Today, 3 November 2013, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church consecrated the new Marcuta parish church of Bucharest. Over one thousand faithful attended the event watching the religious service on a huge screen in the yard of the place of worship.
After the consecration service, the Primate of the Romanian Orthodox Church spoke about the importance of consecrating a church which he called laboratory of holiness.
No institution of this world can substitute the Church, because only the Church can give the foretaste of the eternal life, forgiveness of the sins and prepares for the Resurrection and eternal life. We are already living the foretaste of the eternal life, and the joy of the angels and of the saints in the Church. People come to the church with lots of troubles, sorrows, problems, anxieties, and grieves, and meet the Crucified and Risen Christ who takes over Him our cross and takes us to the Resurrection. He heals the sin of forgetting about God, and our decay too, and renews our relationship with the Most Holy Trinity and with the saints of God, so that we receive joy instead of sorrow, and peace instead of anxiety.
“This was the gift of the people to Christ, to the Most Holy Trinity. But now, after consecration, it is the gift of God for the faithful. We bring holy bread and wine to the church as gift of the faithful, but after blessing, they become again the Body and Blood of the Lord, namely the gift of God to us. We bring to God material gifts of brick, wood, stained glass, beautiful silver vessels, beautiful vestments, so that all these gifts of the world are consecrated and blessed and become a symbol of the devotion of the faithful for God, and of the blessing of God for faithful as well. Thus, the church is ours because we have offered her to the Most Holy Trinity as a present, but she is the house of the Most Holy Trinity because through the holy services and works done in her, the church becomes the house of God and gate of heaven, namely the house of the Most Holy Trinity. We offer material gifts to God, and He offers us spiritual, permanent, eternal gifts which are for forgiving the sins and for foretasting the eternal life”, His Beatitude explained.
Then, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel celebrated the Divine Liturgy. The Patriarch of Romania delivered a sermon in which he explained the meaning of the Gospel of the 22nd Sunday after the Pentecost. The text presented us the story of the merciless rich man and of poor Lasarus.
“The hell chooses from this world the bad indifferent man, who has no love, while heaven begins ever since this world in the soul of the good, merciful man. Thus, these two states are completely opposite, and the gap between them depends not only on the will of God, but also on our freedom. Here we see how big the gift of freedom is. God lets us live as we want to, but the result is not the same because the religious freedom is united with the responsibility, while the life on the earth is unique with unique value. The happiness or unhappiness beyond the grave depends on how we live the temporary life in this world. Thus, happiness is prepared through the relationship of man with God and his fellow beings”, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church said.
To end with, the parish priest was awarded the Cross of “Saints Emperors Constantine and Helen” on behalf of the Patriarch of Romania, while the concelebrant priest was raised to the rank of iconom stavrofor, and the other benefactors were awarded diplomas of worthiness.
The Patriarch of Romania has also consecrated the new social centre of Marcuta parish, protected by Saints Emperors Constantine and Helen.
Local authorities and many faithful attended the event.
The construction of the church began in 1999 and it is dedicated to the “Ascension of the Lord” and to “Saint Great Martyr Pantelimon”. The old Marcuta church is a religious monument representative for the architecture of the 16th century in Wallachia. The original church has been preserved till nowadays, while the belfry and the surrounding wall date as far back as the 18th century.
