UOC Primate: Earthly religions seek the worldly, real one aims the Heavenly

Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: news.church.ua

Down-to-earth religions search only for the wordly goods, while the real one seeks for the Heavenly. The Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, said in his sermon on the Week after the Nativity of Christ, January 10, 2021, after the Divine Liturgy in the Assumption Cathedral of the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

The video of the Primate’s homily was published by the Information and Education Department of the UOC.

The archpastor told the believers about the flight of righteous Joseph with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Divine Infant Christ to Egypt (Matt. 2: 13-23) and also recalled his pilgrimage trip to this country, where the main population is Arabs.

He noted that the Arabs in Egypt “are very fond of asking for money and as soon as someone shows up, especially a monk, they immediately run up and cry – ‘one dollar, one dollar!’. Children come running – everyone is asking for money."

“The Copts are also dark-skinned but they look like Europeans. And so we came to the temple, built on the place where the Holy Family was, and wrote our names for prayerful commemoration. For that we donated $ 20. But the priest refused to take the money. As we persisted, he took me to some office, wrote out some receipts for me, and felt reconciled only after he handed them to me.

This is the difference between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of Islam, the way how people differ from each other. They do not differ in clothing, hardly ever in their face, but there is a big discrepancy in mentality, like heaven and earth. Earthly religions ask only for the wordly goods, but if a religion is real, Divine, it seeks for the Heavenly,” the Primate summed up.

Let us remind you that on the Week after the Nativity of Christ, the Primate of the UOC exhorted the believers to be always with Christ – both in the days of prosperity and in the days of sorrow and persecution.

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