{"id":557259,"date":"2026-01-28T11:57:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T09:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=557259"},"modified":"2026-01-28T11:57:54","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T09:57:54","slug":"first-romanian-orthodox-parish-in-netherlands-marks-45-years-with-anniversary-liturgy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/first-romanian-orthodox-parish-in-netherlands-marks-45-years-with-anniversary-liturgy\/","title":{"rendered":"First Romanian Orthodox parish in Netherlands marks 45 years with anniversary liturgy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St Gregory the Theologian Parish in Schiedam\/Rotterdam\u2014the first Romanian Orthodox parish in the Netherlands\u2014celebrated its patron saint and marked 45 years since its founding on Sunday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On this occasion, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Metropolitan Iosif of Western and Southern Europe, together with the parish priest, Ioan Dur\u0103, and Fr. Laurent Van Damme from the Saints Silouan and Martin Parish in Bruxelles.<\/p>\n

The celebration was also attended by Nicolae Com\u0103nescu, Romania\u2019s ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands<\/a>. During the Divine Liturgy, Deacon Constantin Gr\u0103dinaru was ordained to the priesthood for the St Gregory the Theologian Parish.<\/p>\n

Metropolitan Iosif expressed his joy at being with the community as it marked both 45 years since its establishment and 45 years since the ordination of its parish priest. He congratulated Fr. Ioan Dur\u0103 for his extensive pastoral activity and awarded the Holy Princess Maria Br\u00e2ncoveanu Association the \u201cMetropolitan Cross for Laypeople,\u201d in recognition of its ten years of service.<\/p>\n

Fr. Ioan Dur\u0103 thanked the Metropolitan and briefly presented the parish\u2019s most important achievements. The celebration concluded with the singing of Hora Unirii (Hora of the Union), commemorating 167 years since the Union of the Romanian Principalities.<\/p>\n

The St Gregory the Theologian Parish in Schiedam\/Rotterdam was founded by Fr. Ioan Dur\u0103 on January 25, 1981.<\/p>\n

Photo: St Gregory the Theologian parish in Schiedam\/Rotterdam
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The St Gregory the Theologian Parish in Schiedam\/Rotterdam\u2014the first Romanian Orthodox parish in the Netherlands\u2014celebrated its patron saint and marked 45 years since its founding on Sunday. On this occasion, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Metropolitan Iosif of Western and Southern Europe, together with the parish priest, Ioan Dur\u0103, and Fr. Laurent Van Damme…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":557227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2286,36289,4794,31684,36696],"class_list":["post-557259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora-en","tag-metropolitan-iosif","tag-parish-anniversary","tag-romanian-diaspora","tag-romanians-in-the-netherlands","tag-schiedam-parish-anniversary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}