Romanian Orthodox Church faces criticism after tragic baptism

In Romania a six week old infant boy recently died shortly after being baptized. Authorities believe the death was directly related to his being baptized by full immersion according to the immemorial rite of the Orthodox Church. The tragedy, not surprisingly, has caused a firestorm of commentary including criticism of the Church's baptismal rite. 

Romania is generally regarded as one of Europe's most religiously observant countries with a little over 80% identifying as members of the Orthodox Church, around 7% as Catholics (mostly Latin Rite but a small number of Eastern Rite), and approximately 5% self identify as some form of Protestant. Somewhere around 2-3% are Muslims or Jews with the rest being either non-believers or having no formally expressed religious beliefs in the latest census. 

Romanian court tells man he is not alive

In a case reminiscent of a Kafka novel, a Romanian court has ruled that a 63-year-old man is dead despite what would appear to be convincing evidence to the contrary: the man himself appearing alive and well in court.

Constantin Reliu asked the court in the town of Barlad to overturn a death certificate obtained by his wife after he had spent more than a decade in Turkey, during which time he was out of contact with his family. The court told him he was too late, and would have to remain officially deceased.

“I am officially dead, although I’m alive,” a bemused Reliu told local media outlets. “I have no income and because I am listed dead, I can’t do anything.”
Reliu left Romania for Turkey in 1992, apparently to seek employment. He last returned to the country in 1999, and appears to have cut off all contact with his family. After years of silence from her estranged husband, Reliu’s wife obtained a backdated death certificate for him.

The Romanian daily Adevarul said Reliu’s wife had argued in court that having heard nothing from her husband since 1999, she had assumed he had died in an earthquake while in Turkey. The paper said Reliu believes she sought the death certificate in order to annul the marriage and allow her to remarry.

Read the rest here.

The bells of all churches in Romania will toll for King Michael

The bells of all cathedrals, churches, and monasteries in Romania will toll at the same time for King Michael, the country’s last sovereign. This will happen on three occasions in the next days, during the events related to the king’s funeral, the Romanian Orthodox Church has announced.

The first time the bells will toll on Wednesday, December 13, at 11:00, when the plane bringing the king’s casket from Switzerland to Romania is supposed to land at the Henri Coanda International Airport in Otopeni.

The second bell toll will take place on Saturday, December 16, at 12:30, marking the beginning of the funeral service to take place at the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest.

The third time all Church bells in Romania will toll for the king will be on Saturday at 18:30, when the burial ceremony will start at the new Curtea de Arges Royal Cathedral.

King Michael I of Romania died on December 5 at his private residence in Switzerland, at the age of 96.
Romania will hold three days of mourning in his honor, starting Thursday, December 14.

The king’s body will be brought to the country on December 13, and taken to the Peles Castle in Sinaia. The king’s coffin will lie in the castle’s Hall of Honour from 14:00 to 16:00. President Klaus Iohannis will go to Peles to pay his last respects to the late king. The public will not have access to the Hall of Honour, according to the program of the funeral announced by the Royal House of Romania.

In the evening of December 13, the king’s coffin will be taken to the Royal Palace in Bucharest, where it will remain until December 16. People can come to the Royal Palace to pay their respects in this period. However, the National Art Museum of Romania (MNAR), which is located in the Royal Palace, will be closed from December 14 to December 16.

On Saturday morning, December 16, the coffin will be taken to the Patriarchal Cathedral of Romania on a gun carriage. The funeral cortege will walk from the Royal Palace Square, along Calea Victoriei, then Unirii Square, to the Patriarchal Cathedral. The public and the press will not have access to the Cathedral during the funeral mass.
Then, the king’s coffin will be taken to Baneasa Royal Train Station, from where the Royal Train will take it to Curtea de Arges. At 5.50 p.m., His Late Majesty’s burial service will take place in Curtea de Argeș Cathedral. The ceremony will be attended only by the Custodian of the Crown, the Royal Family of Romania, and members of foreign royal families. The public will not be allowed past the front gates of the Park of the Curtea de Arges Monastery, the Royal House announced.

Also, the New Cathedral will be closed to visitors during the seven days following the funeral.

Books of condolence are open at Peles Castle, the Royal Palace, and Elisabeta Palace. The full program of King Michael’s funeral is available on the Royal Family’s official website.

Romanian Parliament meets in special joint sitting to commemorate King Michael

European royals come to Romania for King Michael’s funeral

Prince Charles will come to King Michael’s funeral in Romania

Source

Memory Eternal

Queen Anne of Romania has reposed.

A British ex-Pat on why he loves Romania

His 25 reasons for why he loves Romania wore both informative and at times funny.

HT: Dr. Tighe

551 Years Ago Today: A Great Victory Against Islamic Invaders

Vlad III (Dracula)

...Finally, Mehmed trapped his enemy in a mountain pass and set up siege, determined to wait till Vlad and his followers starved or surrendered. Recognizing his peril, the Wallachian prince determined to meet death in a manner befitting the temper of his blood. He laid his plans on that June evening, and waited till nightfall.

The Ottoman camp lay in silence. Suddenly, a trumpet blast brayed out. The rumble of rushing feet and roaring voices swelled over the tents as Vlad III lead a surprise attack in the dead of night, blades gleaming in the torchlight. The prince threshed a path toward Mehmed’s tent, spreading chaos and carnage with the ferocity of his invasion. The panicked Turks reeled beneath the blow, until the Janissaries rallied themselves. Encircling the Sultan, they drove the Wallachians back into the gloom—only after fifteen thousand Turks had been butchered.

This famous skirmish of June 17, 1462, allegedly left Mehmed II petrified. With his forces in tatters and demoralized, he abandoned the chase of Vlad Dracul, allowing the Wallachians to return to Targoviste. Soon afterwards, however, Mehmed repented pulling away and marched on the capital after Vlad. Another surprise awaited him there. The gates of the city stood open. No resistance was offered.

And twenty thousand dead Turks surrounded the city, impaled on stakes.

Read the rest here.

Orthodox church at the gates of purgatory

With each passing day, the crisis that has swept across Europe has thrown into question not only the capacity of states to maintain a minimum of solvency, but also the philosophy that has provided the basis for the social and economic system since the Second World War.

Established ideologies are no longer in tune with current realities and their adjustment to accommodate these realities appears increasingly difficult. It is in this context that the economic crisis has not only heralded the end of public debt and the bankruptcy of the principles that made it possible, but it has also marked the end of certain taboos.

Consider, for example the Greek and Romanian Orthodox Churches, and the provocative attitudes displayed by both of these entities. For several months, the impudence of high-ranking members of the clergy in Athens and Thessaloniki has known no bounds, now that the lost sheep demonstrating in the streets have begun to focus their attention not only on the rejection of austerity packages, but also on the redistribution of wealth and in particular the wealth of the Orthodox Church, which has never been evaluated [the Orthodox Churches in both Greece and Romania do not pay taxes and benefit from a certain number of privileges].

It is regrettable that the pressure on the higher echelons of the Greek clergy has not been instigated by public debate, but is rather the result of an outburst of rage prompted by extreme social and economic circumstances – and this observation also applies to the Romanian Church – because this has been used to justify the cynical and curt response of the ecclesiastical hierarchy which has no qualms about dismissing those voices from civil society which have yielded to the sin of questioning its prerogatives.

Read the rest here.

Happy Birthday

To H.M. King Michael I of Romania who is 90 today.

HT: Wilson Unplugged

Romanian President Launches Fierce Attack On King Michael

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania's president has launched a stinging attack on the country's former ruler, King Michael, accusing him of being responsible for the Holocaust in Romania, and calling him "a Russian lackey."

In an interview on the B1 television channel late Wednesday, Traian Basescu said as Michael was head of state during the pro-fascist

regime of dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu — prime minister from 1940 to 1944, during World War II — he should also be considered responsible for the death of some 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Gypsies.

In 1944, when Romania was allied with Hitler's fascists, Michael staged a coup against Antonescu, and Romania switched sides to the Allies.

Basescu called Michael "a Russian lackey" in the interview, adding that his abdication — forced by Soviet-backed Communists in Dec. 1947 — was "an act of treason."

In Nov. 1947, with the communists gaining a hold over Romania and the region — which led to the monarchs of eastern Europe moving to Western Europe — Michael surprised the government by returning to Bucharest after attending the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in Britain.

A month later the Soviet-backed communist government told him if he did not sign his abdication, 1,000 Romanians would be executed. He abdicated on Dec. 31, 1947 and began a life of exile in Britain and Switzerland. His Romanian citizenship was restored in 1997.

Basescu's comments stunned Romanians, who respect the former monarch, and praise his role in their history. Basescu's stance echoed that of the communist era when Michael was belittled by the regime, and his role was downplayed.

Relations between Basescu and Michael became strained after the former king's son-in-law announced he would run for president against Basescu in 2009 elections.

The president is embattled after his plans to reorganize Romanian territory were refused by opposition parties and an ethnic Hungarian party whose support the government needs to survive.

Michael, who will be 90-years old this year, is one of the few surviving World War II leaders and had good relations with the Jewish community when he was king.

Source.

The Mad Monarchist has posted a response to this rather unjust attack (caution: language)...

The President of Romania, that traitor, that swine, that pinko-commie-bastard of a turncoat Traian Basescu, in a televised interview on Wednesday launched into a slanderous tirade aimed at his own lawful and legitimate monarch, HM King Michael I, a man held dear by many Romanians even if they do not support his restoration to his rightful throne. This political pig and walking insult to the Romanian nation, blamed the King for everything done by the pro-Nazi dictator General Ion Antonescu, including the deaths of all of the Romanian Jews and Gypsies killed in the Holocaust. This in spite of the fact that the pro-Nazi government was only removed from power when the young King Michael of the Romanians planned and successfully executed a coup against them that removed them from power and took Romania out of the Axis and into the Allied camp.

Read the rest here (he is just warming up).

The New York Times: Deep in the Carpathians, Painted Parables

The painted church at the Monastery of Voronet, in the Bucovina region of Romania, dates back to 1488, and the reign of Stephen the Great.

WHEN the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great won his first decisive victory against the Turks five and a quarter centuries ago, he decided to mark the occasion with a grand monastery and adorn its walls with the colorful work of artisans of the day. With his second victory came another monastery. With the third, yet another.

The result of his victories — 46 in all — was an unprecedented building spree within the densely forested terrain of the Bucovina region in modern Romania. The tradition was embraced by his son and successor, Petru Rares, and their vassals. Many of the mural-covered monasteries and churches survive, nestled in a valley, having withstood the withering summer sun and winter winds for centuries. What started out as Stephen the Great’s war trophies have become some of the world’s most stunning works of art.

They exist now as the present-day Monastery of Voronet, about three miles south of the Romanian village of Gura Humorului, and its sister sanctuaries, scattered within a radius of some 25 miles and collectively recognized as Unesco World Heritage sites.

Read the rest here.