Ukrainians’ fight for freedom makes Ukraine the epicenter of world events today, — His Beatitude Sviatoslav
Precisely because of what we said to the colonizer who is attacking us: “no” because we want to be disciples of Jesus, today Ukraine is becoming the new epicenter of the fight for freedom in the whole world. The Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, said in his Sunday sermon to the faithful on the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost.
The preacher noted that in today’s Gospel from the evangelist Luke we hear the word “freedom,” which has many different meanings.
Sometimes, says the Head of the UGCC, it undergoes such a mutation in the modern world that it loses its original authentic meaning. They say everything is done in the name of freedom, and even the Russian occupier comes to “liberate” someone on Ukrainian land…
Some people think freedom is the ability to do whatever we want, but in reality, such freedom is nothing more than shackles on a person’s hands.
“Christ acted as the one who emancipates, the one who frees man, restores his dignity, restores his bright mind, restores man’s ability to perceive good and then transfer the good that he received from God to others. A person who becomes himself only when he is in God,” the Head of the Church convinces.
“Each of us comprehends,” says His Beatitude Sviatoslav, “that as long as we are under the power of our sinful deeds, how evil reigns over us, how we succumb to what at first seems attractive, sweet, and then turns out to be a great enslavement, without knowing true freedom, we do not understand who we are, what a man is. Therefore, we do not fully understand who our Lord, God, and Savior is for us. And spiritual life is always the road to true liberation, to freedom. And the goal of spiritual life is, in fact, the image of that person who experienced healing, experienced liberation.”
The spiritual leader urged people to ask for freedom from new enslavement. “Because we see that the invader and murderer who comes to our home is a new colonizer,” the Primate emphasized.
“We are telling the whole world,” the Head of the Church noted, “that the war in Ukraine is a war of colonization in Europe at the beginning of the third millennium. It is difficult for many people in the world to understand. This colonizer wants to take everything from us. But it is precisely the fact that Ukrainians have tasted the freedom that makes Ukraine the epicenter of world events today,” the spiritual leader added.
The UGCC Department for Information
