On Thursday, February 28, 2019, His Grace Macarie, the Bishop of the Orthodox Romanians in Northern Europe, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Iasi, Romania. Attending the service were local priests and deacons of the cathedral.

During the service, after the Cherubic Hymn and the Great Entrance, the hierarch ordained the deacon Mindru Iulian-Ioan to priest, who will serve the Orthodox Romanians in the Faeroe Island, within the Romanian Orthodox Mission “The Holy Saints Simeon the Stylite and Dionysius Exiguus (the Humble) from Dobrogea”.

In the word addressed to the faithful present at this moment, His Grace Macarie said that although the Romanians are scattered throughout the world, the Church is for them an ark of salvation and faith.

“I did not think, 10 years ago, when I started the hierarchical mission in Northern Europe, that I would be able to set up a parish on the Faroe Island, but the number of Romanians grew unexpectedly there. They want to have a priest who will serve the Divine Liturgy, to confess and lead them to the Kingdom of Heaven, for we are all pilgrims in this world, bearing the longing for the country, but above all, the longing for Heaven,” added the hierarch.

The Faroe Islands belong to the Kingdom of Denmark and are a group of islands situated in the northern part of the Atlantic, between Scotland, Norway and Iceland. In this area live about 200 Romanians. The Romanian Patriarchy paid special attention to the Orthodox Romanians who had settled in the Nordic countries of Europe since the 1970s when, despite the difficult conditions of the time, they sent priests to provide them with religious and spiritual assistance and to organize the church life of our Romanian communities.

There are currently 27 parishes in Sweden, 16 in Denmark and 12 in Norway, as well as several Orthodox missions, one in Greenland and one in the Svalbard Archipelago, under the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Northern Europe.

Source: doxologia.ro