His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy heads celebrations commemorating the Pochayiv Icon of the Holy Theotokos

Thousands of pilgrims from different regions of Ukraine as well as from other countries prayed at the festal service.

On August 5, 2019, on the feast day commemorating the Pochayiv Icon of the Holy Theotokos , His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra. Reports  the UOC Department of Information and Education.

Concelebrating with His Beatitude were the Metropolitans: Mark of Khust and Vynohradiv, Theodore of Kamianets-Podilskyi and Horodok, Pavel of Vyshgorod and Chornobyl, Mytrofan of Luhansk and Alchevsk, Bartholemew of Rivne and Ostroh, Serhiy of Ternopil and Kremenchug, Pytyrym of Mykolayiv and Ochakiv, Augustine of Bilotserkov and Bohuslav, Agapit of Mogilev-Podilskyi and Sharhorod, Volodymyr of Pochayiv, Superior of the Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra, Volodymyr of Volodymyr-Volynskyi and Kovel, Metropolitan Job (Tyvoniuk); Archbishops: Eleutherius of Shymkent and Taraz, Serafym of Ivano-Frankivsk and Kolomyia, Job of Shumsk, Panteleimon of Bucha, Nicodemus of Severodonetsk and Starobilsk, Filaret of Lviv and Halych, Klyment of Nizhyn and Pryluky; Bishops: Eusebius of Shepetivka and Slavuta, Nathanael of Volyń and Lutsk, Benjamin of Khotyn, and Victor of Baryshivka as well as the Lavra brothers and guest clergy.

The history of the Pochayiv Icon of the Theotokos goes back to the mid 16th century, when the future Patriarch of Constantinople,  and then Metropolitan Neophyte, on his visit to the territory of modern Ternopil oblast’, presented the holy icon to landowner Hanna Hoyska, who kept it in her manor house for the night.  In 1597 the miraculous icon passed to Pochaiv Lavra.  In the summer of 1675, during the Zbarazh War with the Turks, the monastery was saved from the invading Tatar Khan Nurredin by a miracle after Lavra  inhabitants had prayed fervently before the wonderworking image of the Theotokos .  The icon is still stored in Pochaiv Lavra to this day.

Thousands of pilgrims from different regions of Ukraine as well as from other countries prayed at the festal service.

On the eve of the feast , the International Cross procession which started in Poland, and which passed through Belaruś,  and the lands of Volyń, Rivne and Ternopil, reached Pochaiv Lavra.  To honour the Blessed Virgin Mary on the Pochayiv mountain,  Ukrainian Orthodox Church faithful also by Cross procession came from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Rivne and Lutsk eparchies.

A few days earlier, on August 2, a festal Cross procession led by the miraculous Pochayiv icon of the Holy Theotokos was held ,  and which retraces a traditional route from the Vyrlya land tract (village of  Savchytsi) to Pochayiv Lavra. The procession is observed annually to commemorate the events of more than 400 years ago.

After reading the Holy Gospel, His Beatitude  addressed the congregation with the festal sermon.

During the Liturgy a fervent prayer for peace in Ukraine and the unity of the Orthodox Church were offered up unto the Lord.
The UOC Primate headed the Cross procession with the Pochayiv Icon of the Holy Theotokos to the Dormition Cathedral of the Lavra, where a festal Moleben prayer service was celebrated.

At the end of the Divine services, His Beatitude congratulated all the faithful on occasion of the great and holy feast and blessed all those present.

Source: news.church.ua