Denis Vlad, a religion teacher and parliamentary adviser, has urged young people to recognise the importance of faith in God for coping with life’s challenges and for healing.
He said there are numerous examples showing that a strong faith in God provides not only emotional resilience but also physical strength.
“We have many examples, books and experiences demonstrating that a strong faith in God not only offers us a shield against emotional challenges, but also brings healing,” Vlad said.
He frequently recommends the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl to his students, which draws on the author’s personal experiences to show how spirituality contributes to emotional resilience.
“Faith and spirituality do not give us only emotional resilience but physical resilience as well,” he said.
Vlad also referred to testimonies from survivors of the Pitești Experiment, a brutal communist-era re-education programme in Romania.
“Many survivors said their strength to endure came from believing in something greater than themselves—namely God,” he explained.
Moral Compass
In Vlad’s view, without moral reference points, people become emotionally vulnerable.
“From my perspective, moral values are the skeleton on which our soul rests. As I used to tell my students, they are like the root that nourishes us,” he said.
“Without this root, we end up at the mercy of the wind, going wherever it carries us, whether we like it or not.”
He added that emotional fragility often appears when people lack these moral foundations.
“If we have strong roots—meaning moral values—then we can discern what we want to do and where we want to go. We become masters of ourselves and are not easily influenced,” Denis Vlad said.
Photo: Facebook / Denis Vlad
