On January 5, a Divine Liturgy was held in Kyiv\u2019s St. Andrew’s Church of the Stauropegium of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine. The service was led by the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine, Bishop Michael of Koman, with the concelebration of priest Volodymyr Yatsulchak and deacon Andriy Kovalev.<\/p>\n
During the service, requiem prayers were offered for the fallen soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and civilians slain by the invaders. Separate prayers were also offered for the Ukrainian Army and a just peace in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
During his sermon, the hierarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate emphasized the importance of understanding God’s providence in every person\u2019s life. \u201cGod\u2019s providence concerns not only all of humanity in terms of salvation, in order to give each individual the opportunity to draw closer to God. God\u2019s providence concerns each of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s Gospel is about God\u2019s providence, about the inevitability and immutability of divine promises,\u201d said Bishop Michael. He explained that the genealogy of Christ shows the inclusion of all people in God\u2019s providence of salvation: \u201cThis does not mean that all those people who are listed were saints. Not at all. There were sinful people, there were even pagans in that genealogy. Through this, the Lord shows that God\u2019s providence covers absolutely everyone without exception.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bishop of Koman warned against haste in life and impatience with God\u2019s will. \u201cAs is very often the case with us, if we have conceived something, we want to fulfill our plan as soon as possible. And if it doesn\u2019t work out, then we\u2019ll even get angry with God,\u201d he noted. At the end of his sermon, Bishop Michael recalled the main purpose of Christ\u2019s coming: \u201cChrist was born to sacrifice himself for all of us. And the celebration of the Nativity of Christ reminds us how much we should appreciate this mercy of God, how much we are called to embody it in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On January 5, a Divine Liturgy was held in Kyiv\u2019s St. Andrew’s Church of the Stauropegium of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine. The service was led by the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine, Bishop Michael of Koman, with the concelebration of priest Volodymyr Yatsulchak and deacon Andriy Kovalev. During the service, requiem prayers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":212194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"telegram_tosend":false,"telegram_tosend_message":"","telegram_tosend_target":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5148,5142],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-212545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-church-en","8":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/df.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/472558516_1009753777850187_8825230472259097578_n.jpg?fit=1440%2C976&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212546,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212545\/revisions\/212546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}