Kiev, October 28, 2024
Photo: YouTube
His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Annunciation Cathedral in Kiev on Sunday.
During the service, the Ukrainian primate, concelebrated by a host of UOC hierarchs, consecrated Archimandrite Anastasy (Bednikov) to the episcopacy to serve as a vicar bishop in the Odessa Diocese. He was elected by the Holy Synod on October 23, reports the UOC’s Information-Education Department.
Following the reading of the Gospel, His Beatitude offered a homily on the Lord’s Parable of the Sower in which he spoke about how the Word of God influences human life.
“The Word of God is spiritual food for people. The Lord said that man shall not live by bread alone,” Met. Onuphry said “When a man lives by the Word of God, this Word bears fruits which the grace of the Holy Spirit gives to him.”
As the Metropolitan noted, a man must patiently overcome all temptations through which “spiritual thieves” try to suppress this Word of God in him.
The newly consecrated Bp. Anastasy of Ovidiopol. Photo: uoc-news.church
“Those who keep this Word within themselves endure discomfort. Such patience, which the Lord speaks about, is that good fruit which a man has and should bring to God,” he noted.
The Ukrainian primate explained that most people today are like those described in the Lord’s parable, where the Word of God falls among thorns.
“We accept the Word of God, but worldly vanity and life’s worries suppress it. A man says: ‘I’ll pray later. For now I’m going to go there, I’m going to do this,’ and thus postpones everything for later. Of course, we live in this world and every man has obligations towards family, neighbors, and himself. But all these matters should be dissolved in prayer,” said His Beatitude.
He noted that prayer is the word of God that is placed in a man’s soul, with which they address their Creator.
“Prayer fills a man with the content needed to bear good fruits. It’s also very beneficial to read the Holy Gospel—this is also the Word of God. We need to keep these words within ourselves. We mustn’t allow spiritual thieves to take them away, but keep them in our memory and live by these words and sacred laws,” said His Beatitude.
He also preached about 
Venerable Nicholas Sviatosha Prince of Chernigov, and Wonderworker of the Kiev Near CavesNicholas was the Prince of Lutsk, and he had a wife and children. On February 17, 1106 the holy prince, left his family and was tonsured at the Kiev Caves monastery.
“>St. Nikolai Sviatosha, Prince of Chernigov and Wonderworker of the Kiev Caves, who was celebrated yesterday:
Today, dear brothers and sisters, is the commemoration of St. Nikolai Sviatosha, the patron of Kiev and especially of this district, which is also called Sviatoshynskyi. And we pray to St. Nikolai to ask God for us, that the Lord might help us live our lives worthily, that we might be filled with God’s Word and that we might live by this word, as he did, as he lived his life. He left his principality for the sake of God’s Word, to live according to God’s Word. And he became so well-known that princes and great rulers were forgotten, but people remember him—because the righteous are always alive in God, and the Lord loves the righteous.
May the Lord, through the prayers of St. Nikolai Sviatosha, help us all to lead our earthly lives worthily, so that in eternity we may be heirs of that blessed eternal Life in Heaven, which the Lord has prepared for us in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be glory, honor and worship now and forever.
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