“The Divine Word has sprouted on Romanian soil, and the ancestral Church has been adorned with saints. The Martyrs and Confessors who sacrificed their lives for Christ were shown to be worthy warriors, the Venerable Ones and Hermits, following the way of the Lord in ascetic struggles, attained angelic countenances, Hierarchs and Priests, ceaselessly proclaiming the Word of the Gospel, gave witness, and the Right-Believing Voievodes raised up churches and, together with the Orthodox Faithful, zealously defended the Orthodox Faith and their country. All you hosts of saints, pray together that the merciful God will save our souls!” (Troparion of the Romanian Saints)

 After the Sunday of All Saints, on the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost we honor the saints of the Romanian people. This honor refers to the saints who proclaimed the faith in the Lord’s Resurrection in the territory of Euxine Pontus, beginning with the Apostle Andrew and his disciples. Then to the holy confessors of the Christian faith, even at the cost of their lives, like the 4 martyrs of Niculitel, Epictet and Astion, Emilian of Durostorum, and the priest Romul. Then we honor the holy hierarchs who were the organizers of Church life on Daco-Roman soil, such as Bretanion and Teotim of Tomis or Iachint, the Metropolitan of the Romanian Lands.

Among the Romanian saints commemorated on this Sunday we also number the venerable fathers and mothers who, following the way of the Lord in ascetic struggles, attained angelic countenances, such as John Cassian and Gherman of Dobrogea, then Dimitrie the New of Basarabi, Parascheva of Iasi, Nicodim the Sanctified, Teodora of Sihla, Daniil the Hermit, and later Paisius Velichkovsky, Vasile of Poiana Marului, Gheorghe of Cernica, Antipas of Calapodesti, Irodion of Lainici and John Jacob the Hozevite, together with many others known and unknown.

Then we honor the holy confessors of the right Christian Faith, beginning with those of Transylvania: Ilie Iorest and Sava Brancovici, Ioan of Gales, Moise Macinic, Oprea Nicolae, Sofronie of Cioara and Visarion Sarai. Also in the ranks of the confessors we commemorate the Holy Martyr Constantin Brancoveanu and his four sons, with all the new Christian confessors from the concentration camps and prisons of the Communist regime.

To this long list of Romanian saints we add the holy hierarchs who lived and defended the Orthodox Faith: Antim the Iberian, Grigorie Dascalul, Calinic of Cernica, Dosoftei and Varlaam of Moldova, Iosif the Merciful and Dionisie of Cetatea Alba. And let us not forget the Right-Believing Voievodes who raised up churches: the Holy Voievodes Stephen the Great and Neagoe Basarab.

In the same way we honor the American saints, the missionaries of the Orthodox Faith on American soil such as Saints Herman of Alaska and Peter the Aleut, the holy hierarchs who organized Church life such as Tikhon, Apostle of America, Juvenaly and Innocent of Alaska, Raphael of Brooklyn, Nikolai Velimirovich, John Maximovich, Mardarije of Chicago and Sebastian of San Francisco.

The commemoration together of the Romanian and American saints confirms the statement of Fr. Dumitru Staniloae: “all saints are local through the fact that they work in a particular place, but they are universal on account of the universal faith which they serve in that place... All are filled with the same Christ who shines through their being and all are bearers of the same Holy Spirit through whom they belong to the universal Church.”[1] Fr. Staniloae continues, urging us to follow their example and to understand that through their love of Christ and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the saints rise to a love that encompasses all people. And through this they become “bridges of brotherhood between people and nations. Through the saints, more than through all the faithful, the catholicity of the Church is deepened, even if that does not mean the obliteration of differences between nations.”

At this honoring together of Romanian and American saints, we learn that the saints represent the glory and honor of every nation before God, as they will be revealed at the end of the ages (cf. Revelation 21:24-26). And we also learn that this honor is manifested in the communion of the saints who together pray and together intercede for each of us. The saints call us to prayer and communion, offering a response to the many questions of our world, divided by social distancing, cultivated fear, and anxiety of the future.

Let us pray to all the Romanian and American saints that they may intercede for us at the Throne of the Heavenly King, and ask Him for mercy and peace!

† Metropolitan Nicolae

[1] In the volume Nestor Vornicescu, Arhiepiscop al Craiovei și Mitropolit al Olteniei, Sfinți români și apărători ai legii strămoșești (Romanian Saints and defenders of the Romanian faith), Bucharest, 1987.