On 15 March 2010, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church received in an audience the delegation of the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD) headed by Bishop Martin Schindehütte, who participated in the 12th session of the theological dialogue with the Romanian Orthodox Church with the theme “The Apostolic Character of the Church and its Witness in Europe Today”(Brâncoveanu Monastery – Sâmbăta de Sus), 11-14 March 2010. Rev. Prof. Viorel Ioniţă, member of the Commission for Dialogue of the Romanian Orthodox Church and temporary general secretary of Conference of the European Church was also present – informs the Press Office of the Romanian Orthodox Church of the Romanian Patriarchate.

To start with the encounter, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel thanked the guests for the permanent support that the Evangelical Church of Germany grants to the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese for Germany, Austria and Luxemburg, seated in Nürenberg, and emphasised the traditional relations of friendship and collaboration between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Evangelical Church of Germany. In this context, the Patriarch of Romanian underlined the fact that “the two Churches have solid arguments for strengthening these traditional relations in a European society marked by secularism, as well as by cultural pluralism, in which the Christian world is no longer a simple fashion of the day, but a moral missionary duty”.

Bishop Martin Schindehütte mentioned, in his turn, the fact that it was for the first time that he participated in the session of the theological dialogue between the two Churches where the issues of the Romanians from Germany were discussed, among other things, as well as of those almost two million of Germans who live in other countries, and appreciated the ecumenical openness of the Romanian Orthodox Church, saying that, in his opinion, “the practical orientation and common witness in Europe” that the Patriarch of Romania conveyed to the participants in the theological dialogue between the two Churches, organised at Sâmbăta de Sus Monastery, in Transylvania, was a very remarkable one.

On this occasion, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel asked the German delegation to help the Romanian Orthodox community of Munich to build a church and a cultural pastoral centre.