People and the Church

2025 was declared by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church as the Year of Homage to the Centenary of the Romanian Patriarchate

Roxana Vasile, 05.03.2025, 13:00

2025 was declared by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church as the Year of Homage to the Centenary of the Romanian Patriarchate. A law in this sense was also adopted by the Bucharest Parliament. In fact, the anniversary is double! It has been 100 years since the elevation of the BOR to the rank of Patriarchate (on February 4, 1925 and 140 years since the recognition of it Autocephaly (on April 25, 1885). Therefore, the year 2025 is an occasion for great joy and celebration, but also for centenary reviews.

In addition to the current liturgical activity or the religious assistance it provides in hospitals, orphanages, penitentiaries or old people’s homes, the Orthodox Church also carries out a huge social-philanthropic activity in support of disadvantaged people or people with various problems. The adviser on social issues to Patriarch Daniel of Romania, father Ciprian Ioniță, told us about some of these activities:

ʺIt is the command of our Savior Jesus Christ to love thy neighbor and those who need help. We, the Church, have always had socio-medical centers next to the monasteries, and recently some of them have been accredited, authorized and offer quality services to vulnerable people. Immediately after 1990, foundations were established next to the Church, such as the Diaconia Association of the Romanian Patriarchate, the Saint Macrina Foundation for Solidarity and Hope – another foundation in Iasi, which also has the largest hospital that the Orthodox Church has… There are many! We have a map with all social services, updated, on the website social-filantropic.patriarhia.ro. There one can find absolutely all the services that the Church is developing at the moment. Each diocese has at least one social-philanthropic department where there is a counselor and diocesan inspectors, as well as NGOs, and the priest who wants to develop an activity at the level of his parish can turn either to the diocese to receive guidance or to us, the Patriarchate. We also have a Federation, of the Romanian Patriarchate, which brings together the most important NGOs that the Church has, and there are, at the moment, 27 NGOs.ʺ

The actions of the Filantropia (Philanthropy) Federation, through the associations and foundations that make it up, are both for the urban and the rural environment. It’s just that, given that the number of people in need is greater in the rural areas, the support for those there is also somewhat more consistent, standing at some 60%. Father Ciprian Ionita has more:

ʺCan I give you an example from today? The Filantropia Federation is running a campaign, called “Help an old person to smile” – we help vulnerable elderly people. And we received a request from a parish somewhere on the border between Bacău county and Harghita county. We have a campaign to offer ophthalmology consultation, but also free glasses. What do we do? We go with our volunteers, we consult the elderly, and after that we come to Bucharest, and have the glasses made. Just today we had such a request for 70 people. We have activities that we carry out and which are posted on our Facebook page. The priest saw it there, he called me, I told him to contact the social advisor of the Roman and Bacău Archdiocese first, together with him we made a request, we present it to Father Patriarch and obviously it will be solved.ʺ

The church helps the elderly, which are the most numerous beneficiaries. However, it also helps around 130,000 children in difficult situations, single mothers, women that victims of domestic violence, sick people who cannot afford to pay for medical services who have nothing to put on the table or who need counseling – for example, who are unemployed or addicted. Here is the Advisor to the Patriarch of Romania again:

ʺFilantropia Federation is a training provider and we have a specialization course in counseling in the field of addictions. Initially, we thought that it would be useful to our fellow priests to know this part, but in the meantime we received many, many requests from teachers or from people who work in certain centers with addictions, and we cover in this course, the whole part of addictions – alcohol, digital addictions, drug addiction… And you should know that it is a course that, lately, has been very popular. The courses are given by those who want to help people who are in a situation of addiction, but we also had a course in Târgu Mureș, about two years ago, in which there were people who had overcome their addictions but wanted to take this course, to be able to help those who are in situations like this.ʺ

The course aimed at combating addictions has existed since 2022 and thanks to it, around 500 people have been trained so far. Specialization or professional training courses are also of great interest. For example, in the future, the Orthodox Church wants to develop its own network of home caregivers. Father Ciprian Ioniță told us more about this project and others:

ʺWe consider that the elderly are very vulnerable and need help, and that is why we want to form a network of home care at the level of the entire Patriarchate, especially since, as time passes, the statistics also show that Romania is becoming quite an aged country so wee need to help these people. It is one of the projects, let’s say, for the near future. Various projects have also been submitted for children! We have had projects and will have more in the ecology area! We had initiatives in the Romanian Orthodox Church together with the Republic of Moldova! Just yesterday I returned from a course on domestic violence, I participated as a trainer for priests from the Republic of Moldova. We have a lot of projects!ʺ

The church also has many projects intended for Romanians in the diaspora.

The century of existence and rich activity of the Romanian Patriarchate – said Patriarch Daniel – has been marked by many blessings, but also by some difficult trials.ʺ Patriarchal adviser Ciprian Ioniță told us about the most difficult from the point of view of social-philanthropic activity?:

ʺThe hardest thing, sometimes, is when, due to lack of funds, because we are limited, a center closes and we think about how to get the people who are in that center or who depend on the services we have in that center and move them to another center. But, thank God, if one center closes, usually another two are opened. For example in 2022 we had 767 services, this year we have 100 more – 867.ʺ

The adviser on social issues to the Patriarch of Romania, father Ciprian Ioniță, is co-author of a balance sheet book about the social-philanthropic work of the Orthodox Church in the pat century. It will appear in October, when the Homage Year of the Centenary of the Romanian Patriarchate will culminate with the great consecration of the National Cathedral in Bucharest. (MI)