His Beatitude: One deprives oneself of God’s gifts by failing to thank Him

Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: screenshot from a YouTube video

On December 21, 2025, the 28th Sunday after Pentecost, the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, performed the consecration of the church dedicated to St Nicholas Svyatosha in Kyiv. After the rite of consecration, during the divine service, His Beatitude addressed the faithful with a sermon in which he spoke about the power of gratitude to God and its significance in the spiritual life of a Christian.

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry emphasized that all the good things a person has in life are gifts from God. “Our very life itself is God’s benefaction. The fact that we live, move, think, speak, see, and feel – all of this is God’s gift, for which we must thank God,” the Primate stressed.

According to His Beatitude, gratitude is not merely an external expression of piety, but a deep inner state of the soul. “If a person thanks God, he becomes capable of receiving even more gifts,” Metropolitan Onuphry said.

At the same time, the Primate pointed out that ingratitude has the opposite effect and spiritually impoverishes a person. “If a person is ungrateful to God, although God abundantly bestows gifts upon him, such a person makes himself unworthy even of what he already has,” Metropolitan Onuphry emphasized.

Referring to the Gospel reading about the healing of the ten lepers, His Beatitude recalled that only one of those healed returned to give glory to God. This example, he noted, testifies to true faith united with gratitude, which opens for a person the path to salvation.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that His Beatitude presided over the patronal feast of the church of the Kyiv Theological Schools.

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