“Our Church lives by the cross, and the cross is not defeat, but victory,” - Metropolitan Luke

On July 20, 2025, after the Divine Liturgy, Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhia and Melitopol addressed the faithful with a sermon. The bishop spoke about how to respond correctly to events surrounding the Church and what constitutes the foundation for standing firm in the faith. This was reported on the official website of the Zaporizhzhia Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

«It is our duty to preserve the truth left to us by Christ and to follow His spiritual commandments, one of which is reminded to us today by the Apostle Paul: ‘Bless those who persecute you; bless them, and do not curse them! These words do not come from a comfortable peaceful life. This is not just morality, universal human values, or, as they say now, humanism. This is the commandment of the crucified God. The One who, hanging on the cross, prayed for His crucifiers. He did not curse, but blessed those who killed Him. Some will say that this is weakness. But is it weakness? The power of God lies in the fact that He sacrificed Himself to save each of us. And we must not curse our persecutors. Not only because cursing destroys the soul, but also because by cursing, a person becomes like the one he curses. If we start cursing, how will we differ from the one we curse?» — said Metropolitan Luke.

The bishop added that the authenticity of the Church is determined, in particular, by the reaction of church people to the events taking place around them. In the case of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, there is a need to correctly approach how we perceive the intensified unjust persecution against us.

«And from this we must understand where the true Church is. The true Church is the one that suffers but does not curse, that prays for its persecutors, even if it is called wrong. It does not trade the truth for comfort, remaining true to itself. Even in chains, even in bonds, in exile, even under slander, the true Church preserves the truth that Christ left her. This is what our martyrs, God’s holy intercessors, did. This is what St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco did, in whose temple we are celebrating this Divine Liturgy today. This is what our new martyrs did, who were rejected by society, slandered, but shone with the light of Christ’s truth, because their hearts were filled with divine grace,» — added the hierarch.

Recall that on July 20, 2025, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) addressed the faithful with a sermon in which he quoted the words of the Apostle Paul: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” He noted that after the end of the Soviet period, many believed that the struggle against faith was a thing of the past. However, according to him, “even in our worst dreams, we would not have imagined that we would have to go through this again, that they would want to close churches and ban the Church.” The sermon was delivered against the backdrop of the publication of a decree on the “elimination of ties with the Russian Orthodox Church” by the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience.