Today, the Holy Orthodox Church honours the memory of all the Monastic Fathers of the Kiev Caves — ascetics of faith, who illuminated our land with their spiritual feat and showed millions of believing hearts a path to Christ. The history of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra begins in the XI century, at the time of the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, when the Venerable Anthony, after returning from the Holy Mount Athos, settled in a small cave near Kiev. Soon, monastic disciples started to come to him, wanting to carry out the feats of prayer and fasting along with him. Thus did a great monastery originate, which became the Third Domain of the Most Holy Theotokos after Iveria and Athos.

Due to the feats of the monks, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra became the spiritual heart of our Motherland, a source of grace, and a fortress of faith. Great God-pleasers, by far not all of whose names have been revealed to us, carried out their monastic feat here. Their incorruptible relics, reposing in the Near and Far Caves, are a testimony of the power of faith and the grace of God, which works in the Church of Christ in all times.

It must be this that haunts the enemy of mankind and his minions. These days, like a century ago, the Holy Lavra is subjected to persecution. The churches and monastery structures, restored through tremendous efforts, are seized today by those who have no relation to the monks' feat of prayer and fasting — the main purpose for the creation and existence of monasteries.

The Monastic Fathers of the Kiev Caves built neither a historical preserve nor a museum, but a living God-man organism. That was what made the Lavra a pearl of Christendom and attracted millions of pilgrims to it for centuries. But today, secular state officials are cynically "inspecting" the relics of the saints, like the Bolsheviks once opened the reliquaries of the Monastic Fathers, trying to destroy the people's faith. But God is not mocked. The Kiev-Pechersk God-pleasers stand before His throne, praying for everyone faithful to Christ, and their prayers have great power.

In the hardest periods of their history, our people survived because they put God in the centre of their lives. As the Holy Prince Yaroslav the Wise commanded his descendants, "...if ye abide in  amity with one another, God will dwell among you, and will subject your enemies to you, and ye will live in peace. But if ye dwell in envy and dissention, quarrelling with one another, then ye will perish yourselves and bring to ruin the land of your ancestors, which they won at the price of great effort."

And today, when all around us we see implacable enmity, a triumph of lies, splits, the destruction of spiritual and material heritage, and an insane bloody holocaust, we, for the sake of the coming of lasting peace, for the sake of the salvation of the people, not of a bunch of grabbers who have risen to power, ought to listen attentively to these words, stop, repent, and return to our roots. God is able to correct everything.

Dear brothers and sisters!
Not centuries or kilometres separate us from the Monastic Fathers of the Kiev Caves, but only our lack of faith and sins. Let us ask today for their prayers for our long-suffering country, for our persecuted Ukrainian Orthodox Church, for our captured Holy Lavra, for our God-loving people. May the Lord, through their prayers and intercession, strengthen us in the faith, keep us in the bosom of Holy Orthodoxy, deliver us from all evil, and bring us to long-awaited peace and salvation. Happy feast to all of you!