04 December 2024
Dear brothers and sisters!
I wholeheartedly greet you on one of the Twelve Great Feasts — the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple.

It is a feast of faith, hope, and love. It reminds us that changes for good are always possible where there is infinite trust in the Providence of God.

Saints Joachim and Anna brought three-year-old Mary into the Jerusalem Temple so as to fulfil their promise and dedicate their Daughter to God in gratitude. The tiny Girl, inspired by grace, ascended the high stone steps of the Temple on Her own, and the High Priest, receiving revelation from on High, introduced Her into the Holy of Holies, where the Most Holy Virgin grew up, preparing to become the Mother of God.

Churches of God are always sources of inexpressible joy, consolation, and inspiration. There is no man who would come into a church in distress or sorrow and leave it unconsoled.
The life of every man seeking peace and salvation is an ascent to Heaven on a ladder. Its first step, according to Saint Theophan the Recluse, is the turning from sin to virtue, the correction of one's mind and heart damaged by passions.

History shows that any aspirations, plans, and decisions, even good at first sight, bring only new disappointments, conflicts, pain, and suffering if selfishness is at their root. Good and lasting changes of oneself and the world around are possible only given the interaction of the ever-good Will of God and the will of man, which seeks light. And where else can people connect with God and one another and grow spiritually and morally so much as in a church — a place where the uniting and all-correcting grace of God is present in its entirety?
Every church of God is a great shrine, an image of Heaven. This world is kept by churches. In a temple, time merges with eternity, and the earthly Church and the Heavenly Church are united. All the generations that have ever lived and that live now meet in a single prayer here. And if every sincere prayer can reach God, how much stronger the multi-voice prayer of the Church, as a single voice of people of God, is!

It is no coincidence that it is churches and monasteries that theomachists of all times attack, seize, desecrate with godless events, deprive of the warmth of burning candles and hearts, doom to devastation, and destroy. But all of it will definitely pass.

Grace will fill churches again, and people of God will return to them. God is not mocked!
Today, when most hard trials have befallen our land, it is more important than ever for us to build peace in the temples of our hearts and keep our unity and faithfulness to God and the Church.

And on this great Feast, the Most Holy Theotokos shows us a straight path to God and encourages us to spiritual work, repentance, readiness to admit and correct mistakes of the past, and to start living from scratch with God's help. Only in this way can peace in one's soul and in our country be attained.

May the Lord, through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, strengthen us in faith and protect our people, our country, our Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Happy Feast, dear brothers and sisters!
I wish peace, love, and the gracious Protection of the Mother of God to all of us!
 
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