Romanian Orthodox Church spends 45M lei on charity work, in 2009
9/2/2010
Over 600,000 people benefited from the Romanian Orthodox Church (BOR) social projects, in 2009, when 45,000,000 lei (round 10.5 million euros) was spent for charity and social security purposes, read the survey presented at the Romanian Patriarchy, on Monday.
Thus, the BOR dioceses were developing social progremmes, which over 629,459 people, 152,270 of them children, 26,321 physically impaired people, 333,882 elderly people and 116,979 poor families, benefited from. Almost 45,000,000 lei were spent on these charity activities, the Patriarchal release says.
Likewise, with the view to developing this charity work, the Patriarchy Administration’s social security department and the Filantropia (Charity) Federation were preparing four projects financed by EU funds, which secured the self-financing of such programmes, for the coming three years.
As many as 3,167 people, namely 29 social security advisers, 33 diocesan inspectors, 141 theologians, 273 social security specialists and 56 social workers, 2,192 volunteers and members of the charity committees, and 443 people belonging to other personnel categories were involved in the BOR social and charity work.
Forty-nine new social security institutions were set up in the year 2009, their number totaling thus 394, out of which, 88 are shelters for children, 89 for elderly people, 65 centers assisting families and people in distress, 92 soup kitchens and social bakeries, 25 social healthcare units and hospitals, 6 centers for the homeless, 4 centers for the domestic violence victims, 2 centers for the victims of the human trafficking and 9 kindergartens and educational centers.
As many as 512 priests offer religious assistance, as follows: 132 of them in the military units, and the jails, 380 in the hospitals and the social protection units. In all these units there are 482 churches and chapels, and more 55 are under construction, at different stages. The BOR missionary charity work was also supported by the associations and the foundations working through the blessing of the Holy Synod or the diocesan centers, which include 77 charity organizations, and 34 youth organizations, the Romanian Patriarchy’s release for 2009, concluded.
