His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel arrived yesterday evening, about 7.00 o’clock p.m. at Putna Monastery. Here, he was met by the community of the monastery, and then the Polihronion service was celebrated in the big church.

We learn more details from Ciprian Olinici, programme director at Trinitas Radio station, present at the events: “About 7.00 o’clock p.m., His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel arrived at Suceava accompanied by His Grace Varsanufie Prahoveanul, Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest, where he was met by a group of hierarchs and priests headed by the Metropolitan of Moldova and Bucovina, His Eminence Teofan, as well as by many local officials. Then, he went to Putna where he was met, at the village border, by riders who took him to the Holy Monastery. At the gate Monastery he was met by the local officials, by a group of children and by the community of Putna Monastery. The whole delegation went to the big church where His Grace Ioachim Bacauanul, Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Roman and Bacau celebrated the Polihronion service. His Beatitude thanked for the warm reception and the community of the monastery for having finished the monastery painting. The local hierarch, His Eminence Archbishop Pimen delivered a welcome speech. Tomorrow is a cultural day, as His Beatitude will visit one of the most impressing and best structured monastic museums, namely the museum of Putna Monastery”.

The Patriarch of Romania began his speech with praises to God for “this holy work and for the joy that Christ, our Lord, gives us, the just like the Mother of God and all Saints, when we glorify God not only in words, but also showing our love through deeds for Christ and His Church.”

His Beatitude also showed that the church painting is an expression of the working faith through love and a call to a permanent beauty, to a heavenly beauty: “The love for God and for the human beings is shown through nice words, beautiful gestures and beautiful gifts. Painting is a beautiful gift God offers as expression of faith. When we love a person we offer her whatever we have new, more beautiful, more uplifting, so that starting from the visible gifts of this world we should get to the permanent beauties of the Kingdom of the Holy Trinity. So, painting is first of all an expression of the faith working through love and secondly is a call to a permanent beauty, to the heavenly beauty.”

“This year, the homage year of the Orthodox Creed is also manifested through the faith expressed in the Liturgy and iconography. The seven ecumenical synods have not been painted in such a lengthy detailed way for quite a long time in the Romanian Patriarchate. God made that his year when we speak of the Necene Constantinople symbol, to remember the Ecumenical Synod of Nicene and Constantinople too. So, here we have the most recent and brilliant form of the representation of all the seven ecumenical synods”, also said His Beatitude.

Sunday, 15 August, His Beatitude will consecrate the new painting of the church founded by Saint Prince Steven the Great. The walls have been bedecked during the last 9 years with the fresco executed by the painters of Bucovina: Mihail and Gavril Morosan.

The same day, in the afternoon, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel will consecrate and inaugurate the medical consulting room of “Saint Great Martyr Pantelimon” and the xenodochium of “Saint Daniil the Hermit” of Putna Monastery.