Metropolitan Onuphry: The Purpose of Human Life Is to Achieve Holiness

The Lord created the Church to help us become saints.
Pravmir.com team | 28 June 2021

The purpose of human life is to achieve holiness. The only path to holiness, to purity of soul and body, is the path of the Holy Divine Commandments said His Beatitude Onuphry, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine, in his sermon during the Divine Liturgy at the Dormition Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra on June 27, 2021, Sunday of All Saints, reports the Information and Educational Department of the UOC.

The Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church explained that the Divine commandments improve qualities of godlikeness which every person has.

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“This Divine image develops, and a person, if he works on improving himself, on the purification [of his heart], on the perfection of the image of God in himself, then he becomes God-like. And the likeness of God is holiness,” said His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.

The archpastor encouraged those present to find a saint who is close to each of them in spiritual organization and to follow his or her example. This will facilitate the path to holiness.

The Lord founded the Holy Church to help us become saints, continued the metropolitan.

“The Lord is with us in the Church, until the end of the age. In the Church, the Lord dwells not simply as God, but as a God-man. In the Church, the Lord allows us to taste His Most Pure Body and His Divine Blood and through Holy Communion makes us able to contain eternal life and bliss, makes us able to contain those gifts that have the properties of holiness,” explained His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.

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The Primate of the UOC urged believers to coordinate their lives with the Law of God and always put God first.

“The person who puts God first is useful to everyone. Because he will beg from God both for his father’s health and for his mother’s. If a person puts something above God, then he will harm himself and everyone around him. Therefore, we must always put God and the Laws that He gave us in the first place for our benefit. God does not need anything from us, it is only important for Him that we become holy, for this He gave us His Laws,” concluded His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.

During the service, prayers were offered for the end of the coronavirus pandemic and for the health of doctors who save the lives of patients.

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