Primate of the UOC: Keep your faith. It helps overcome hardships on earthly path

An Orthodox Christian cannot be pessimistic. This was said by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kiev and All Ukraine in his final interview in 2016 to the daily "Segodnya" (Today).

"Today the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is in griefs and trials. But the Lord did not promise another life to us. The Lord said to His followers: "In the world ye shall have tribulation." Church history abounds with persecution, ostracism, harassment and other trials.

Certainly, our grief compared to the tribulations that the Church of Christ underwent the first three hundred years since its foundation is nothing. Then the members of the Church were physically destroyed, but today we are only criticized and unjustly accused. This is the little testing of our love and patience."

The Primate of the UOC said that he is optimistic about the year of 2017, as "an Orthodox Christian cannot be pessimistic. Christians need to mourn only for their sins. If man begins to trust himself to God, he begins to build his life on the Divine law, he has his soul more and more purified from sin, he clearly sees God, and the future does not seem to him gloomy and hopeless. At the end of the darkest tunnels of despair a Christian sees God. "

His Beatitude wished the believers in the coming year, "the Lord's grace, forgiveness for our sins and God's blessing to carry the earthly cross with dignity and by worthy to be heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven."

"Keep your faith, and above all keep praying, - said the Primate. – It helps man overcome hardships encountered on his earthly path. Prayer gives man a sense of truth, because truth is difficult to know single-mindedly. There are many examples in life, when people who have a higher theological education, but do not have prayer, are "confused". And common people who have prayer, clearly tells truth from deception. It is prayer that gives a sense of truth, understanding what is light and what is darkness, what is good and what is evil. And may God help us all to pray in our daily life," he concluded.