Romanian Orthodox Church to declare 2017 as the Solemn Year of iconographers, Commemorative Year of Patriarch Justinian & of the defenders of Orthodoxy during communism

From 28 to 29 October 2015, in the Synodal Hall of the Patriarchal Residence in Bucharest, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church has met under the presidency of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, and decided the following:

To enlist St Venerable George the Confessor of Drama in the calendar of the Romanian Orthodox Church, with feast day on November 4^th;

To declare year 2017, on the proposal of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, as Solemn Year of iconographers and church painters and Commemorative Year of Patriarch Justinian and of the defenders of Orthodoxy during communism in the Romanian Patriarchate;

That the parishes have to revise the diptychs containing the names of the Orthodox Christian heroes (of the Independence War, of the Two World Wars – both on the Western and also on the Eastern front – of communist imprisonment, and of the Revolution of 1989) who are remembered by the Church on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord – the National Day of Heroes.

To extend at a national level, starting with the year 2016, the Program Health for the villages, successfully carried out during the months of September and October 2015, as a pilot project in the Archbishopric of Bucharest.

The activity and the efforts of our hierarchs and clergymen in the Romanian Diaspora in order to keep the Orthodox faith, and the Romanian ethnical identity, have also been appreciated.

Press Office of the Romanian Patriarchate

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