Sunday, 18 December 2011, the second chapel of the Patriarchal Residence celebrated one of its protectors, Saint Pious Daniil the Hermit. Saint Great Prophet Elijah the Tishbite and Saint Gregory the Enlightener are its other two protectors.

In the sermon delivered on the occasion His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church emphasised the teaching of today’s evangelical pericope on the Sunday before the Nativity of the Lord (Matthew 1:1-25): “This book of the nations is known as the earthly genealogy of Jesus Christ. This Gospel presents the generations that preceded the Nativity of Jesus Christ, our Lord, divided in three stages, each of them in 14, so that we have 42 generations preceding the coming of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, in the world as Son and Word of the eternal God who is made Man out of love for humans and for their salvation. (...) This preparatory Sunday for the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, urges us to prepare ourselves spiritually in the time remained till the feast of Christmas, to badly wish that Christ, our Lord, to be spiritually born in the cave and manger of our soul, in our families, in our life, in general, and be present in our houses with His humble never ending love, with His kindness beyond understanding, because the Lord of the Glory is born in the world and laid, as infant, in a straw manger, in a stable. The One who is born from Virgin Mary deifies the human nature inside. The One who is laid in the manger in the cave consecrates the earth and the entire universe through His living first in the cave”, informs Trinitas Radio station.