God cannot be deceived – one must remember it and preserve the purity of faith and the heart, said Metropolitan Iriney (Seredniy) of Dnepropetrovsk and Pavlograd in an interview with the UOJ.
“Take care of the purity of the Orthodox faith. It is said that only the pure in heart will see God. Therefore, we must work on this in order not to be hypocritical. God cannot be deceived, He sees in the heart. And therefore, the Savior says: Son, give me your heart. That is what should belong to God. Live your life, everything is for you, you are the king of the universe, man! But be with God,” called Metropolitan Iriney.
According to the hierarch of the UOC, you need to pray for the country, and for President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, and for the misguided bishops who have gone astray, lost priests, and for each other, to ask God for help.
“Do not look for any compromises – God sees the human heart, his mood, and human kindness paves the way and brings people together. Only this thing. And if in this kindness there is still love for God, a pure heart, a person will be happy, he will achieve everything he needs for life and for the salvation of his soul,” assures His Eminence.
He is sure that the main thing in the life of any person is to be kind, not to condemn anyone, but to reason and evaluate in order to make the best choice. And in no case there should be gossip, because we are all sinners, and God loves and tolerates us all.
“How can it be that a believer can suddenly feel hatred or go to war … How come? … If the apostle Peter wanted to protect the Savior, he took out the sword and cut the ear of one of the warriors; the Savior immediately healed him and told Peter to put the weapon in the scabbard, for he who takes the sword will perish from it. Our weapon is a cross, we protect ourselves with a cross, we oppose the enemy with its help,” reminded the hierarch.
According to him, this is exactly what the examples from the lives of the saints teach us.
“There should not be an enemy in the heart, it is necessary to throw it away, not to be infected with this bacillus, because it will destroy first the infected and then will harm others,” concluded Metropolitan Iriney.
He is also confident that the people will not betray the true Church. And the Tomos, in his opinion, gives the new church structure much less freedoms than the canonical Churh enjoys. “If we take, for example, the missive letter that Alexy II gave to the UOC, it foresees complete independence from Moscow and self-government, only the prayerful connection is preserved, nothing else. If you take the Tomos – they cannot even ordain a bishop on their own: it is necessary to coordinate it with the Ecumenical Patriarch. The opening of a seminary or a monastery, or the construction of a temple has to be done only with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch. So what kind of autocephaly is this?” said Vladyka Iriney.
