Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine has shared a video message and online post encouraging the faithful to approach Great Lent as a journey of spiritual liberation rather than mere prohibition.
Addressing believers, he wrote: “Dear brothers and sisters! We continue the подвиг—the spiritual struggle—of the Holy and Great Fast, whose goal is not to forbid, but to restrain, to humble the body and its passions, and to free the spirit from the captivity of bodily problems and concerns.”
The Metropolitan reflected on the imbalance that often characterizes modern life, noting that people devote significant time and effort to caring for the body—ensuring rest, sleep, nourishment, and health—while sometimes neglecting the needs of the soul.
“But does not our soul also require attention? Is it merely a servant of the body? Not at all,” he emphasized. “In truth, it is the soul that gives life to the body. It possesses reason, will, and feelings, which fill bodily life with meaning that surpasses the present moment and reaches into the infinite future, for the soul longs for eternity.”
Metropolitan Epifaniy urged the faithful to view material food appropriately—as sustenance for the body, not an object of devotion. “Receive perishable food as it should be received—as nourishment for the body. Do not turn it into a cult,” he wrote.
He explained that bodily fasting is meant to ease and support spiritual fasting—abstaining from quarrels, evil, sin, despair, and anger—in order to partake of true spiritual nourishment.
“May the Lord help us to walk the path of the Holy Forty Days with benefit for both soul and body, in good health and spiritual uplift,” he concluded.
