The Election of the President of Ukraine to be One of the Most Important Events of 2001 – Patriarch Lubomyr

Traditionally, on New Year’s Eve, in the church of Annunciation of the Holy Mother of God, which is located on the territory of future Patriarch’s Center of the UGCC in Kyiv a memorial prayer service was celebrated. The prayer service began at 5 p.m. and was led by His Beatitude Lubomyr, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych. With the head of the UGCC concelebrated Reverend Bishop Bohdan (Dzyurakh), head of the Patriarch’s administration, Reverend Bishop Joseph (Milyan), auxiliary bishop of Kyivan Archeparchy, and clergy of the Kyivan Archeparchy.  During the prayer service His Beatitude Lubomyr congratulated the numerous participants of the joint prayer and encouraged all to be grateful to the Lord for all the gifts with which He grants us daily. The head of the UGCC said also that after the completion of the prayer service the text of his New Year’s sermon will be availabe (the complete text of the sermon can be read at the following link: www.ugcc.org.ua/1028.0.html). “In the mass media – on television, on radio, and in the press – we find many attempts to analyse the last year, to sum up the period in our life which took place. Politicians, researchers, and journalists,” mostly do it, said His Beatitude Lubomyr. However, in all these attempts of analysis, according to the head of UGCC, we trace one thing – the absence of a religious element, the attempt to have a look on that which happened through the eyes of faith. “In our time the religious evaluation of an event is usually when people begin to consider themselves the creators of all, proprietors of the environment, and wish to see themselves the possessors of history. The life of such people earlier or later ends with failure or punishment. Instead of that, if people acknowledge that they are God’s children who are in Divine hands and that the Lord is the Creator, Benefactor, and Possessor of Universe, they will develop,” remarked His Beatitude Lubomyr.  In addition, the head of the UGCC touched upon the important events of the next year, among them the elections. “It is impermissible to sell one’s voice. It means to give something very valuable to the criminals. Who does so offends the Lord and harms oneself, and after that does not have the right to complain,” the head of the UGCC said. At the same time he cautioned: “Reflecting on this, for whom to give the vote, it is impossible to consider only the pre-election speeches of the candidates. Today we are drowning in a flood of words. As our Kobzar said: ‘a large force of many words and nothing more.’ It is necessary as much as possible to listen not only to the words but also to check the past actions and behavior of the candidates, analyze whether their acts indeed brought benefit to the state and people, and only on this basis make a decision. Our vote has to be the real choice, because it is where lays the force of our nation,” His Beatitude Lubomyr remarked in the New Year’s sermon. “I wish you and oneself that he who will be chosen the leader of our state will sincerely, not only with words, love Ukraine and our nation. However, in order for this desire to be reached we in our own life have to try with complete responsibility to search not only for personal gain and satisfaction but for the general good, to serve other people, to be ready even to sacrifice one’s profit for the good of the whole community and live by the rules we want our nation to follow,” summarized the head of the UGCC.

Information Department of the UGCC