Visit of Pope Francis to Bucharest. Speech of Romanian Patriarch Daniel

Your Holiness,

We welcome you with the paschal greeting Christ is Risen! in this hall of the Palace of the Patriarchate where, on 8 May 1999, Pope John Paul II was received by Patriarch Teoctist and several members of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church. This hall is symbolically named in the Latin language Conventus, meaning Encounter.

Pope John Paul II, during his episcopacy in Poland, and Patriarch Teoctist, as bishop in Romania, had a common spiritual experience, namely, they experienced the difficult years of the Communist regime, when the Church was marginalized and persecuted.

Therefore, their meeting in Bucharest, on 7-9 May 1999, was marked by the joy of the religious freedom of Christians and amplified by the feast of the Holy Pascha. Both Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Teoctist were defenders of the Christian faith and felt in their activity the help of the Crucified and Risen Jesus Christ.

In this sense, today, our predecessors call also upon us to defend and promote the faith in Christ and the Christian values in a very secular Europe, in order to convey to the younger generation the faith in the merciful love of Christ for the world and the faith in the eternal life of the human person. At the same time, they call us to bear witness, defend and promote the traditional Chris-tian family made up of a man, a woman and children, in a Europe marked by a clear demographic decline, a continent rapidly aging.

The preaching of the Gospel of Christ calls us today to unite the Liturgy with philanthropy, prayer with social action in helping the poor, sick and marginalized people.

At the same time, the Gospel of Christ calls us to promote justice, reconciliation and solidarity in society so that the love of Christ for the whole humankind may be perceived as being blessing, peace and joy, for persons and peoples.

We wish you good health and many years of life: Ad multos annos!

Source:Basilica.ro