Our Lord Jesus Christ gives everyone the gift of salvation. However, not everyone is capable of acquiring it said His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine in his sermon during the Divine Liturgy at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra on January 19, 2022, the feast day of the Baptism of the Lord, reports the Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
“We must be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in order to receive the gift of salvation. Only those who are baptized in the name of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity and live piously, observe the Divine sacred laws that make a person holy,” said His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.
The Primate of the UOC encouraged Christians to protect themselves from sin, “for sin is the bearer of death.” “If a person commits ten sins, ten stings strike him and gradually destroy him,” the metropolitan explained.
He also gave some advice on how to protect one’s soul from sin:
First, one needs to fight with the sin of pride and envy. We also need to try to ensure that our language consists of only smart, useful and kind words.
Secondly, one should try to observe fasts, “because fasting purifies the human body and gives freedom to one’s soul to know and understand God.”
And finally, one should try to go to church every Sunday. “A temple is a place where a person receives the Sacraments from God which are needed for our earthly life and which give the grace of God. And in order for the grace of God to act in us, we must be patient with each other, not steal, and not deceive each other. These are the sacred laws that the Lord brought to earth,” said His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.
The Primate of the UOC celebrated the Festive Liturgy at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in the Church of St. Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves. He was co-served by the abbot of the monastery, Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshgorod and Chernobyl, Archbishop Panteleimon of Buchansk, Bishop Viktor of Baryshevsky, Bishop Sylvester of Belogorodsk, Bishop Dionysius of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, Bishop Lavr of Irpinsk, Bishop Mark of Borodyansk, and the clergy of the Lavra.
During the service, solemn prayers were raised for an end to the spread of the pernicious epidemic, for the health of doctors and the sick.
After the Liturgy, a procession to the springs of Saints Anthony and Theodosius took place, where the abbot of the Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel, presided over the rite of the great blessing of the water.
His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry consecrated the waters of the Dnieper in the Obolonsky district of Kiev.
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