The Romanian Orthodox Church in Moncalieri—the first church built by Romanians on Italian soil—celebrated its patronal feast with a series of liturgical events held on Sunday and Monday.
Archimandrite Maxim Drăguț from the Episcopal Chapel “Exaltation of the Holy Cross” in Turin celebrated the Divine Liturgy on Sunday together with Fr Marius Floricu, dean of the Piemonte 1 deanery and parish priest of the community, along with other Romanian priests from the region.
Among those attending the service was Cosmin Dumitrescu, Romania’s consul general in Turin, who congratulated the community.
On Monday, the feast day of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste—the heavenly patrons of the Moncalieri community—Fr Marius Floricu celebrated the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts together with eight other priests.
The homily was delivered by Fr Mihai Ganea, a cleric of the Moncalieri parish, who compared the Forty Martyrs to a grain of wheat offered in sacrifice to the Lord, ground and transformed into the bread from which the Holy Lamb is taken during the Proskomedia.
Throughout the feast, participants were able to venerate fragments of the relics of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste preserved in the church. The community also holds relics of dozens of saints, including Basil the Great, Arsenius the Great and John the New of Suceava.
Church included in local tourist circuit
The church in Moncalieri, inaugurated in 2014, was built entirely of fir and oak wood by Dorel Petrovan, one of the best-known craftsmen from Sighetu Marmației in Maramureș County. The structure was constructed in Romania and later transported and reassembled in Italy.
The recently completed interior painting follows a traditional Transylvanian style, while the icons of the iconostasis are painted on glass.
The Orthodox worship centre project in Moncalieri—which also includes a 25-metre bell tower—was supervised by architect Andrea Cavaliere, an award recipient at the Torino Architecture Festival 2013. The church has also been included in two tourist routes of the city.
Moncalieri lies about eight kilometres south of Turin. The Orthodox church there is featured in a volume dedicated to the town, Lasciamoci stregare dalla luna. Moncalieri dal Medioevo ai giorni nostri, written by Domenico Giacotto and Gian Giorgio Massara and published in 2021 by Editris.
Photo: Diocese of Italy
