2:00 PM “If God is the light, then the light of life is faith in God.” His Beatitude Sviatoslav in Zarvanytsia | |
The Primate appealed to the faithful to testify their faith through their actions, and then to raise high the candle holders: "Let us light our way through our faith; let us not be lost in the darkness; let us illuminate today our families, our Homeland – all the people who are next to us.” Then he asked each pilgrim to look closely at one’s candle and recall those people from whom they received their faith in God. "Let us look closely at our flames, because today we bear the responsibility that God forbid, in our hands and in our lives, this light of faith should ever burn out. Let us look closely at that light which we should carry within us.”
Since this year the Pilgrimage to Zarvanytsia is dedicated to the Year of Faith which coincides with the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Ukraine-Rus, His Beatitude Sviatoslav talked about the significance of the event of Baptism as a time of illuminating our people. "Be believers, be the Christians of that time when Almighty God gave us this greatest treasure of our land. And it was precisely the Christian faith itself that was the inner strength of our people for over a thousand years.” UGCC Head urged that we transfer the light of our faith to children, friends, and close ones, "that this light always continues.” "It is us that the Lord sends to illuminate their darkness… "that the people who sat in darkness” see the light exactly through our Church.”
The procession with the candles began by the parish church of Zarvanytsia which houses the Icon of the Zarvanytsia Mother of God. After the liturgy which was headed by Bishop Dmytro (Hryhorak), Buchach Eparch, the faithful carried the candles through the central street of the village, accompanied by the orchestra and singing the song "From the city of Kyiv.” Then at the miraculous location, the bells rang and the pilgrims got closer to the monument of the Mother of god where the Major Archbishop together with bishops and clergy, began the Vespers to the Mother of God. source: UGCC | |
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UGCC Head stated this during the night leading to July 11th
after thousands of faithful marched with lit candles to the monument of
the Mother of God on the place where she appeared. "Through the
assistance of faith we unite ourselves with the living and eternal God,
we become illuminated through him, we become his light, the bearers of
God’s rays.”| Total comments: 0 | |
