Nativity Epistle of the Primate to the Archpastors, Pastors, Monastics and all faithful believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

“Thy Nativity, O Christ our God

Has shone upon the world with the light of knowledge “

I sincerely greet you one and all, God-loving archpastors and pastors, pious monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters, with the great world-saving feast of the Nativity of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ in the flesh.

During these sacred days, the Holy Orthodox Church remembers with love and prayerfully glorifies the great piety of the mystery of the manifestation of God in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), through which the sad event of the loss of Paradise by man was transformed into the joyous event of man’s return to Paradise .

Divine Love, with its wondrous, mysterious power, formed man out of the dust of the earth. The Lord singled out Adam from all creation, bestowing upon him  His Divine image. Adam became the bearer of the glorious image of the Eternal God. What a great honour for man!  The Lord gave Paradise to Adam in which Adam lived and enjoyed all of its beauty. But, according to sacred history, man sinned and lost his dignity. What happened next, the sacred story says little about this: Adam fell away from God and was subsequently unable to live in Paradise. Divine Love then, without limiting man’s will, allowed him to live in a world devastated by sin, where Adam worked in the sweat of his brow, and the earth grew for him thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:18).

Adam turned away from God, but God did not turn away from Adam. The Lord sent His prophets and righteous men into the world, who reminded the descendants of Adam about the  Paradise lost. And when the time came, the Lord Himself came into the world. Divine Love takes on the image of fallen man, restores it, sanctifies and returns it to Heaven.

The coming of God to earth takes place in wondrous and mysterious simplicity. The Blessed Virgin Mary, from whom God wanted to take human flesh and blood for Himself, comes to the city of Bethlehem. The Holy Family came to Bethlehem at the behest of the Roman emperor Augustus, who issued a decree that a census be taken of the population, not suspecting that through this he became an instrument in the hands of God, with which the Lord fulfilled the ancient prophecy, according to which Christ the Messiah  should be born in the city of Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2).

When the Son of God was born in the Bethlehem cave, the wondrous glory of God filled the world. The sky rejoiced, the angels sang, and all nature rejoiced. The first people on earth to receive the news of the Nativity of the Son of God were simple Bethlehem shepherds, who were tending their flocks not far from the blessed cave. An Angel of God appeared before them and said unto them, “Fear not: for behold,  I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye  shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ”  (Luke 2, 10-14). The shepherds hurried to the Bethlehem cave, and upon finding the Infant Christ worshiped Him with love, telling everyone about what the Angel had announced to them.

After the joyful shepherds, on the very day of Christmas, three Magi then came from the east to worship the newborn God-child, whom the Lord had brought from different countries to Bethlehem, by way of a wonderfully bright star. The Magi brought with them gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh, with which they testified that the King of kings had come into the world (Rev. 17:14) as the High Priest of future blessings (Hebrews 9, 11), Who, through His redemptive suffering and death, would return Paradise lost to humanity.

And we, dear brothers and sisters, today, like the pious shepherds, bow to our  Lord and Saviour,  and humbly give thanks that He, our Creator and Maker,  the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father, became the Son of Man in order to make us sons of God. Together with the wise Magi, we bring our gifts to the newborn God-child: the gold of our humble prayers, the incense of our humility and the myrrh of our repentance. The world in which we live today has a special need for prayer, humility and repentance. These holy virtues cultivate in a person love for God as well as for his neighbour and in this way make a person similar to his Creator and Maker,  who by His Divine nature, is Love itself.

We live in apocalyptic times, which is characterised by fear and confusion; We also need prayers, humility and repentance because with their help we protect ourselves from this fear and confusion, and thus, lay out our path to Heaven, to an eternal blessed life.

The Angel’s first words to the Shepherds of Bethlehem were: Do not be afraid. And today the Christmas Angel says to each of us: do not be afraid, because the Son of God was born into the world, who conquered sin with all its fears, confusion and diseases.

Today, when dangerous viruses are spreading throughout  the world, many people are in a hurry to take the vaccine in order to prolong their earthly life. But we, believers in Christ the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, know that there is another, more terrible and dangerous virus in the world – which is sin. Sins rob us of eternal life, and how much more do we, those who bear the high name of a Christian, need to hasten to receive the spiritual vaccine – which is  repentance, in order to defeat  the virus called sin, and preserve ourselves for eternal life!

Once again, I greet you all, dear brothers and sisters, with the feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ. I wish you strong health, salvation and God’s blessings. May Divine Love, which bowed Heaven to earth, touch every human heart, comfort us and give us the strength to courageously overcome all the difficulties and tribulations of our earthly life.  Let the light of reason shine within each of us, the light which was brought to us by the Son of God, who became the Son of Man, the light that reveals untruths which may be insidiously hiding under the guise of virtue, the light that shows us the path that leads to Paradise. Amen.

Merry Christmas!

The Humble

+ ONUFRIY

Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine

Nativity of Christ, 2021/2022,

Kiev