His Eminence Atanasie Rusnac marked on Sunday the one-year anniversary of his enthronement as the first Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a recently established eparchy created to address the pastoral needs of the large Romanian community in the United Kingdom.
The anniversary was marked in London through a series of cultural and liturgical events bringing together Romanians from across the British capital alongside their hierarch.
The Archbishop was born on 17 January 1982 in Chișinău, Republic of Moldova, as the eldest of the two sons of Eugen and Ala Rusnac. He has held Romanian citizenship since 12 October 2010.
Between 2000 and 2005, he studied at the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Lyon, France, where he obtained an engineering degree with a Master’s qualification in Telecommunications and Networks, as well as a certificate in European Studies.
From 2004 to 2005, he completed a specialisation internship in IT in Lyon, and from 2006 to 2010, he attended courses at the Orthodox Institute of Saint Sergius in Paris.
He received monastic tonsure in 2011 at Bivongi Monastery, taking the name Atanasie and becoming a hieromonk of the monastery, after already having been ordained in 2009 for the chapel of the Diocesan Centre and the Monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Rome. Also in 2011, he received the rank of protosyncellus, followed by that of archimandrite in 2013.
Between 2011 and 2018, he served as diocesan vicar of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy.
On 1 May 2018, he was ordained Assistant Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy, with the title of Bogdania.
On 25 October 2024, he was elected Archbishop of the newly established Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and was enthroned on 10 May 2025 in London.
His full biography may be consulted on the archdiocese’s website.
Photo: Basilica.ro
