Diana and her daughter Maja, born in Lithuania and settled in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, were baptised and received to Orthodoxy at Sts. Constantine and Helen church in Hemeiuș village, Bacău county. The mother took the name of St. Andrew the Apostle, and her daughter was named after the Virgin Mary.

Parish priest Andrei Antal, who officiated the baptism service, explained to the Basilica News Agency how the two Lithuanians arrived at Hemeiuș.

“Diana’s parents, forced by circumstances and wanting a better life, emigrated from Lithuania in the 1990s. They had not yet had time to baptise their little girl when they made this decision. ‹In our family, the children were baptised a little later anyway, when they were minimally aware of what was happening to them›, the adult catechumen said in the preliminary discussions before receiving the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Time passed, but the parents kept postponing the moment of baptism, until they forgot about it.”

Diana, in turn, became a mother to little Maja. But, although she did not want her daughter to grow up unbaptised like her, something kept putting her off from year to year.

Romanians in Great Britain were helpful

Through God’s providence, Diana was to meet in Great Britain Romanians who had also left their motherland to find a better life.

“The Romanian gene inherited from Saint Andrew – the apostle of the Romanian nation, to be friendly, spiritual people, to always talk about our ancestral faith, turned them into missionaries of Orthodoxy across borders,” priest Andrei Antal said.

“The friendship she would make with many Romanians and the discussions about the Church of Christ led her to ask for Orthodox Baptism for herself and her daughter. Among the missionaries were also residents of the Hemeiuș Commune”, the parish priest noted.

The parish priest in Hemeiuș conducted the discussions and catechesis before the Baptism in English.

“Mother and daughter understood that Baptism is the gateway to the Kingdom of God and decided to receive it. Diana received the name of the Holy Apostle Andrew – as a seal of the Romanian nation in the new life in Christ and Maja, the name of the Mother of God, Mary, whom she loved the most from the beginning,” Fr. Andrei explained.

“Perhaps one day they will be useful to you”

“From the time when I was a deacon, the His Eminence Archbishop Ioachim of Roman and Bacău gave me the baptism service in French and a bilingual Greek – English transcript. ‹Perhaps one day they will be useful to you›, were the words of the archbishop that came true several times over the years… and I hope from now on, through God’s care, to keep using them.”
In addition to the two Lithuanians, priest Andrei Antal also officiated the baptism of French, Iranian, Brazilian and Palestinian people.

“Thus, we have completed the work that Christ entrusted us to ‹baptise all nations in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit›”, the priest from Hemeiuș said.