The International Day of Families is marked annually on May 15, while the Romanian Orthodox Church has dedicated to Christian families a national day, marked on the Sunday which is closest to the same date: the Day of Christian Family. This year, the two are marked on the same day.
In a message referring to the Day of Christian Family, Patriarch Daniel said that Romanian Christian families are protected by Holy Apostle Andronicus and his wife Junia, commemorated on May 17”.
In another message, transmitted for the Sunday of Parents and Children, His Beatitude affirmed that “the Christian family is called to be an icon of God’s love in the world”.
The teaching of the Church on family focuses on the spiritual importance of this institution established by God in Heaven and on explaining its key role in society and in the history of Salvation.
“The family is an icon and a foretaste of the love of the Holy Trinity, as it enables man to live the mystery of filiation, fraternity ant paternity, respectively the joy of being a child (a son or a daughter), a brother (or a sister) and a parent (a father or a mother)”, transmitted the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in an encyclical published for the Solemn Year of the Holy Baptism and the Holy Matrimony in the Romanian Patriarchate (2011).
“Children raised in matrimonies blessed by the Church (in Christian families) learn about the spiritual family which can offer the blessing from God, which is the Church and whose members are called sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, spiritual fathers and mothers in Christ the Lord.”
Regarding the International Day of Families, the observance was established in 1993 by a resolution of the General Assemby of the United Nations (UN).
The theme of the observance this year is, family migration to large urban areas and the need to adapt cities by making them more family-friendly. In many countries, this is reduced to fulfilling the basic need of ensuring a roof for the homeless, according to the UN.
In Romania, family issues appear periodically on the public agenda. The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church established in 2009 that the first Sunday in the month of June will be marked as the Sunday of Parents and Children. In 2016, the Parliament of Children obtained from the Parliament of Romania a law making the International Day of Children a national public holiday and non-working day, allowing parents time to spend with their children.
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