Video-message of His Beatitude Sviatoslav. July 8. 135 th day of the war

Today is Friday 8 July 2022 and the Ukrainian people have already been holding back for the 135th day the full-scale invasion by Russia, which has stepped with its foot upon, and with its murderous hand is touching, the Ukrainian land.

We thank the Lord God and the Armed Forces of Ukraine that we survived until this morning, that we can be together, that we can stand before God, that we can live and serve God and Ukraine. This night, during the last day, again many people died in Ukraine, many were injured. The enemy continues to advance, in particular on the border of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, storming the cities of Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, and Bakhmut, subjecting our cities and villages to devastating rocket attacks. Again, Kharkiv suffered from rocket attacks, as did the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in the south of Ukraine. Dozens of people were injured as a result of these brutal enemy attacks. But Ukraine is standing. Ukraine is fighting. Ukraine is praying. And Ukraine is overcoming, first of all overcoming the evil in its own heart. Today, I would like us to start learning together with you, the study of how to overcome. For the last few days we have contemplated the rules of this invisible spiritual warfare, we have seen what harm sin brings to a person's life, how it devastates and destroys our mind, our will, our feelings, our inner personal space. We said that it is necessary to fight for freedom, even for personal freedom from sin. We talked about the fact that repentance is a necessary element, is the key to this freedom, a necessary condition for it, and also the way Christians learn to overcome. Today, I would like to start thinking with you about the eight main sins and their opposite virtues, because the experience of the fight against evil, which the Church of Christ has, tells us that it is not enough to fight only against sin, it is necessary to develop certain qualities, certain traits, which are opposite to that weakness, that sin that afflicts me. Especially when you and I already observe some kind of passion in our being, which disorients our natural forces, so we need such kind of therapeutic gymnastics in order to correct this very flaw in our spiritual posture. And today I would like to contemplate with you the first of these major sins, which is called gluttony, and the opposite virtue to this sin, which frees us from this passion, is moderation, especially in food. We know very well that a person needs food and drink. The Lord God created us in such a way that we are not self-sufficient beings. In order to live, to exist, we need to receive. To live, to exist in this visible world, in our bodily dimension, we need food, we need drink. But sin disorients those natural human needs, and very often this passionate disorientation, which is a brokenness of this natural need, turns into this sin, which has two main features. First of all, the sin of gluttony is committed by one who consumes food in unlimited quantities. The fathers of the Church say that sometimes the devil takes away a person's sense of satiety, and then no matter how much food a person consumes, no matter how much he drinks, he never has not enough of it. And, unfortunately, a large part of humanity is marked by this sin today, in particular from the so-called countries of prosperity. And there is another feature of this sin, when a person seeks pleasure from food, and he consumes food not in order to strengthen himself physically, but in order to get pleasure. And no matter how much he gets of this pleasure, it will never be enough. As the proverb says, appetite comes while eating. What do we need in order to really learn to manage ourselves, particularly in this basic human desire and basic human need? And this is where the virtue of moderation comes to our aid, particularly in food. One of the important ascetic moments and exercises that allow us to learn to regulate this passion, is fasting. We are currently in the Apostles’s Fast (“Peter's Fast”) with which we are preparing for the feasts of the Supreme Apostles Peter and Paul. But fasting in the spiritual and ascetic life of a believer is similar to learning how to drive in driving school, when a good instructor teaches a beginner how to correctly drive a new vehicle. If someone does not know how to drive a vehicle, well, there is a great danger of causing an accident, injuring himself and those around him. Sometimes you need to get a lot of practice in order for the car to listen to you in the end. How important it is to learn to manage yourself, in particular, your basic needs in food and drink. Therefore, fasting is one of the ways to help a person learn to manage himself, in particular when it comes to eating and drinking. Today we ask the Lord God to teach us to overcome, to overcome evil, because when someone knows how to manage his basic needs, when someone masters the disordered desire for food and drink, he will overcome many other sins that are born from this sin of gluttony. Today I would like to appeal to everyone to pray and fast, in particular for those of our Ukrainians, brothers and sisters, civilians and soldiers, who have gone missing. The fate of relatives who have received the news that their son or daughter has gone missing turns into hell on earth. How terrible it is not to know whether your son, your daughter, your husband, your wife, is alive or dead, not knowing how to pray for them, not having reliable information from anyone about where they are and how they can be helped. I ask today, let us sacrifice our fasting, in particular, our prayer, for those who are considered missing, for those who today have nothing to eat and drink, for those who are held by the enemy in concentration—so-called filtration—camps, for those whose fate is really only in God's hands. O God, bless Ukraine. O God, teach us to overcome evil. O God, grant us victory over the one who brings evil, death, and murder to the Ukrainian land. O 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!