{"id":564809,"date":"2026-04-01T12:43:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=564809"},"modified":"2026-04-01T12:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:54:23","slug":"romanian-orthodox-parish-auvers-sur-oise-10-years-bishop-veniamin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/romanian-orthodox-parish-auvers-sur-oise-10-years-bishop-veniamin\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Bessarabia Bishop marks 10th anniversary of parish near Paris, highlights true greatness as service"},"content":{"rendered":"

His Grace Bishop Veniamin of Southern Bessarabia celebrated the Divine Liturgy on Sunday at the \u201cSaint Anthimus the Iberian\u201d Parish in Auvers-sur-Oise, in the Paris metropolitan area, marking the 10th anniversary of the community\u2019s establishment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The bishop explained the Gospel of the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent, concerning the request of the sons of Zebedee.<\/p>\n

He underlined that true greatness does not consist in rank or social position, but in a person\u2019s ability to love and serve others.<\/p>\n

His Grace also congratulated the parish priest, Fr Lilian M\u0103nt\u0103lu\u021b\u0103, praising his pastoral, missionary and administrative work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe parish has developed in recent years through the love of Fr Lilian, who strove to identify a building, which he acquired, then restored and properly arranged for our liturgical services, in accordance with Orthodox tradition\u2014both through the decoration and painting of the walls and by installing an iconostasis that brings to mind our Orthodox spiritual space,\u201d Bishop Veniamin told Trinitas TV.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For his part, the parish priest thanked the hierarch for his presence in the community, noting that the visit was a great blessing and a source of spiritual strengthening.<\/p>\n

Auvers-sur-Oise Parish<\/h2>\n

The Romanian parish of \u201cSaint Anthimus the Iberian\u201d in Auvers-sur-Oise was established in 2016, with the blessing of Metropolitan Iosif of Western and Southern Europe. The young community comprises Romanians from both banks of the Prut River.<\/p>\n

The parish church, located about 35 kilometres from Paris, was purchased on 4 January 2017.<\/p>\n

Built in 1910, the chapel had not been used for worship for several decades, serving until 2010 as a religious bookshop.<\/p>\n

After being saved from demolition, the chapel was acquired at the end of 2016 by the only Romanian Orthodox parish in the Val-d\u2019Oise department.<\/p>\n

Photo: Facebook \/ Diocese of Southern Bessarabia
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His Grace Bishop Veniamin of Southern Bessarabia celebrated the Divine Liturgy on Sunday at the \u201cSaint Anthimus the Iberian\u201d Parish in Auvers-sur-Oise, in the Paris metropolitan area, marking the 10th anniversary of the community\u2019s establishment. The bishop explained the Gospel of the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent, concerning the request of the sons of Zebedee.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":564656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5177,15611,17973,36289,4794,37168],"class_list":["post-564809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora-en","tag-auvers-sur-oise","tag-bishop-veniamin","tag-bishop-veniamin-of-southern-bessarabia","tag-parish-anniversary","tag-romanian-diaspora","tag-saint-anthimus-the-iberian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564809","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=564809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}