“Today, heaven, earth, and the Ukrainian people rejoice at your ‘yes’ to God and the Church”: Head of the UGCC to Bishop Volodymyr Firman during his ordination
Dear Bishop Volodymyr, Zarvanytsia became the road to life for you because the Mother of God was your special Guide. It is the Blessed Virgin Mary who is the enactment of the law and God’s grace. For you, Zarvanytsia became the road to Christian excellence, to the priesthood. And today, we see how it is here that Christ reveals you to us as a proclaimer of the bishop’s grace. And all this is the fruit of your filial trust in the Blessed Virgin Mary. With these words, the Father and Head of the UGCC, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, addressed Bishop Volodymyr Firman during his ordination as a bishop.
“The Lord God has brought us to this place to give us an outstanding heavenly gift, a great sign of His love for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Today, here in Zarvanytsia, we want to specifically ask the Lord God for the gift of victory for our people over the unjust Russian invader and pray for our army. But a sign of hope for victory, a sign of God’s great love for us, is the birth of a new bishop — the successor of the apostles in the bosom of our Church,” said the Head of the UGCC.
In his sermon, His Beatitude, Sviatoslav revealed the meaning of today’s Gospel, focusing on the fact that the road to eternal life is God’s Commandments. Along this road, a person must move himself, and by striving for God through the path of righteousness and God’s Commandments, he can enter eternal life.
The Head of the Church noted that today, when the Gospel tells us about the lost vocation, we celebrate the story of the preserved, received vocation of a person who realized that everything he could have gained was worthless compared to the gift of eternal life, which can only be obtained if you abandon everything and follow Christ.
“Dear Bishop Volodymyr, you may be the only one among our episcopate today who exactly knows what it means to sow, who knows how our Ukrainian land breathes, how it receives life power from God and gives it to people,” His Beatitude Sviatoslav addressed the newly ordained bishop. “Here in Zarvanytsia, we have learned that faithful sowing is love and mercy for those in need. Today, heaven, earth, and the Ukrainian people rejoice so much at your ‘yes’ to God and the Church, as they need someone who will teach them the way to eternal life.”
The Patriarch noted that the bishop, as a successor of the apostles, receives a threefold authority: to preach the word of God, to teach; to sanctify God’s people by the power of the grace of the Holy Spirit, to lead and administer God’s people, which means to lead them on the way to meeting Christ, on the way to life, on the way to holiness.
At the end of the Liturgy, His Beatitude Sviatoslav thanked the bishops of the UGCC who gathered in such numerous numbers for the ordination of Bishop Volodymyr Firman, as well as Bishops Leon Dubravsky and Leon Maly, bishops of the Latin Church. The Head of the Church also expressed his gratitude to the representatives of the state authorities of the Ternopil region.
The UGCC Department for Information
