“In order to overcome an opponent in a peaceful manner, it is necessary to be spiritually and morally higher than him,” UGCC Head

Monday, 03 February 2014, 16:53

Respect for the dignity of a human person created in the image and likeness of God is the foundation of all morality. If we do not lean on this foundation and do not regard it as the absolute axiom, then at all, about what kind of rules of moral and spiritual life can we speak of? This was stated by His Beatitude Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), UGCC Head, on January 27, 2014 in the radio program Ukrainian Dimension on Channel One of Ukrainian radio.

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“When someone turns to the Church today with the question of how to live today, the answer is contained in one word: “solution”. In the Holy Scripture there is a separate Book of Solutions that describes in what manner, when and how, God demonstrated to humans the moral laws which are known as the Ten Commandments. The heart of this book is the demonstration of God as a Savior who grants the person one’s freedom, leads one from slavery to freedom, from scorn to the discovery of one’s personal dignity before God’s face,” describes His Beatitude Sviatoslav.

Therefore, the path of life, the “solution” which today both moral theology and the teachings of the Church offer, as UGCC Prelate contends, are God’s commandments. It is that path of life, on which the Israelis once walked on leaving Egypt and crossing the Red Sea. On that path, in the waters of the Red Sea, all the Pharaoh’s soldiers perished.

It is that road in which God’s people realized themselves as a nation and not only a gathering of tribes, and afterwards entered their native promised land as a people on whom there rests God’s blessing and His promises,” explained UGCC Head.

UGCC Major Archbishop believes that in order to overcome your opponent in a peaceful manner, one has to be spiritually and morally higher than him, because “strength is truth and in truth there is strength.”

Such a recipe for victory, in his words, on the one hand, is very complicated and, on the other hand, too simple

“If you live in an environment where everyone tells lies, speak the truth and your words will be revolutionary! If you live in a country, where people steal, do not steal, even if it means that it leads you to some material discomfort! In such a way you will lay a treasure for your own life and the life of your environment, which is not measured in money equivalents,” urged His Beatitude Sviatoslav.

UGCC Department of Information