Tuesday, July 2, 2019, on the feast of Saint Stephen the Great, Moldavia, His Grace Bishop Macarie served the Divine Liturgy at the Stockholm Diocesan Center, surrounded by representatives of the Youth Center of the Diocese (CTSM), protected by St. Stephen the Voivode. The youngsters received several medals with in the image of the great ruler, and two children of young CTSM families were baptized by the hierarch.

On this occasion, His Grace Macarie said: “Although physically far from Putna of Saint Stephen, we also lived here the same spiritual joy we live when we are pilgrims to this celebration in the great monastery built by the great Voivode of Moldavia, where his holy relics rest and where all of us who pray in his monastery are blessed by him, when we ask for his prayer. Behold, we have received a chosen inheritance and so all I want to say is that we will survive as a nation as long as we preserve, we will cherish and continue the inheritance of Holy Voivode Stephen the Great of Moldova and the other holy forefathers. Therefore, the highest vocation, the only thing that counts for eternity for a people, is to bring forth saints”, the hierarch added.

During these past days, Father Bishop Macarie, celebrating the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, celebrated the Divine Liturgy and baptized two children in the parish church of Copenhagen, and on the Sunday of the Romanian Saints, June 30, 2019, served the Liturgy in the parish of Roskilde, specifying in his teaching: “We live times increasingly hostile to Christianity and the Christian way of life. Perspectives are getting darker and the world is getting worse off by the ideals of the unnatural propagated in a pathological way. That is why we are in so much need of the Romanian Saints, to accompany us constantly and to help us, through prayer and the power of example, to bring together a good and just testimony.”