On Monday, the Patriarchal Auxiliary Bishop Varlaam of Ploiești officiated a Te Deum service as a sign of thanksgiving to God for the activity of the Basilica Media Centre of the Romanian Patriarchate.

He explained the significance of the names of the departments, noting that the Media Centre’s activity proves the excellent cooperation between the clergy and the laity of the Romanian Orthodox Church.

“The day of the Holy Trinity is the patronal feast of this Centre,” the patriarchal auxiliary bishop reminded after the service. “This very important achievement was placed from the very beginning under the protection of the Most Holy Trinity.”

His Grace Bishop Varlaam added that the usefulness of the Media Centre was observed especially during the pandemic, when the transmission of divine services during the national state of emergency “replaced, as much as possible, our physical absence from the Holy and Divine Liturgy.”

“The labourers of the Basilica Media Centre have endeavoured, in this period of despair and fear, to bring joy, to bring hope, to bring the light of the Gospel of Christ and the hope that this temptation has come upon us as a pedagogy of God to rediscover the values we have lost: faith, participation in Church life, in the liturgical life of the Church, the rediscovery of communion,” the patriarchal auxiliary bishop noted.

At the same time, the Media Centre of the Romanian Orthodox Church presented “such a dynamic and consistent philanthropic work of our Church in this period”, Bishop Varlaam added.

Collaboration between clergy and laity

“This significant achievement of the Church proved the good cooperation between the clergy and the laity,” said the hierarch. “Among the founders are many faithful Christians who have supported with their advice, professionalism, financial help, the emergence of this Centre and its departments.”

“A lot of laypeople work in these departments; the clergy are a minority. There are many laypersons. Some departments of the Media Centre are even run by laypeople, which expresses the collaboration and the need for this collaboration between the clergy and the faithful, represented by the laity engaged in this holy work of the Church.”

The bishop listed the Media Centre’s departments:

• Radio Trinitas – began broadcasting on Good Friday in 1998 in Iasi, where Patriarch Daniel served as Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina;
• Lumina Newspaper – also established in Iași, on February 4, 2005, on the name day of Patriarch Teoctist of blessed memory, who was pastoring the Romanian Orthodox Church at that time;
• Trinitas Television began broadcasting on October 27, 2007, on the feast day of St. Demetrius the New, the second patronal feast of the Patriarchal Cathedral, just one month after the enthronement of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel;
• Basilica News Agency of the Romanian Patriarchate was launched on June 16, 2008;
• The Press and Public Relations Office, established immediately after December 1989, was also incorporated into the Basilica Media Centre.

Significance of the name

All these five departments were called Basilica, meaning “Church”. Both terms, Trinitas and Basilica, are Latin terms and they were chosen to emphasize that there is in the Eastern Orthodoxy a Latin-speaking Orthodoxy, namely the Romanian Orthodoxy,” His Grace Bishop Varlaam explained.

“As Protectress of the entire Basilica Media Centre, we celebrate the Holy Trinity, Whose feast is on the first day after Pentecost because there is a close connection between the Holy Trinity and the Holy Church. A great theologian of the third century, an Alexandrian theologian, says that the whole Church is full of the Holy Trinity,” His Grace continued.

He mentioned that at the Te Deum service, the altar servants prayed for Patriarch Daniel, the initiator and founder of the Basilica Media Centre, for the Centre’s staff, for the beneficiaries of the information services that the Centre offers, but also for the benefactors, because the Media Centre is funded by the contribution of dioceses and donations of believers, sponsors and benefactors who have realized “how important is the presence of the Church in the media” and “support with special efforts the activity of the Centre.”

Photography courtesy of Basilica.ro / Mircea Florescu

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