Today, the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epifaniy in his sermon reflected on the meaning and purpose of the Church. He emphasized that, although the Church is open to all, regardless of origin or status, it will always be closed to sin.
“The church is a hospital where those sick of sin, which we all are, seek to be healed, cured, and cleansed of sins,” metropolitan said, according to the OCU press service.
He warned that the Church cannot adapt to sinners. “If someone lives with their sins so much that they no longer see the difference between them and their personality, the Church has no right to change the truth,” metropolitan said.
He emphasized that the Church is meant to help people fight against sin, without canceling various national and cultural differences. “In Christ we are transformed without losing our identity,” Metropolitan Epifaniy added.
“In becoming Christians, we must avoid two equally harmful extremes. The first is the desire to devalue, erase, and dissolve the meaning of the individual. The second is the desire, on the contrary, to emphasize this meaning, to make it decisive. Every sinner can come to the Church to repent and change. However, it’s about change yourself, and not changing the teachings and the essence of the Church in such a way as to declare your sins and vices a virtue or a natural right,” Epifaniy said during the sermon.
Therefore, according to the head of the OCU, the Church is not a shelter for sin, but a hospital for sinners, which leads them to holiness and transformation.
