Bishop Justin of Maramureş and Sătmar highlighted the positive aspects of the migration phenomenon. “Romanians,” he noted, “are the apostles of Christianity and the faith in a secularised Europe, which has abandoned Christian values and God.”

The hierarch gladly emphasizes that “Romanians manifest and profess their faith wherever they are in the world.”

“Romanians cannot live without God and the Church

In his message, the Bishop of Maramureş and Sătmar reflected on the local society and drew attention to the fact that the Romanians took the path to Europe because they did not have a perspective in the country.

“It was a necessity. But it is a great injustice that this drama happened. More than five million Romanians went to Europe and all over the world.”

And this situation has negative consequences for Romania. “Villages have lost their youth and beauty of yesteryear, holidays no longer have the solemnity of yesteryear, school has run out of children, the church is empty, and the voivodal greatness of this land is no longer as it once was.”

The bishop recounted the sad situation in which most older people find themselves.

“Elderly people left alone spend their days waiting for the month of summer vacation, to soothe their longing and be able to hug their children and grandchildren for a few weeks, and then to accompany them with tears in their eyes when they depart again, remaining with their loneliness, tears and unceasing prayers to God and the Mother of God to protect their babies.”

“The world and Europe are on a foreign path

His Grace said that he “wrote the word with sorrow in his soul and with concern for our nation and our Church.”

“If the departure from the country continues, Romania will never be great again, and from the Land of God and the Garden of the Mother of God Romania will become old, tearful and sifted, mourning its departed sons and living their helplessness and humility in solitude and, God forbid, its end, because of its desertion and abandonment.”

The Bishop of Maramureş and Sătmar recalled that “the world and Europe are on a path foreign to our Christian faith” and urged believers to think carefully about the world in which their children want to live.

“Your children, if they remain in this world that offers them material goods (…), will lose their most precious wealth: faith in God and love of nation and country.”

His Grace assured those who have gone abroad that the people who remain in the country, clergy and believers, are constantly remembering them in prayers, that God may help and protect them.
“Home is only the parental home, in the nest of love and longing, in your village and country, for here everything and all, the sky, the earth, the mountain, the forest, and the clear spring in its flow welcome you, love you, give you rest, exalt you and ennoble you.”

Sunday of Romanian Migrants

The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church decided at its meeting of February 25-26, 2009, to establish the Sunday of Romanian Migrants for “strengthening the Romanian communities around the country’s borders and in the Romanian diaspora, a new reality that has reached an unprecedented magnitude in the history of the Romanian people.”

Starting with 2009, the Romanian Patriarchate marks the Sunday of Romanian Migrants on the first Sunday after the Dormition of the Theotokos.

It was initially established in the Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina in 2006, at the initiative of Patriarch Daniel, then Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina.

Photography courtesy of the Basilica.ro Files