Hundreds of people spent the New Year eve attending the watch night service at the Holy Emperors Cathedral in Bucharest.
Bucharest’s Patriarchal Cathedral was crowded by those who wanted to offer prayers of thanksgiving together with the Patriarch of Romania for the turn of the year.
His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel celebrated the 23.30 p.m. service.
The watch night service held on New Year’s Eve was established by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2011 and it includes the Akathist Hymn to the Lord Jesus Christ since on January 1 we remember the day when the embodied Son of God received the name of Jesus.
The Akathist was followed by several other prayers of blessing and thanksgiving.
Addressing the congregation, Patriarch Daniel said that ‘the best place to conclude the old year and to welcome the new year is Christ’s Church.’
‘The New Year we have entered is a new gift that we receive from God for our salvation, that is, to cultivate communion with Him through prayer and good deeds.’
‘That is why, at the turning of the year, we need to reflect even more on how to use the time of our life as a time blessed by God,’ Patriarch Daniel said January 1, 2020.
The Patriarch ended his speech by offering prayers of blessing for all Romanians for the New Year.
His Beatitude asked God to give all Romanians from home and from the Romanian Diaspora ‘a strong faith, peace and joy, abundance of the fruits of the earth, and much help in every good deed.’
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