Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia delivered a sermon,on December 1, 2025, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Clinical and Hospital Center Zvezdara – City Hospital in Belgrade.
In his sermon he said:
I recently had the opportunity to speak before a similar gathering of doctors and I will try to briefly repeat what I said then. Namely, it is understood that someone who is in the place of Saint Sava begins, ends and permeates everything with faith in God. So in this context, we know by faith that God created man and that He created him healthy and whole, that He created man like everything else – good. So, God gave man good, but at the same time He also assigned him good. He created him healthy and whole, but He also assigned him that. He assigned him wholeness and goodness.
The history of the human race has shown that man at one point decided to live contrary to his created nature, i.e. that he decided to live contrary to health and wholeness. However, since health and wholeness are intended, God did not leave man without the possibility of putting his health back on you. God gave salvation to man. After all, salvation means wholeness. In the New Testament, the word used to express the mystery of salvation is the verb sozo or sozome (Greek σῴζω, σῴζομαι) which means to be whole. Therefore, saved means to be whole, to be healthy, to live in accordance with one’s nature, and not against it. And health, of course, implies wholeness in the anthropological sense of the word, i.e. it implies both mental and physical health. It implies psycho-somatic health or we would say the health of the whole personality.
That is why it is important, always, in addition to everything else, to remember a saying by the Roman poet Juvenal, which we have been repeating and learning for decades in just one of our works. We were taught that a person is a psychosomatic being, that he has both a mental and a physical aspect, and that these two aspects influence each other. When, say, the mental part of a person’s personality is failing, then this is reflected in his body, and vice versa. We never know what precedes what, you know that better than I do, but I read somewhere that some scientists of your orientation claim that even the common flu is not just a disease and exclusively a disease of the body, but that the flu often also implies some mental disorder.
This proverb or saying of the Roman poet, which we have learned, shows this. Mens sana in corpore sano. In a healthy body, a healthy mind. However, the first part of this saying implies not only the soul and body, but also the spirit, i.e. the grace of the Holy Spirit. It implies something that is not the person himself, but is above him, and it says: Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. Pray that there may be a healthy mind in a healthy body. This prayer is nothing more than an affirmation and confession of the grace of the Holy Spirit, i.e. that we as humans must do everything to live in accordance with our nature so that both our soul and body aspects function in harmony. But this is not enough for it to function fully and for what is given, because it is intended, to grow and reach its goal. It is necessary and necessary for there to be grace, for there to be a spiritual aspect, i.e. for there to be the will of God. You know that best. I myself have had the opportunity to hear more than once, perhaps from some of you: We have done what we could (in our work), and everything else is in God’s hands.
Every person has a gift and that is a theological-anthropological truth, but a gift is not an end in itself. A talent that someone has is not an end in itself. The gifts we have are means to reach the ultimate goal, and that ultimate goal is to manifest and confirm love for our neighbors through the gifts and talents we have, and of course where there is faith and love for God. The gift that perhaps more than other gifts reveals that secret love, i.e. that a gift exists to bear witness to love, is the gift that you doctors have received. Therefore, I pray to God that all of you, who are doctors and who treat those who need help, who suffer from any disease, will always be covered with the grace of God and that you will never cease to give of yourself through the gift you have received. Because a gift, as the word itself says, is something that we have received for free. We have received for free, we should also give for free, i.e. we should give with a love-oriented and love-filled attitude and ultimately with love as our goal.
Praying to the Holy Moneyless Cosmas and Damian, two brothers who were doctors, who are the representatives of all doctors before God, praying together with them and with them that God will always be with you, I congratulate you once again on a truly great jubilee, and may God grant that we will meet many more times on such occasions, but may this hospital and the foundation of Spasić, to whom may eternal memory be given, last after all of us. Long live and may the Lord bless you all.
Source: Patriarchate of Serbia
