Your Beatitude, have you often met with miracles worked through the prayers of the venerable Fathers of the Caves?
— The venerable fathers who lived out their lives in this holy monastery and pleased the Lord by their ascetic labour of abstinence, humility and submission to the will of God are intercessors and men of prayer for all of us sinners. In their lives we can find an example that encourages us in the bearing of the cross. Among the venerable Fathers of the Caves whom the Holy Church honours today, some became renowned for a particular love of labour for God's sake; others — for silence in the name of the Creator, for bearing the heavy cross of sickness, for diligent service to the sick, which is reckoned equal to the bearing of the cross of illness; and some enclosed themselves in the caves, where they passed all the years of their life and departed to the Lord. The venerable fathers served the neighbours who came to the monastery. And the holy fathers accomplished many other labours besides. And that the Caves monastery stood firm through the hard years of persecution and militant atheism is the greatest miracle God has worked through the prayers of the holy fathers. Many people today receive healing of their bodily ailments and spiritual infirmities through the prayers of the venerable Fathers of the Caves. A great many who turn for help to the fathers of the Kyiv Caves testify that there is life-giving water in this spiritual well, and that they receive it.
— In the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra rest the relics of saints who pray for us before the throne of God in the Kingdom of Heaven. And this is one of the greatest consolations for believers. Your Beatitude, is there a saint of the Caves whom you especially venerate?
— I regard all the venerable fathers with great love and awe: each of them laboured for the glory of God according to his strength, and to each God repaid with a corresponding measure of His grace, since grace is not determined by human criteria but only by the mercy of the Lord. Today we are not capable of the life the Fathers of the Caves led, but we must all the same urge ourselves towards subjection and self-restraint. And how is one best to restrain oneself? By setting oneself within the bounds of the law of God. This is the subjection of oneself to the law of the Spirit, for flesh and spirit are constantly at war in every person, and he who strives to subject his flesh to the spirit acts rightly, while he who does the opposite makes a mistake. We ought to limit ourselves at least in small and modest things, and so today we pray to the venerable Fathers of the Caves to raise their powerful prayers before God, that He may strengthen us in our weakness and help us to limit ourselves at least a little and to set out on the road that leads to peace, to mutual love and to salvation.
— Why should people today read the lives of the saints and the Kyiv-Pechersk Paterikon, and what does the labour of the Fathers of the Caves teach us?
— A person's earthly life is a brief span of time, with a beginning and an end. And it is given to us not so that we may enjoy ourselves in this life, keep our feasts and pass into eternity, but so that we may show our faithfulness to the Creator and our love for Him and for our neighbour as the bearer of the image of God. Such love for the Lord is shown in the most varied ways. Sometimes it asks small sacrifices of us; at other times love for God has to be attested with one's own life. The venerable fathers were ready to give up their lives rather than betray Christ. The Lord does not ask that sacrifice of us. The Father wishes that we should at least bear with our neighbour — as he is. There is no need to demand of him: you must be like this, and better — and then I will bear with you. God bears with all of us, though at times we are very sinful, often without knowing it or noticing it. A person's sinfulness is determined by the moral condition he is in. And the Creator sees that condition in each of us. And when people begin to look deep into themselves, they find there much filth and every kind of uncleanness. But one must not despair; one must turn to God humbly: “Lord, help me!” And the power of God cleanses a person. Our task is to be honest with ourselves and to accept our neighbour as he is. This is what the venerable fathers of the Kyiv Caves teach us. In them we see a model of the perfect preparation of oneself for eternity. They took very little from the world, and gave the world a great deal. They served the world in the literal sense: they helped people in sorrow, in sickness and in need; they always prayed and go on praying for this world. And so we must cast off our pride and say to God in humility: “Lord, I do not have what makes me worthy to enter Eternal Life. Illumine the garment of my soul and save me.”
— To a person of today such a way of life may seem too strict. What would you advise in that case?
— However cruel, severe and confining this path may seem from outside, in that small space in which a monk lives there is in fact much that is sweet, blessed and desirable, and all of it comes from God.
How would people live if they did not have the delight of the Holy Spirit; how could our venerable fathers have lived, who shut themselves into a cave and passed years in darkness and in cramped space? They found there for themselves what we cannot find in the world. They found God there; God was with them, filled them with His grace and comforted them with His strength. And they wanted nothing else.
Someone may say: “I cannot imitate the saints, for I have a family, children, parents and so on.” True, we cannot be exactly like them, but in some measure we can imitate them. At the very least by patience, without murmuring or complaint at what God sends us. We should not trust our feelings and reasonings, which are corrupted by sin, but should give ourselves up to the will of God and thank Him for everything, remembering that God is Love and absolute Good. Even when what comes from God is bitter, it brings a person blessedness and joy, if we receive it with thanksgiving.
May the Lord help us, through prayer, fasting, patience, humility and meekness, to imitate the holy fathers, so that by the prayers of these venerable ascetics we may be granted eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven in Christ Jesus our Lord
Source: Onufriy, Metropolitan of Kyiv. Ответы на вопросы. — СТСЛ, 2017. (translated from the original language by the editors)
