, let us bring our repentance to the Lord, with tears! Do not be ashamed of these tears, for our guardian angel collects these tears unseen. Weep bitter tears for the transgressions we have committed, and with these tears for our sins, draw nearer to the Lord with a prayer that He would save us by His mercy before we die to eternal life, and that He would cover our souls weeping before Him with His love, and that in eternal life and at His Dread Judgment he would not recall those sins for which we here brought repentance to the Lord with tears. We will not hear these repentant sighs again until Great Lent next year. But may these holy words of the repentant canon never die in our hearts. May they live in the days of Great Lent, when we bring our repentance, and may these wonderful words of prayer, with which we ask forgiveness of our sins from the Lord and pardon for eternal life, not decay throughout our lives. I wish you all, my sweet dears, with my whole heart, that the Lord grant you in these days of Great Lent to bring to Him not just your contrite souls, but your souls with tears wept for your sins, and that these tears would eternally cleanse our sinful filth; that we would not take our sins with us into the life of the future age. 30 марта 2017 г. Рейтинг: 10 Голосов: 1 Оценка: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Смотри также Комментарии Подпишитесь на рассылку Православие.Ru Рассылка выходит два раза в неделю: Новые материалы Выбор читателей Мы в соцсетях Подпишитесь на нашу рассылку |
| Illumined by the contemplation of the great event, let us return, beloved brethren, to our homes, and bring along with us deep, saving thoughts, smiting our hearts with these thoughts. We remembered and vividly beheld the act of divine love; an act surpassing words, surpassing comprehension. Martyrs responded to this love by the streams of their blood, poured out like water; the saints responded to this love by the mortification of their flesh with the affections and lusts (Gal. 5:24); many sinners responded to this love with a flood of tears, heartfelt sighs, and the confession of their sins, and drew from it healing of their souls; many people burdened by sorrows and sickness responded to this love, and this love dissolved their sorrows by Divine consolation. Let us also respond to the love of our Lord Jesus Christ by our sympathy with His love: by a life according to His all-holy commandments. He demands this sign of love from us, and only this sign of love will He accept from us. If a man love me, said He, he will keep my words: He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings (Jn 14:23-24). If we do not respond to the Lord " s love for us by our love for Him, then was not the blood of the God-Man shed in vain? Was not His all-holy body tormented for us in vain? Was not the Great Sacrifice placed upon the table of oblation and pierced in vain? Its intercession for our salvation is all-powerful; all-powerful also is its indictment against those who disdain it. The blood of righteous Able rose from the earth to heaven, and stood before God to accuse those who had shed that blood; the voice of the great Sacrifice rings out through the very heavens, on the very throne of the Godhead, upon which the great Sacrifice is seated. The voice of Its indictment is also God " s sentence of eternal punishment to the enemies and disdainers of the Son of God. What profit is there in My Blood when I go down into corruption? (Ps. 29:9) announces the all-holy Sacrifice, accusing Christians whom It has redeemed, who took the price of It on themselves, and cast It down along with themselves into the stench of sin. Anyone who has made his soul and body members of Christ, redeemed by Christ and belonging to Christ, commits a terrible crime when he then makes them the members of an harlot (1 Cor. 6:15) through multiform merging with sin. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy (1 Cor. 3:16–17). Amen. |
| All of the gospel accounts of these numerous healings possess a deeper allegorical and theological meaning aside from the actual remedying of the physical infirmity itself. Overcoming physical sightlessness is often used as a metaphor for Christ’s overcoming spiritual blindness. For example, the healing of the blind man which actually required two separate actions by Christ is described as analogous to the apostles’ gradually coming to understand who Christ truly is ( Mk. 8.21–30 ). The evangelical accounts of Christ performing resurrections demonstrate his complete command over the forces of the universe, including death and decay. This is emphasized especially in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, where the Lord raises his friend from the grave even though he has been dead for four days and has already begun to decay ( Jn. 11.1–46 ). In order to understand the taking on by Christ of all of humankind’s sins and iniquities and the healing of our nature through his death and resurrection, it is essential to appreciate his true incarnation. Since Christ was both true God and true man, he was able to facilitate the healing and resurrection of the whole race on his own person. Following his resurrection, Christ continued to possess a true, physical, human body. He ate and drank ( Jn. 21.13 ) and the apostles (including Doubting Thomas) were able to touch him ( Jn. 20.24–29 ). However, after the resurrection, the body of Christ was no longer subject to illness or death. The restoration of health in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and during the history of the church is often accomplished through what can be termed miracles of grace. In the Orthodox understanding of the order of things, however, sickness and death are an anomaly in the human situation, and it is this which is remarkable and unusual, rather than the return of a person to health. In this sense, therefore, a “miracle” (called in Orthodox tradition a thauma, or sign of wonder) given as a sign of God’s mercy is actually a restoration ofthings to their natural order and a premonition of how life will be after the resurrection from the dead. |
| Ce n’est pas un hasard, si saint Jean-Baptistse est considéré comme le dernier des prophètes et le premier des apôtres. Il s’inscrit dans la continuité des prophètes de l’Ancien Testament, des premiers prophètes à ceux du temps du roi Hérode. Avec lui s’achève la grande épopée du ministère prophétique ; il termine la longue liste des prophètes ayant annoncé le Seigneur Jésus Christ. Chaque livre prophétique, en effet, est, à sa manière, une annonce du Seigneur et Sauveur. Leur rôle des prophètes consiste justement à parler du Christ, à annoncer aux hommes l’avènement du Messie, du Sauveur qui prendra sur Lui les péchés du monde et dont la passion et la mort seront rédemptrices. Le dernier d’entre eux fut Jean-Baptiste, qui désigna de son doigt le Seigneur en disant : « Voici l’Agneau de Dieu, qui ôte les péchés du monde » (Jn 1,29). Il est aussi le premier des martyrs chrétiens, étant mort à cause de sa foi en Christ, parce qu’il proclamait la vérité divine sans crainte des autorités civiles, disant ce que Dieu devait leur annoncer. C’est pourquoi ce jour est une solennité et une fête dans l’Église : commémorant un évènement affreux et tragique, nous fêtons en même temps la majesté de l’esprit humain, capable de lutter sans compromis pour la vérité. Saint Jean-Baptiste, par son martyre, ouvre la longue liste des martyrs chrétiens, de ceux qui, au cours des siècles, ont manifesté leur fidélité au Christ sans craindre ni la mort, ni les persécutions, ni les tortures. Par leurs actes, ils ont montré que la puissance divine surpasse la faiblesse humaine, que la foi est capable d’inspirer à l’homme des prouesses en cette vie terrestre et de lui ouvrir la porte de la vie éternelle. Nous avons résolu de commencer l’année universitaire en pratiquant l’enseignement à distance. Nous avons pris cette décision voyant que, malheureusement, l’épidémie n’était pas terminée. Ces derniers jours, le nombre de nouveaux cas a augmenté. Les uns disent que c’est le début d’une deuxième vague, les autres le nient. Quoiqu’il en soit, le nombre de malades augmente. |
| The other was unable to see his entire life from birth, but obeyed Jesus Christ as the Son of God (Jn. 9:1-38). Let us consider now the example of the Samaritan Woman. A crossing over from the worse to the better occurs several times with her. First the physical crossing: She goes for water outside the town, leaves it and comes to a well. It is a holy place. This ancient well was already around 2,000 years old when the Gospel event happened, having been dug by Abraham’s grandson Jacob for his son Joseph (Jn. 4:5-6). The Samaritan Woman probably went to this well every day. Such a walk after water detaches a person from life’s commotion, from daily labors, and disposes him to receive Divine wisdom. And one day, when she met our Lord Jesus Christ at the well, she was spiritually reborn, making a great transition from spiritual darkness to the light of faith. Christ says to her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water (Jn. 4:10), and then, But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (Jn. 4:14). The Samaritan Woman received the living water of Christ: She came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. She herself became a fountain of living water, according to the word of Christ, because she preached the Lord to her fellow citizens, and they came to Christ and believed in Him (Jn. 4:29-30, 39-42). Within this, the main transition in the life of the Samaritan Woman, we can see two others. The first is the moral change and purification of her personal life. When the Samaritan Woman asked Christ, Sir, give me this [living] water , the Savior answered her, Go , call thy husband, and come hither ; but the Samaritan Woman replied, I have no husband. As is clear from what happens subsequently, the Samaritan Woman was dodging. She wanted to hide the shortcomings of her personal life from the Savior. |
| By his redemptive sacrifice Christ united heaven and earth, the eternal and the temporal, the Creator and the creation, God and the human person. He has overcome the gulf which since the dawn of human history has separated the first people from their Maker. When they violated the commandments that were given to them and disobeyed their Creator, sin and death came to reign in the world. " When the fulness of the time had come, " says the apostle Paul, " God sent his Son, born of a woman, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as children " (Gal. 4:4-5). Christ, being the Lamb of God " without defect or blemish takes away the sin of the world " (1 Pet 1:19; Jn 1:29). In being obedient to the heavenly Father " to the point of death– even death on the cross " (Phil. 2:8), he brings all of humankind to its Creator, reconciling it with him. Being the Son of God by his nature, he makes us sons and daughters of God by grace. The Lord opens up to us the way of moral transformation and spiritual ascension to life everlasting and blessed with God " in the unfading day of his kingdom " (The Paschal Canon). In freeing us from enslavement to sin, in casting down " the powers of this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places " (Eph. 6:12), the Lord is raised up to heaven, where he sits in unapproachable glory at the right hand of the pre-eternal Father. At the same time, he does not abandon us here on earth and abides eternally with his disciples who together form his Body of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Her Head, Christ himself, guides this ark of salvation through the stormy waters of the sea of life to the tranquil haven of heaven where " God may be all in all " (1 Cor. 15:28). We, Christians, who comprise the Holy Church, are to continue his glorious mission in the world. Like the great multitude of brothers and sisters in the faith who came before us – the apostles, the myrrh-bearing women, the martyrs, the saintly bishops, the venerable monks and nuns and the righteous – we are called upon to " give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the people " (1 Chr. 1:8). We are called upon to preach the Son of God and the Son of Man, who in his ineffable love for us shed his most precious blood on the Cross. We are called upon in both word and deed and with our whole lives to bear witness to people of the One who " was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities " (Isa. 53:5) and " was raised for our justification " (Rom. 4:25). |
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