Today, we commemorate Saint Mary of Egypt.

Her life is a vivid example of the fact there is no such depth of fall from which a man could not rise, if only he turns to God for help and brings sincere repentance.

The Bible describes sin in different words: miss, fall, disobedience, transgression, lawlessness. The Holy Fathers taught that sinful passions take hold of man’s heart gradually. But if they are not resisted, they, like a deadly virus, seize their victim completely and to a full extent.

The story of Mary of Egypt is a story of how grace, which touched the heart of a woman who had followed for many years the path of betrayal of her faith, her honour, her family, herself, and God, transfigured her. Horrified of her past, she ran away from herself and from people until she found herself in a desert, where she spent the rest of her days in long and persistent struggle, in tears and repentance, in much labour and many deprivations, so as to truly repent and to cure herself of the deadly illness of sin and be saved. Her selfless faith and her victory over her own damaged mind and will made yesterday’s harlot Saint Mary of Egypt.

Saint Theophan the Recluse wrote: ‘The Lord wants everyone to be saved. God has one thought and one desire — to have mercy over and over again. And he will justify everybody, if only there is at least a small possibility’. We will hardly be able to run away into the desert in order to be cured of all our passions. According to the Holy Fathers, we, contemporary people, are left to save ourselves through repentance and enduring all the tribulations and temptations without complaining and reprimanding.
What pertains to one equally pertains to entire peoples as well.

Today, it is no longer possible to determine precisely who is most to blame for our finding ourselves in the epicentre of deadly evil and sufferings. But on the very brink of the disappearance of both the country and us as a great Orthodox nation, it is very important for us to realise and admit that we are unable to stop this insanity without God.

We need sincere repentance, that is, the correction of ourselves before Him. Repentance of the fact that we preferred our earthly passions to His Divine love, for failing to preserve humanity in ourselves and avoid the fire of hatred, which is burning both us and our neighbours, and for the fact that our Holy Church, the Church of our fathers and grandfathers, is under attack, and centuries-old traditions are desecrated. We need to bring peace back into hearts so that peace can reign around us. And we need forgiveness — forgiveness of our neighbours for their trespasses, and prayer for the forgiveness of our sins.

Sincere repentance works wonders, and the Lord’s love covers everything. This is the main lesson of today’s church feast — the commemoration day of Venerable Mary of Egypt. And, not least, it is a lesson for the Ukrainian authorities: to repent of all the sins before it is too late. Of the persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, of lawlessness, and of the persecution of people for their beliefs, for language, for faith, for faithfulness to their history and their traditions. The Lord accepts repentance if it is sincere.

O holy Mother Mary, pray God for us!