Râmnic Archbishop Varsanufie commemorates Roma who died in concentration camps, deportations and captivity

His Eminence Archbishop Varsanufie of Râmnic Thursday, February 20, 2020, officiated a prayer service for remembrance of the Roma who died in concentration camps, deportations and captivity.

The memorial service was officiated at the Ascension of the Lord Church in Râmnicu-Vâlcea to mark 164 years since the liberation of Roma in Romanian Principalities.

The list of names included Romanian ruler princes and clergy who supported spiritually and culturally the Roma community throughout time.

The choir of the St Nicholas Orthodox Seminary offered the liturgical answers in Romani language.

Archbishop Varsanufie of Ramnic offering prayers for Roma people who died in concentration camps and in captivity. © Râmnic Archdiocese

Following the service, Archbishop Varsanufie spoke about the relentless involvement of the Church in the pastoral ministry to Roma people as a missionary need.

The Archbishop stressed the role of the Romanian Orthodox Church in abolishing Roma slavery in the Romanian Principalities. He also pointed to the efforts made by Orthodox clergy to enhance the social integration and the spiritual support of Roma in Romania.

His Eminence noted that the existence of the Roma community on the territory of Romania features for the first time in an act issued in 1385 by Prince Dan I of Wallachia for Tismana Monastery.

‘Roma servitude, like slavery in the early Christian centuries, were structural realities of society. The Church was formed within social frameworks it did not control, did not explicitly argue against them, but also did not approve.’

‘According to its multi-millennial tradition, the Romanian Orthodox Church has always advocated for the freedom of every human being bearing the image of God.’

The Archbishop of Ramnic recalled that the local patron saint Anthimos the Iberian demanded that the priests of Wallachia visit the Roma, officiate services, ‘because they are Christians baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity like all other believers.’

‘In 1746, another metropolitan of Wallachia, Neophyte the Cretan, resolved and imposed the liberation of the Roma from the properties of monasteries and metropolises,’ causing a conflict with the boyars in the Romanian Principalities.

‘It is known that the Church was actively preoccupied with the liberation of Roma through the efforts of Metropolitan Nephon II of Wallachia, who was involved in the unification process of the Principalities, but also through the Roma ethnic Archimandrite Joasaph, the abbot of Snagov Monastery.’

Archbishop Varsanufie said that Archimandrite Joasaph of Snagov, who was a disciple of Saint Gregory the Teacher, was a member of the Committee for the liberation of the Roma and a remarkable man of culture.

His Eminence also referred to Archimandrite Calinic Constantin Şerboianu from Cernica Monastery of Romani origin as the founder and head of the Romanian Roma Community Association.

Archimandrite Calinic was portrayed as a great missionary of the Romanian Orthodox Church who ‘worked hard to establish craft cooperatives, to match the craftsmanship of the Roma people, who are very talented, as can be seen, today, from music to the most demanding crafts.’

Archbishop Varsanufie ended his speech by listing the programs dedicated to the pastoral ministry to Roma people in the Ramnic Archdiocese. He noted that the Archdiocese of Ramnic was the first to establish a Department for catechesis of the Roma in the Romanian Patriarchate.

Photography courtesy of the Râmnic Archdiocese

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