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03 October 2018, 10:51Metropolitan Onufry: no tomos will help sinful person
Moscow, October 3, Interfax - Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine has spoken against listening to the false promises of politicians but deal with one's personal salvation.
"It is not a tomos that resolves problems but a human being should resolve problems with his good effort, his own hands and head. The price of sausage did not grow in the absence of tomos and will not go down, if it is given," the metropolitan said in a sermon quoted by the Information and Educational Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
According to the primate of the canonical Ukrainian Church, "every human being should get a personal tomos of freedom" which "is given to a person by God, not some Patriarchate."
"When a person lives a virtuous life, repents his sins, avoids lies, tries to do what God tells him to do, loves God, loves his neighbor, engages in charity, then he becomes free from sin. And freedom from sin is the spiritual tomos that Lord gives a person as a manifestation of him being free in the right meaning of the word," Metropolitan Onufry said.
He said that it is sin that strips man of freedom.
"If I am bogged down in sin to my very ears here, I am not free, I am a slave of sin, a slave of vice, a slave of the devil. And the devil cannot be scared or chased away by any tomos, he can be chased away only by prayer and repentance and by good deeds," the metropolitan said.
A church conflict has deepened in Ukraine over the last few weeks in relation to the intention of the Constantinople Patriarchate to grant the Ukrainian Orthodox Church a tomos of autocephaly and thus create a local church independent of the Moscow Patriarchate. This arouses opposition from a considerable part of Christians in Ukraine who are followers of UOC and fear hostile actions on the part of supporters of autocephaly. |
