NATIVITY EPISTLE
of the Primate
of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
His Beatitude Metropolitan
of Kyiv and All Ukraine
ONUFRIY
to the archpastors, pastors, monastics,
and all faithful children
of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Christ is born; glorify Him!
Christ comes from heaven; come to welcome Him!
Sing to the Lord, O earth!
Irmos of the Canon of the Nativity of Christ
I wholeheartedly greet all of you: God-loving archpastors and pastors, devout monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters, on the great world-saving Feast of the Nativity according to the flesh of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
For the fourth year in a row now, we meet the Nativity of Christ, a Feast of God’s peace and good will, hearing the sounds of deadly shots, and we sincerely pray to the Lord to pacify the hearts of those who are waring war against us.
But nobody and nothing is able to separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8, 39). We joyfully meet the feast of the Nativity of Christ and prayerfully glorify the great Mystery of godliness of God’s manifestation in the flesh (1 Tim. 3, 16).
In these sacred holy days, the bright, mysterious story of how the Pre-Eternal God came on earth for the sake of us people and for the sake of our salvation again appears before our rational eyes.
Men, who had sinned against God back in paradise, who had stepped away from God and had turned away from the love of God, impatiently waited for the love of God to return to them. Mankind knew that the Messiah, who would cleanse and sanctify the entire world and return the lost Paradise to mankind, was to come on earth. And this Mystery was fulfilled. The Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity, the Creator of everything visible and invisible, comes on earth in the image of man.
The Lord was born in a poor Cave of Bethlehem, where shepherds led cattle in bad weather. The Mother of God, the Most Pure Virgin Mary, wrapped the Divine Child Christ in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, marvelling at how the King of kings, the Creator of the universe, before whom Angels stand fearfully and to whom they minister with fear, had wanted to fulfil the Mystery of His coming into the world in extreme poverty and simplicity.
Holy Angels reverentially beheld the depth and greatness of the love of God. They were flying over the blessed cave and singing a wonderful song, ‘Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’ (Lk. 2, 14). An Angel of God appeared to shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks nearby, and the glory of God shone around them. The shepherds were afraid, but the Angel calmed them down and said, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of joy which will be to all people. For there is born … this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord’ (Lk. 2, 9–12). The shepherds came with haste to the blessed cave and actually found there the Divine Child Christ, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, and worshipped Him. The shepherds told the Most Holy Virgin Mary and Joseph the Betrothed, who was the earthly Guardian Angel of the Most Holy Virgin, everything that the Angel had made known to them.
After the shepherds, on the very same first day, three Magi came to worship the Divine Child. The Magi were Eastern kings and scholarly wise men, who also awaited the coming of the Messiah into the world. Wishing to understand the time and power of the coming, they occupied themselves with studying Heavenly lights. And, lo, the Magi, independently from one another, simultaneously saw a miraculous star in the Sky, and they realised that the Mystery of the coming of God into the world had been fulfilled. They, independently of one another, followed the star, which led them to Bethlehem. They met there and went together to King Herod so as to honour him as an earthly king, and from Herod, the star led them to Bethlehem and stopped over the blessed cave where the Messiah Christ had been born. The Magi, with fear and reverence, worshipped the Divine Child Christ and presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold as to the King of eternal glory, frankincense as to the High Priest of the good things to come (Heb. 9, 11), and myrrh as a sign of the fact that the High Priest Christ would sacrifice Himself for the salvation of people.
When the wicked Herod heard from the Magi that the eternal King had been born into the world, he was troubled and purposed to murder the Divine Child Christ, but an Angel of God made it known to Joseph the Betrothed when he was asleep and told the Holy Family to flee to Egypt. Thus did human malice ungratefully meet God on earth. But no malice or pride was able to overcome life. The Divine Child Christ was in Egypt for a few years, overthrew idols, and blessed the Egyptian land, and after Herod’s death he again, as an Angel said, returned to Judea, where the great sacrifice of the Love of God, which was what God had come to earth for, was performed.
The love of God overcame human malice and sin. The Saviour’s struggle against evil was great and long-lasting, and in it, the Lord teaches us people how we can and should oppose sin: if possible, flee from sin, like the Divine Child fled from the evil Herod to Egypt; and if it is impossible to flee, courageously endure human weaknesses, infirmities, and flaws, like Christ the Saviour did during His earthly life and Messianic ministry. The Lord sometimes told people, ‘O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you?’ (Lk. 9, 41), and sometimes, the Lord rebuked wicked sinners and told them, ‘Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?’ (Matt. 23,33), but the Lord was patient to everyone and everything and did only good in response to human malice: pacified elements, fed the hungry, healed the sick, and resurrected the dead.
Yes, the best of sons of men also likewise opposed evil in the Old Testament as well. Thus, Joseph the All-Comely, who was tempted by the wife of an Egyptian officer, broke away from her and, leaving his garments in her hands, fled from sin. The Righteous Loth, who lived in Sodom, where extreme lawlessness was committed, was tormented in his soul, yet he endured everything and preserved his moral purity and chastity. There is a very importance difference between this, at first sight, identical opposition to evil in the Old and New Testaments: righteous people of the Old Testament opposed evil but were incapable of overcoming it, and Christ the Saviour confronted evil — and overcame it, destroying it through His suffering on the Cross. Christ the Saviour has given the strength to overcome evil to us as well, and the Lord has taught us how this should be done. Evil, as the Holy Scripture says, is overcome by good! (Rom. 12, 21). If we love God, our Creator and Maker, and love people irrespective of their attitude to us — good or malicious — we will be capable of not only opposing evil and sin but also overcoming it.
I again greet all of you, dear brothers and sisters, on the Nativity of Christ, a Feast of God’s peace and good will, the great day of the unity of Heaven and earth. May each of us, through patient devout life, became a partaker of that great grace which the Son of God, our Saviour and Lord, has brought to earth, grace which has renovated the world, which has brought mankind bright hope and spiritual strength to overcome any sin and evil.
May each of us find his miraculous star, which leads to the Cave of Bethlehem, where the Divine Mystery of our salvation had its bright beginning, where the Pre-Eternal God, the Creator of man, appeared in the image of man. The Star of Bethlehem, as St Ephraim the Syrian says, appeared … through the Magi to all creation so that from this star … it might learn to trust in God, who descended to people in order to show them the path to His Kingdom (Tvoreniya, Vol. 8. Holy Trinity Saint Sergius Lavra. Otchii Dom Publ., 1995. P. 44).
I sincerely wish everyone health, joy, peace, and eternal salvation in Christ.
Merry Christmas!
Christ is born; glorify Him!
Christ comes from heaven; come to welcome Him!
Sing to the Lord, O earth! Amen.
Humble
+ Onufriy
Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine
The Nativity of Christ, 2025/2026
Kyiv
