Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church announced during a ceremony at the Patriarchal Palace last Thursday that next year, Bucharest will host the International Orthodox Youth Meeting with participants from around the world.
“The next international event will be in September next year, at the beginning of September, when for about 3–4 days the International Orthodox Youth Meeting (ITO 2026) will be organised in Bucharest,” Patriarch Daniel said.
He noted that, in this respect, construction work on the National Cathedral must continue so that the entire complex can be completed.
“So we must continue working, to finish the iconography of the Cathedral at ground level and also prepare the chapel in the basement of the Cathedral, and of course the urban cave of Saint Andrew the Apostle beneath the Cathedral esplanade, which will be a multi-functional, cultural space, and even for culinary events, since culinary art is part of traditional culture,” the Patriarch said.
A young history
The International Orthodox Youth Meeting (ITO) is an event organised by the Romanian Orthodox Church for young believers from Romania, the diaspora and sister Orthodox Churches.
The first edition was held in 2014 in Baia Mare, and since then the event has been held annually in various Romanian cities: Cluj-Napoca (2015), Bucharest (2016), Iași (2017), Sibiu (2018) and Craiova (2019).
After a four-year pause caused by the pandemic, the ITO series resumed with enthusiasm in 2023.
The most recent edition, ITO 2023, took place in Timișoara between August 31 and September 3. The chosen theme was: “You are my friends.”
Photo: Mircea Florescu / Basilica
