The Holy Prophet Jeremiah; Blessed Hieromartyr Clement Sheptytsky, Archimandrite of Univ.
Abstention from meat and foods that contain these ingredients.
Acts 10:44-11:10; John 8:21-30.
Read Acts 10:44-11:10
Antioch began with scattered people.
So does much Christian witness. The believers in Acts did not set out with comfort, wealth, or influence. They were driven out by affliction. Yet what looked like loss became mission. They went, Luke says, “speaking the word.” They did not merely carry memories of Jerusalem; they carried Christ.
At first they spoke only to their own. This was natural, but not final. Some came to Antioch and spoke also to the Hellenists, “proclaiming the Lord Jesus.” Here is the turning point. The Gospel did not ask Antioch to become Jerusalem before Christ could be preached there. It entered Antioch as Antioch was: mixed, noisy, foreign, and full of souls for whom Christ died.
This is a word for Ukrainian Byzantine parishes. Our language, chant, icons, fasting, memory, and suffering are not museum pieces. They are vessels. But the treasure is not ethnicity. The treasure is the Lord Jesus. If we preserve the vessel and hide the treasure, we have misunderstood both.
“The hand of the Lord was with them,” and many believed and turned. Barnabas saw this and rejoiced. He did not fear grace because it appeared in unfamiliar faces. He recognized God’s work and urged them to remain with the Lord.
Then came teaching. A multicultural church must not be a vague church. It must be deeply instructed, deeply prayerful, deeply Christian. In Antioch, among many peoples, the disciples first received the name “Christians.”
That is our truest name too.
Therefore let a Ukrainian parish be fully itself, but not for itself. Let it welcome the stranger, teach the faith, serve the wounded, and proclaim without embarrassment: Jesus Christ is Lord.
A scattered people once helped evangelize Antioch. By the same Lord’s hand, a faithful parish may yet evangelize its own land.