His Beatitude: Faith in God helps a person overcome all difficulties

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: uoc-news.church

On April 27, 2025, the Sunday of Antipascha, the holy apostle Thomas, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and all Ukraine served a Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Kyiv.

After the reading of the Holy Gospel, the Primate addressed the congregation with a sermon.

His Beatitude emphasized that “the unbelief of Thomas is spoken of as an initial doubt that turned into great faith, and the Lord praised this faith, but especially glorified those who have not seen but believed in Him.”

The Lord created man and sustains him with the grace of the Holy Spirit. Every person has their own communion with God and builds a relationship with their Creator. Some build these relationships based on Divine commandments, and in this, their faith strengthens and grows. Others, however, are guided by pride and human principles, and such an experience, although called an experience of communion with God, does not give birth to saving faith,” explained the Primate of the UOC.

According to him, “when the Lord came into the world, He gave other means of knowing God: the apostles saw Him, heard His words, ate food with Him, and witnessed the miracles He performed, feeding the hungry, raising the dead, and healing the sick. All this strengthened their faith.”

“But faith, which is a gift from God and not the fruit of human efforts, is not as great before God as the faith built by a person who has structured their life according to God's will,” said Metropolitan Onufriy.

He noted that “when a person wisely builds their life on sacred Divine laws, a living faith is born and established within them. For such faith, the Lord exalts more than those who have not seen Him with their physical eyes and have not touched Him with their hands.”

“We pray that the Lord strengthens our faith. Faith makes a person strong, helps to overcome life's difficulties, and leads to eternal salvation in Heaven,” concluded His Beatitude.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that on the day of Antipascha, His Beatitude served the Liturgy at the church in Podil.

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