UOC Primate: Apostles show the beauty of belief in Christ with their lives

On the feast day of saint preeminent apostles Peter and Paul, the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine Onuphry celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Assumption Cathedral of the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, writes the site of the monastery.

After reading the Gospel, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry addressed the congregation with the word of the sermon, in which he recalled that on this day the memory of the holy apostles Peter and Paul is commemorated.

"These two apostles are equal in dignity to other apostles," said Vladyka, "but they did most to spread the faith and through their labors enlightened the whole universe with the light of Christ's faith."

The Primate spoke about the history of the ministry of Peter and Paul, about their vocation to serve God, about the upbringing, the origin and the formation of the apostles, who were completely different, about different destinies, but a single service to God and His Evangelic Truth.

"The apostles dispersed throughout the world and preached Christ," His Beatitude continued, "they converted many people to Christianity, made them followers of Christ. They supplied bishops and priests. The apostles suffered tremendous pains. Starting to preach in different places, the apostles Peter and Paul met together in Rome, and there they completed their earthly wanderings. Both of them were sentenced to death: Peter was crucified on the cross with his head down, and Paul was truncated with a sword.

Commemorating these great apostles and preachers, we see that with their word and their lives they showed the beauty of faith in Christ, the beauty of life with Christ. We must remember that a person should be adorned with spiritual wisdom, with the wisdom that makes a person open to accepting Divine truths, which makes a person invulnerable to enemy power, because when a human is wise, when he knows the Divine truths, then the enemy has no power over him.

If humility is born from our actions, wisdom, reasoning, then we are on the right path, and we correctly learn the Wisdom of God. If pride and arrogance arise, it means we are doing something wrong," the Primate stressed.

At the end of the Liturgy, glorification was sung, and prayer was also read to the holy supreme apostles Peter and Paul, after which His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry congratulated the Viceroy of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra on the day of the heavenly patron, wishing him, through the prayers of the holy apostles, unspoken help from the Lord, the increase of apostolic wisdom and the same self-offering service for the benefit of the Holy Orthodox Church.