Heads of Christian Churches Greet Ukrainians on Christmas
"The Year 2010 Anno Domini, as well as all the previous years, was a year of inexhaustible grace of God. For our Church, the year became the year of the beginning of construction of a cathedral in honor of the Resurrection of Christ and a spiritual-educational center of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. We can note with a spiritual joy that the newly elected president of Ukraine began his service to the state with prayer and blessing in the Kyiv Cave Monastery. We trust that such a good beginning will promote the development of church-state relations for the good of the people of Ukraine which will be confirmed by good deeds, revival of godly traditions and increase of the level of social morality," noted the head of UOC, Metropolitan Volodymyr in his Christmas Address.
"By His Birth, suffering, death and resurrection, the Son of God, our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Savior destroyed sin and death in the human nature. That is why God became human. He became one of us to make the sinner holy and to make the mortal immortal. Christmas is a holiday of virtues, source of our joys, victory of the spirit over flesh; the holiday thanks to which the Heaven were open to human. As we thank God for His favors to us in the last year and in the next year, let us ask in our sincere prayers for the blessing of God for new achievements for the good of our holy single Ukrainian national Orthodox Church and consolidation of our Ukrainian state," reads the address of the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), Patriarch Filaret.
"The sense of incarnation is in the fullness of communication between human and God. The sense of incarnation is in the fact that human receives sonship and immortality in Christ. The sense of incarnation is in deification, in the fact that man is illuminated with grace which gives him the fullness of deity. Let each of us, children of the Holy Church, remember the true sense of life on that mystical night when the fire of Deity was lit in the darkness of the Bethlehem cave. Remember that the only medicine able to heal our life from the exhaustion of life and death is Christ's love and the grace of the Holy Spirit," stressed the address of the head of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), Metropolitan Mefodii.
"The essence of this feast is that the only begotten Son of God came to us to complete fully the plan of the Heavenly Father for our salvation. Therefore, the biggest wish for us all is that the truth that God is with us should take the main place in our Christmas celebrations and that we should keep it in our minds and hearts during the whole year and that it should make our life understandable and should give the value of salvation to each moment of our earthly life. Today, in the Holy Land, especially in Bethlehem, Christians, who are in minority already, are in a difficult situation. These people expect our support. The faithful of our Church in Ukraine still remember well what persecutions are as they suffered from them only several decades ago. Let us entrust to the Merciful Lord the inhabitants of the Earth, where His Son was incarnated and Christians, the faithful followers of God's Only Son," called the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) Patriarch Lubomyr in his address.
The members of the Permanent Conference of Ukrainian Orthodox Bishops Outside Ukraine also addressed Ukrainians: "God was incarnated on Earth for our deification with Him through His grace. This path of unification of human and God begins with humble acceptance of the good news of the birth of Christ, repentance for all the sins of our lives and a firm determination to start a new life by keeping and fulfilling all the commandments of God. As we enter the New summer of the favor of God, let us draw all the necessary conclusions of the last year 2010."
In his address, Patriarch Bartholomew I calls Christians to hear "in the gloomy atmosphere dominating the world in the recent time" the hopeful voice of the Church and to have unshakeable faith in the invincible love of the Lord for man, through which the incarnation of God was completed. "Therefore, Christ Himself in the ordinary manger of Bethlehem" is not only the "daily," spiritual but also material bread of the need of the flesh (James 2:16). The time has come for the practical application of the Good News with the fitting sense of responsibility! The time has come for a clear and exact fulfillment of the word of the Apostle: "show me your faith of your deeds!" (James 2, 18). The time and a possibility for us has come "to rise our minds to God's things," to the royal height of love, which brings us near to God," reads the address of the Patriarch of Constantinople.
