May God give us the Mind of Prince Vladimir

Message by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kyiv and All Ukraine on the occasion of Baptism of Rus’ and the millennium of the demise of the Holy Prince Vladimir Equal-to-the-Apostles

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Dear brothers and sisters, today is the Commemoration Day of the Equal-to-the-Apostle Holy Prince Vladimir the Great, the Baptizer of Rus’. We are also marking the millennium of his blessed demise. The Holy Prince Vladimir wrote a bright page in our history, being a strong and right-minded person. Born in paganism, he sought the right path in life; he looked for the right God. It lasted not one day or one year. He inquired, trying to find out what true faith on earth was. Upon visiting , Prince Vladimir’s envoys said, "We no longer knew whether we were on earth or in heaven, so beautiful and solemn it was there, and nice to us."

Taking the word of his servants, St. Vladimir had himself baptized into the Orthodox Church, taking the form of a Christian, a follower of Christ. And as a ruler, as a head of a great state, he took care of bringing all his subordinates to Christ. So he had his nation and his land Rus’ baptized too. The was that baptismal font in which our forefathers were reborn to eternal life. Thus began a new page in the history of our land and of our country. At that time Kievan Rus embraced the lands of the present , , and most of . But the tribes that inhabited the area were at odds with one another, they were at enmity with one another.  And when St. Vladimir brought the Gospel law, and wrote it in tables not only of his heart, but on tablets of state law, people began to live by this law. Not only the Great Prince every citizen of his state was guided by holy commandments. Due to the Gospel law it became possible to unite those who had been at feud with each other for centuries, to reconcile those who had had no peace among themselves for a long time. So the Dnieper baptismal font initiated a great, united state - a new, Holy, Rus’ with the capital in . For the centuries that elapsed since that time, our people have kept the law, rules of life, sanctified by the Law of the Holy Gospel. This spiritual wisdom has always taught people how to find way out of the most critical circumstances and the most difficult situations in life. And we, dear brothers and sisters, came to fully share both the greatest cultural tradition and rules of life set by the Holy Prince Vladimir Equal-to-the-Apostles.

And today everyone has to measure themselves with the figure of the Holy Prince Vladimir. Do we all and each of us live according to the testament of Prince Vladimir, as he taught us, as he himself lived? Prince Vladimir changed completely after his baptism: from a cruel, authoritarian ruler he turned into the "Red Sun", which means beautiful. Are we all followers of our Baptizer and Enlightener? Probably each of us, if objectively compared with the personality of the Holy Prince Vladimir, will find little resemblance to the image that we have to correspond to. But the Holy Gospel is open for everybody. We can learn out of it how to act in our life, what we should be guided by in our deeds, because holy laws lead to holiness. And the law of sin leads one to vice and sin, which results in sufferings, anguish, and the end of sanctity of salvation in God.

May the Lord, through the intercession of St. Prince Vladimir, give us minds so that we might live as he lived and taught his people to live!

May the Lord, through the intercession of St. Prince Vladimir, reconcile conflicting parties and send the blessed peace to our Ukrainian land so that people stop dying; so that we embrace each other in love of Christ; so that we forgive one another in the name of Christ all the faults ever made!

May the Lord, through the intercession of St. Prince Vladimir, bless our land, our Ukrainian state and its entire people!  Amen.

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