Head of the UGCC: Russian occupier brought disaster to Ukrainian land precisely because the throne and altar merged into an ugly two-headed eagle
Today we witness how many grievous moments in the history of humanity, in the history of the Church, occurred precisely when the Church wanted to lead society by rising through the social ranks. His Beatitude Sviatoslav, the Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said in his sermon on the fifth Sunday of Lent.
“Today we see,” he emphasized, “what a great disaster the Russian occupier has brought to the Ukrainian land precisely because the throne and the altar have merged into an ugly two-headed eagle that takes away life and freedom! Then even the one who considers himself the first in the Church uses state power to humiliate others. And in the end, he becomes an instrument of humiliation at the hands of that civil authority. We can see how this murderous ideology of the Ruskiy mir is a distortion, a betrayal of the basic principles of Christ’s ministry that He passed on to the apostles in His Church.”
“God’s service means God’s humiliation, humility before man. We know that when people serve each other, in human terms, they show in a certain way that the person they serve is more important than the person who performs the service. Any service we can do to another person will be less than the person’s dignity. God serving man is a certain sacrament of God’s humility! Back then, a person had to serve God, to show He is superior to them.”
And here, Christ proceeds to humble himself and says: “I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.”
“And today, those words find their realization,” the Head of the Church notes, “they are being fulfilled, reaching its apex. Christ is going to be humbled. He tells this to His disciples, who literally follow Him. The Lord reveals to them all the mysteries before His crucifixion as if He wants to stir them up by asking them: Where are you going? Do you realize where you are going? Do you understand what it means to follow Me?”
The content and nature of power in human society are entirely different from the divine service that Christ came to fulfill.
“This kind of call to Christian service,” the spiritual leader believes, “is a challenge in the modern world. Christ tells us that to be a Christian means to follow Him where He is going, coming onto the roads of human history today! When someone becomes a Christian only for their benefit and social privileges, to take more and give less to climb the social ladder, when someone believes that the Church is a ‘social elevator’ with which one can go to the top to rule, they are not familiar with the Christian vocation, they do not drink the cup of Christ and to some extent betray the baptism with which we were baptized in Christ.”
And we follow Christ to Jerusalem. “Next Sunday, we will see Him entering Jerusalem, not as a great rider on a horse but sitting on a humble donkey. Christ is coming to Jerusalem to descend into death, but then to raise humanity to resurrection, to glory, to the life of God,” the preacher said.
The UGCC Department for Information
