Video-message of His Beatitude Sviatoslav. June 19. 116 th day of the war

Today is Sunday 19 June 2022 and Ukraine is already experiencing 116 days of this terrible war that the Russian aggressor brought to our peaceful, Ukrainian land.
During the last day, fierce fighting broke out again in the east and south of Ukraine. According to state authorities, the biggest fighting is taking place between Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in the Luhansk region. There the enemy has concentrated the largest amount of its weapons, its resources, in order to capture this part of the Ukrainian Luhansk region.

Yesterday during the day, the city of Kharkiv was subjected to very intense, brutal, and insidious attacks, air attacks and rocket attacks. Also yesterday missiles struck the city of Mykolayiv in the south of Ukraine twice.

But Ukraine is standing. Ukraine is fighting. Ukraine is praying. And we thank the Lord God and our defenders, our soldiers, the sons and daughters of Ukraine, for surviving to this morning and seeing the light of this Sunday, its daylight and sunshine.

Yesterday we received very sad news. Artem Dymyd died during a mortar attack in Donetsk region. He was the son of our well-known priest, Father Mykhailo Dymyd, the first rector of the restored Lviv Theological Academy, and Mrs. Ivanna Krypyakevych-Dymyd, a famous Lviv iconographer. On behalf of our entire Church, I express my sincere condolences to Father Mykhailo, to Pani Dobrodiyka Ivanna, and to the entire Dymyd and Krypyakevych family for this great loss on this great loss. This priestly couple, in particular its pain in the current circumstances of Ukraine, is an icon of our Church, which is the centre of the service to its people, and also bears the burdens, pains, and sufferings of the Ukrainian people and their youth. This death, this heroic death shook all the intellectual and scholarly circles of Ukraine. And today we say: "Heroes do not die!"

We beseech the Lord, accept him into Your embrace and grant him everlasting memory!

Today Ukraine celebrates the Sunday of All Saints. The first Sunday after the Descent of the Holy Spirit, according to Byzantine tradition, is a day of commemoration of the direct action of the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the history of mankind. A saint is a person who reflects and carries in themselves divine holiness. For in the Liturgy we sing "One is Holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen." And he who carries that living God in himself by the power and action of the Holy Spirit, revealing to the world the faces of the loving heavenly Father, becomes a partaker of the holiness of God Himself in its various forms and forms. Today we pray to all the saints of all the times of Christianity, we pray today for the suffering Ukraine, for the suffering Ukrainian Church.

These days, we reflect on the special gifts of the Holy Spirit which He brought to the human person on the day of Pentecost. And today I would like to reflect with you on the special gift of Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit, which we call the gift of godliness. Although this is not about any religious sentiment or piety, as a kind of religious ritual or practice by which a person tries to protect themselves from some dangers or force God to do his own will, as do various occult religions.

When we speak of piety as a gift of the Holy Spirit, we are talking about the human person's ability to feel the root cause of his life and existence. We know that the human person is the fruit of love, he fruit of love especially of our parents. Thus, in relation to those who gave us life, we always cultivate a sense of respect and gratitude. But the gift of the Holy Spirit, godliness, enables us to experience the first source of all being. The first source of existence of all creation. With the help of this gift of the Holy Spirit, we seem to return to the source of our personal existence and life. With the help of this gift of the Holy Spirit, we feel that we are loved and desired by God. As the psalmist David sings: "In You is the source of life, in Your shall we see light."

But the person who returns to the original source of their existence, to the Lord God, is reborn, renewed, lives, develops, and grows. Therefore, godliness as the gift of the Holy Spirit gives us the opportunity to feel that we breathe with you every day because God breathes within us in His love. We are able to act, to love God and our neighbour, because we feel that the first to love us and give us life and existence is the Lord God, our loving Father, Who saves us in Christ Jesus by the power and action of the Holy Spirit.

Today we ask: Lord, grant us renewal and life in Ukraine. Today we live by Your gift of the Holy Spirit and with this piety, like a deer, we return to the springs of water, because our soul longs for the living God. 

O Lord, breathe with us, breathe with Ukraine, so that Ukraine and her youth may live! In the midst of the sea of ​​death, You are present as our source of life. God bless the children of Ukraine!

May the blessing of the Lord be upon you through His grace and love of humankind, always, now and ever, and for ages of ages. Amen. 

Glory to Jesus Christ!