Saturday, 28 March 2015, the national meeting of the “Parents for Religion Class” Association (A.P.O.R in Romanian) was held in Bucharest. The representatives of the 40 branches of the A.P.O.R. from all over the country present at the event were blessed by His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania, during the second part of the meeting.
The former part of the event was held in the festivity hall of “Gheorghe Lazar” National College of Bucharest, and the latter one, when the Primate of the Romanian Orthodox Church was also present, was held at the “Dumitru Staniloae” National Centre for permanent formation of the Romanian Patriarchate.
The Faith in God is the greatest spiritual dowry that the Family, Church, School and Community can bequeath to children
The second part of the meeting began with a thanksgiving speech of the President of the APOR, Liana Stanciu, addressed to His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania. The proceedings of the first part of the meeting and the activity projects were also presented. Then, the Primate of the Romanian Orthodox Church addressed those present the speech entitled “Beneficial cooperation between Family, School and Church in the educational field” (the complete speech can be read here).
“The faith in God is the greatest spiritual dowry that the Family, Church, School and Community can bequeath to children, because it helps the young ones make the difference between the eternal and temporary values, and forms their personality, teaching them to cultivate kindness and humanity, love for God and for their fellow beings, gratitude to the past generations and responsibility for the present and future”, the Patriarch of Romanian underlined in the speech delivered on the occasion.
Complementarity between spirituality and science is emphasised through the religious education, just like between faith and culture. It also has a formative character, not only an informative one, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel also said: “Religious education provides a comprehending or integrating spiritual ken, a binding that relates and integrates the knowledge of the other disciplines in order to form together a bright edifying landmark for life, lived in communion of love and co-responsibility for the common welfare”.
During the same meeting, Liana Stanciu, President of “Parents for Religion Class” Association explained that the next purpose of the association is to improve the manuals and teaching methodology, so that Religion should be the best loved discipline for the pupils.
Liana Stanciu has also spoken about some other purposes of the “Parents for Religion Class” Association.
“I am also thinking of saving some important feasts, of the fact that nothing was manifested in the Romanian school at the great feast of the Annunciation, that lots of children know that the rabbit comes at Easter time without thinking that, in fact, it is the most important feast of Christianity, of the fact that very few people emphasise the true value of the Christmas feast, as everybody thinks only that the old man dressed in red is coming. All these things must be recuperated and well settled in the mind and soul of children, so that we should have healthy children able to make wise choices, to discern the time when they are faced with such states of things”, Liana Stanciu, President of “Parents for Religion Class” also said.
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A.P.O.R. is a non-governmental organisation of the parents interested in the complex, complete and good education of their children, which fact involves a religious element besides the moral, aesthetic, technological aspect. The members of this association think that education without religion means school without soul, nation without God and identity, and sustain the improvement of the level of the Religion class, as well as the role of this important educational discipline.
