Category Archives: Romanian Church

The Third Anniversary of our Adherence to the Romanian Patriarchate and the 2012 Icon of All the Saints of the British Isles and Ireland

On Sunday 16 February we recalled the third anniversary of our acceptance by His Eminence Metropolitan Joseph into the Romanian Patriarchate with gratitude to God. This has protected us from having to obey many uncanonical acts, which would naturally have divided our multinational community.

In celebration of this we have had 100 A2 prints of the 2012 Icon of All the Local Saints printed in high definition on high quality paper and framed in a golden frame. These are being given out for free to the very many parishes which have supported us over the last three years. If any individuals would like a copy – but A2 is very large for a home – it will cost £25, but it cannot be posted.

On the Third Anniversary of our Freedom from Persecution 2022-2025: The Thirteen Reasons Why We Took Canonical Refuge in the Romanian Orthodox Church after Nearly Fifty Years of Faithfulness to the Russian Orthodox Church

Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake (Matthew 5,11) 

Foreword

Although the statement below concerns the 5,000 of us directly, it could also be used as part of a more general study in order to understand the process of how a Persecuted Church became a Persecuting Church, how an organism for Love became a narrow and judgemental sect which professed Hatred which enjoys trying to close churches. It is a psychiatric tragedy.

Some Recent History

https://roarch.org.uk/parishes-england/

The Romanian Orthodox Church is not much bothered by PR and websites. It updates its website once every ten years. For some reason, this cyberworld information is highly important to newcomers, whereas the well-circulated photographs of our letter of acceptance of 16 February 2022, issued by the Chancellery of our Metropolia on 18 February 2022, and of our antimension, signed by Metropolitan Joseph and issued to our parish on 27 February 2022, and our belonging to the Romanian Orthodox Church, witnessed to by the multinational crowds following the litanies and the Great Entrance at every Divine Liturgy, are not adequate evidence of which Local Church we belong to!

The fact that a certain bishop broke his promise to a Metropolitan that he would issue letters of release and then told people publicly that we had not been received into the Romanian Orthodox Church, when we clearly had been, despite that bishop’s clerical maladministration, is on his conscience, not on ours. Similarly, the mistake of those who believed that ‘error’, without checking to find out the truth, and then supported and repeated that ‘error’, is also on their conscience, not on ours. Shall we be kind and just say that they had been misinformed? This is why we have had so many instances of myrrh-giving icons in our main church since the Feast of the Ascension in 2022, as has been recorded in our monthly newsletters. Our God is the God of Mercy and Justice.

Thus, at one fell swoop, a newcomer to ROCOR hounded out of it one of its largest families, 28 people of four generations, who had devoted their lives to ROCOR. The scandal became international, discrediting ROCOR. Among those expelled was one of the ten speakers of the 2006 Fourth All-Diaspora Council in San Francisco, whose speech had been so warmly greeted then and who had belonged to the Church before that newcomer was even born. However, since the newcomer had not belonged to ROCOR in 2006, but instead was then actively supporting a move by the Russian Church to join Constantinople, he would not know that.

None of this should be a surprise, since the New ROCOR had already excommunicated another of the ten speakers and yet another had left to join the Moscow Patriarchate. Seven to go. Who is next? How many more of the remaining faithful will be expelled by the New ROCOR for the ‘crime’ (that is what they called it) of remaining faithful to the Old ROCOR? They persecuted St John of Shanghai and Western Europe, suspended him and put him on trial. Why not do the same to his spiritual grandchildren as well?

It seems as though the New ROCOR is reneging on our long and hard-fought fight to enter back into canonical communion with the rest of the Russian Church, which culminated in our victory of 2007. With its history of support for Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s, support for the Vlasovtsy, those Russians who fought with Hitler against Russia, with its CIA bishops and priests, and now with their support for the CIA-orchestrated Kiev regime, which so persecutes Metr Onufry, should we be surprised? I am sometimes asked if I support Moscow or Kiev in the conflict in the Ukraine. I always answer the same thing: I support Metr Onufry and the Ukrainian and Russian peoples and always have done.

The Thirteen Reasons

  1. The principal reason why we were forced to leave and take refuge in the Romanian Orthodox Church, is simply so that we would no longer be in an unthinkable schism from the Russian Church, specifically from the Archdiocese of Western Europe of the Russian Tradition, in which we have had so many close family and friends in Paris for many decades. (It is also true that in the Romanian Church, we are no longer in schism with the Greek Churches either. We shall probably never recover from the shock of that bishop’s accusation that Patriarch Bartholomew is ‘possessed by demons’ Was he talking about himself?). His schism from the Russian Church, is exactly what we wanted to escape by taking canonical refuge in the Romanian Orthodox Church.

For nearly fifty years we had fought for the unity of the Russian Church, very actively and very successfully and were thanked personally by the Russian Patriarch for doing so. And then we saw it all destroyed by a very young and inexperienced convert newcomer from far away, who, a creator of schism, accused us of being schismatic and then of being senile! We have once more been able to live canonically, following the theological royal way and the canonical golden mean, away from all extremes.

For three years we have been in communion with and concelebrated with all Orthodox, including with the Russian Church, except for the tiny ROCOR, now reduced to a handful of miniscule communities here. Communion is the sign and guarantee that we are inside the Church and not outside the Church, inside some pathological, Protestant-style, convert sect and cult. For some reason this sect has been protected by ‘misinformed’, but still unrepentant and unapologetic individuals above it. That too is on their conscience, not on ours.

  1. In the Romanian Orthodox Church we do not rebaptise other Orthodox, which is a heresy.
  2. The Romanian Orthodox Church does not ‘defrock’ the clergy of other Local Churches.
  3. In the Romanian Orthodox Church we can love everyone, specifically we do not have to hate Greeks, refusing to recognise their saints because they are in ‘the wrong jurisdiction’!, ‘hate’ Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians and ‘half-hate’ Moldovans, as we were strongly recommended, but categorically refused, to do, for we strive to obey the Gospel commandments of Christ and not obey a schismatic.
  4. In the Romanian Orthodox Church over the last three years we have been able to keep all our churches open and serve our multinational parishioners in our missions at our own cost, just as we had done for decades before.
  5. For the last three years we have been allowed to speak and use in services our own childhood English language and do not have to pretend to be Americans in our speech, as we were bullied and pressured, but categorically refused, to do.
  6. For the last three years our websites have no longer been subject to rigid, word-for-word censorship and micromanagement, as we have had the wonderful basic human right to free speech, of which we had been punitively deprived for four months under a Calvinistically jealous dictatorship.
  7. For the last three years we have not had to participate in slandering faithful clergy and laypeople of other Local Churches, which we categorically refused to do.
  8. We have no longer had to deal with one who suffered in his spoilt child syndrome from violent bouts of temper and jealousy and wanted to divide and destroy solid families, setting generation against generation and hating women and children, upsetting many women with his ugly remarks.
  9. We have no longer had to pay 10% of our income and be subjected to fits of rage, shouting that we must pay even more and also hear slanders that we are thieves, all so that someone could live like a mini-oligarch. Membership of our self-governing Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of Western Europe and its local Archdiocese is free.
  10. We have no longer belonged to a small, out-of-control group, which is faced with having to pay millions of dollars in court cases which it is losing to individuals whom it has slandered, and which is also sundered by multiple scandals concerning rebaptism of other Orthodox, ‘defrocking’ clergy of other Local Churches, lack of financial transparency, the use of electronic signatures without authorisation, alcoholism and homosexuality.
  11. We have no longer had to live under an oppressive system where priestly awards are deliberately withheld from the most senior clergy for many, many years, for reasons of sadistic hatred and bullying jealousy, as though we were donkeys who wanted to follow decorative carrots.
  12. We have been allowed to be Christians, free to keep our integrity and obey our conscience. We have been able to act according to our Orthodox Christian principles, as for nearly fifty years before, in the old and noble Western European ROCOR Tradition of St John of Shanghai and Western Europe, which they have all but destroyed, except inside the Romanian Orthodox Church, where we faithfully conserve it. This freedom comes from the fact that our Romanian bishops are, like us, also Christians, and do not punish or persecute us.

Why to the Romanian Orthodox Church?

Some people ask us, all the 15 clergy and 5,000 people in our six parishes who left ROCOR because it refused to listen to us about its schism, punished us for telling them the truth about it, and refused to listen to us who endured this shameful betrayal of the best friends that the Russian Church has ever had, why we joined the Romanian Church specifically. The answer to this is simple:

The Greek Church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was for us not an option, despite some wonderful clergy and people there, not least on Mt Athos, as certain members of its episcopate had compromised themselves through their uncanonical actions in the Ukraine and through their ecumenism. Joining the Greek Church would therefore have been very divisive among our flock. As for the Serbian Church, we greatly respect it, as we do all other Local Churches, but we did not think of joining any of them, as we could have done, because we do not have any direct connections with their bishops, only with their priests.

There was only one obvious solution, the Romanian Church. We have always valued our contacts with the Romanian Tradition of Life via Fr Raphael Noica and others. Since 2001 we have had Romanian parishioners and these have increased in number since. As a result, we had a Romanian parishioner ordained priest and a Moldovan parishioner ordained deacon some years ago. We are pastors, not nationalists, and are here to serve the Orthodox people, whatever their nationality, English, Russian, Ukrainian, Moldovan, Romanian or other.

We do not conduct passport checks at the door. Perhaps that is why the number of our parishioners of all nationalities has doubled in the last three years since we left ROCOR. Nor are we capitalists, who sell vastly overpriced candles, icons, prayer books and other Church items to their own, often poor, people. We run the cheapest Church shop in the country. It is a service, not a source of excessive profit. We do not exploit the Orthodox people.

In the last 12 years 1 million Romanians have come to live in this country. Today at least 70% of all Orthodox in this country are Romanians. Go to any church in this country and the children are almost certain to be Romanian. Children are our future. And young priests have been temporarily loaned by the Romanian Church to the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Antioch, which are both desperately short of young clergy.

Moreover, the Romanian bishops have a clear pastoral sense of how important it is to keep the children in the Church and are very happy to use the local languages to do so. All our bishops speak Western European languages fluently – unlike most Russian bishops. Clearly, if we believe in a future Local Church, as we always have done, it makes sense to be part of by far the largest group of Orthodox, as long as it is politically free, which was the case of very few Local Churches 35 years ago, but which is no longer the case today, except for two of them.

It also makes sense to belong to a Local Church which allows us to conserve the Tradition and calendar of the Old Western European ROCOR, as we are able. The view of the late Metr Kallistos (Ware) ten years ago was quite rightly that ROCOR’s ascetic and liturgical heritage should be valued. Sadly, it has been ignored by them and taken over by ritualism and the pharisaical condemnation of others, turning this heritage into an opportunity for even further spiritual pride and censoriousness. As for us, we keep to the saints of the Old ROCOR of the Confessors, like St John of Shanghai, whom they now condemn, as he did not dress in expensive clothing and footwear and did not live in an elite apartment.

In 2022 we left the Russian Church to its nationalism, where the earthly kingdom is higher than the heavenly kingdom and Caesar’s is tragically confused with God’s. It has indeed renounced the multinational ethos which it had in the past. Too bad for it. We pray that Moscow, like Constantinople, will recover. Providentially we were integrated into the Romanian Orthodox Church exactly eight days before the longstanding Ukrainian-Russian conflict reached a new level of militancy on 24 February 2022. Thus, we avoided the Russian-Ukrainian division and so were able to answer all the threats of violence and hatred that were sent to us after that date, as well as the unnecessary offer of police protection, as well as invitations to support the Nazis in Kiev, by simply answering that we in the Romanian Orthodox Church have nothing to do with internal conflicts and politics inside the Russian Church.

With the result that our many Russian and Ukrainian parishioners can and do pray for one another side by side. Precisely from within the Romanian Orthodox Church, the second largest Local Church and which speaks a Latin language and uses the Latin alphabet, we can perhaps play a role in healing the schism between Russians and Greeks, which stems from the fact that neither is politically free. We are neutral. For we are pastors, not politicians.

We recall how the Greeks started the schism in the Ukraine by opening churches on Russian canonical territory. Then the Russians made it worse, firstly by cutting off communion, a very radical act which made the Russian Church look schismatic, then by poaching churches, priests and people from the Greek jurisdiction without letters of release, and then, in revenge, by opening churches on Greek canonical territory in Africa. This is like two little boys fighting. When will this end?

Afterword

Can we, in concert with the other politically free Local Churches, be intermediaries and help to bring sense and peace, in the spirit of the catholicity of the whole Orthodox Church? We pray so, through the prayers of all the New Martyrs and Confessors, of the Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian and Greek Lands and of all the Lands of the Earth.

16 February 2025

Our Archbishop Athanasius of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The Most Reverend Athanasius of Bogdania, Vicar Bishop of the Diocese of Italy, was elected on Friday 25 October to the dignity of the Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The newly elected Archbishop of Great Britain is 42 years old and has been a bishop of the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church since May 2018.

He was born on 17 January 1982 in Chisinau in the Republic of Moldova, being the first of the two sons of Eugen and Ala Rusnac and also speaks Russian. He has held Romanian citizenship since 12 October 2010.

He was tonsured monk on 8 December 2008 and then was ordained deacon. On 16 April 2009 he became a priest for the chapel of the Diocesan Centre and the Dormition Monastery in Rome. Between 2009 and 2018 he served at the ‘Dormition of the Virgin Mary’ Chapel next to the Diocesan Centre in Rome.

On 15 February 15 2018, he was elected Vicar Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy, with the title of Bogdania , and on 1 May he was consecrated bishop.

Archbishop Athanasius was an engineer. He studied between 2000 and 2005 at INSA Lyon (Institut National des Sciences Appliqués de Lyon – France). He obtained the degree of Engineer with a Master’s degree, his speciality – Telecommunications and Networks. He also followed a specialisation internship in the field of IT (MT Systems – Lyon, France).

Between 2006 and 2010, he attended the ‘Saint-Serge’ Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Paris, as did Fr Andrew Phillips, but that was over 25 years earlier. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in pastoral theology in 2010. Between 2010 and 2012, he attended a Master’s course in Practical Theology (Canon Law), at the Faculty of Theology ‘Andrei Șaguna’ in Sibiu. Master’s thesis – ‘Principles of Canon Theology in the Diaspora, with special reference to Italy’.

The Archdiocese of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as the Diocese of Ireland and Iceland, were established on 29 February 2024. The new dioceses are part of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of Western and Southern Europe.

There are over a million Romanians living in Great Britain who currently have 100 parishes, branches and Orthodox missions, as well as three monasteries.

An article from 2020

The life story of the hierarch baptised at the age of eight. From Communism to the Italian diaspora.

The youngest Romanian hierarch, Bishop Atanasie de Bogdania, turned 38 on Friday 17 January 2020. The hierarch gave an interview in which he talks about the story of his life, beyond the already known biography during his almost two years of service as Vicar Bishop of the Diocese of Italy.

Bishop Atanasie de Bogdania was born in Chisinau during the atheist Communist regime and was baptised around the age of eight along with his brother and father. He first became an engineer in Telecommunications and Networks in France, and then a monk in Italy, being a close disciple of Metropolitan Joseph of Western and Southern Europe and of Bishop Silouan of Italy.

His Eminence’s father was a university professor, and his mother worked in a publishing house, things that did not allow them to have visible faith in society. Both the wedding of the parents and the baptism of the children took place after 1990.

‘My father, after Communism fell, with great joy went to the first church he came across, a place of worship that had recently opened because the vast majority of churches had been closed, and asked the priest to marry him. The father, being an experienced minister, asked him: ‘Are you baptised?’, «No!», «But children?», «No children are baptised!».

“In this context, all three of us were baptised: me, my brother, the current deacon Mircea and my father. Shortly after, the parents got married,” recalls the hierarch.

“So, the first encounter with God consciously took place right when I received the Sacrament of Baptism at the age of 8. I remember the gestures that the priest made, the songs from the choir, the emotion of the people who surrounded us, that “How many of you have been baptized in Christ, have also clothed yourselves in Christ”, all of this left a mark on me”.

The Archbishop says that the Most Reverend Metropolitan Joseph and the Most Reverend Bishop Silouan formed him.

“At that time I was young, at 18 I arrived in France and with other colleagues from the INSA Lyon Faculty we went together to monasteries, churches and meetings with young people organised by the parishes. Such great openness, the natural way in which the hierarchs behaved, the way in which they approached people, opened in me this leaning towards Theology”.

This was followed by theological studies and various ministries within the EORI (Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of Italy): Diocesan Secretary, Administrative Counsellor, Exarch of the Monasteries and Diocesan Vicar.

On 15 February 2018, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church elected him Vicar Bishop of the Diocese of Italy, with the title “of Bogdania”. The consecration took place on 1 May 2018 in Rome.

His Eminence defines his ministry in Italy as a “family” one and relies heavily on the closeness between the clergy and the faithful.

“I try to spend as much time as possible in the territory, that’s why I feel close to the priests, with whom I have a very good relationship. I was godfather to many at their ordination, some I trained with, others I trained and I think we are a real family”.

“This is what I would like in the future: to be a family, together to carry the achievements, but also the hardships. I would like us to be as responsible as we have been until now, that is, to work together for our salvation.”

Although he has been a bishop since 2018, His Eminence has served for ten years in the administration of the Diocese of Italy. “During the ten years of activity, much has been done materially, but the biggest achievement is that our churches are full, people love and seek the Church. That is why our responsibility is very, very big. But in the family everything goes together, both good and bad, to the glory of God”.

 

Archdiocesan Assembly of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Northern Ireland

On the afternoon of 13 October all four clergy from Colchester and two lay delegates went to our new St George’s Cathedral in Enfield. Here we were met by nearly 200 delegates from the Romanian and Moldovan parishes in England and Wales and the seven bishops who form the Synod of the Metropolia of Western and Southern Europe. There are 870 parishes and many monasteries and convents in the Metropolia. Twenty years ago there was only one bishop and thirty parishes. Today there are sixty parishes in Rome and ten parishes in London alone. Of the seven bishops at present, there are three bishops in France (one of them is French), two in Italy and two in Spain and Portugal.

Altogether nearly four million people who belong to the Metropolia, as the Romanian and Moldovan Diaspora is over four times larger than all the other Orthodox put together. The number of Orthodox in the Romanian Archdiocese in England is now over 1.2 million, including the children born here. Vladyka Joseph said that there are 24 qualified candidates to be ordained in Great Britain, where there are already 100 parishes and in years to come there will be hundreds more.

Vladyka spoke of the need to unite others into the Archdiocese of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of all nationalities. The main aim of the meeting was to announce the two candidates to be Archbishop here next year. The two announced were Bishop Theophil and Bishop Athanasy. The latter is Moldovan and is Russian-speaking.

First Orthodox Monastery in Scotland for 1,000 Years

First Orthodox monastery on Scottish Islands in 1,000 years consecrated on the Isle of Mull

Amid the latest terrible scandal surrounding a certain Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church, which broke last weekend, and which follows the same scandal with a still unpunished and protected ROCOR bishop, God sends us consolation. The long-overdue Great Cleansing will follow and all will be revealed. Woe unto you, scribes, pharisees and hypocrites! Repentance begins in Scotland.

Communiqué: New Decisions of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church

Published by Andrei Ursulean

On Thursday 29 February 2024 a working session of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church took place in the Great Hall of Theoctist the Patriarch in the Palace of the Patriarchate, under the Presidency of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel.

The main decisions of the Holy Synod are as follows:

  1. The declaration in the Patriarchate of Romania of 2025 as the commemorative year of the centenary of the Patriarchate of Romania and the commemorative year of the Romanian Orthodox priests and confessors of the 20th century.
  2. The establishment of a Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Great Britain, based in London, for the more than the 1 million Romanian Orthodox believers in this part of Western Europe.
  3. The establishment of a Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Ireland and Iceland, based in Dublin.
  4. We recall the position of the Romanian Orthodox Church with regard to political life and electoral campaigns that, in the context of the 2024 electoral year, the Church is not involved in party politics, because, according to Article 7 Para. 1 of Law No. 489/2006 on religious freedom and the general regime of cults, recognised cults are factors of social peace and any attitude of public enmity in society, of political partisanship, of attacking persons or straining relations with public authorities are contrary to the spiritual mission of the Church in society.
  5. Approval of the December and January volumes of the Synodal Lives of the Saints of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
  6. Approval of the Akathist of the Holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian of Asia (November 1).
  7. Approval of the Akathist of Saint Gerasim of Cephalonia (October 20).
  8. Approval of the Service to the Holy Unmercenaries Cyrus and John (January 31, June 28).
  9. The organisation from 1-31 March 2024 of a collection in the Romanian Patriarchate to help build homes in Armenia for Armenian refugees from Nagorno Karabakh.
  10. A reminder of the fact that, through the Financial Control and Audit Body of Dioceses, Metropolias and the Patriarchate of Romania the Church authorities audit the financial and property statements of parishes, dioceses and metropolitans and, in the event that deficiencies are found, they adopt measures to remedy them, for the correct application of which the Metropolitan Synod, respectively the Permanent Synod, are responsible; the respective Financial Control and Audit Bodies must be staffed with experienced specialists (economists and financial auditors), who are characterised by fairness, professionalism and faithfulness to the Church.
  11. We bless, encourage and support the initiatives of Romanian Orthodox communities in Ukraine to restore communion with the Mother Church, the Patriarchate of Romania, through their legal organisation in the religious structure called the Romanian Orthodox Church of the Ukraine.
  12. We reaffirm the fact that all Romanian Orthodox clergy and pastors from the Republic of Moldova who return to the Metropolia of Bessarabia are canonical clergy and blessed believers and any disciplinary sanction directed against them on the grounds of their membership of the Romanian Orthodox Church is considered null and void, according to the Synodal Decision No. 8090 of 19 December 19 1992.
  13. We appreciate the rich social and charitable activity of the Romanian Orthodox Church during the year 2023, which have had visible positive effects in Romanian society.

Chancellery of the Holy Synod