The conference entitled Let us live in a period of crisis – the family of God, family of man, family of the peoples, was held today, 24 May 2011, at the Patriarchal Palace, in the Patriarch Teoctist Aula Magna, in the presence of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, organised by the Romanian Patriarchate and Sant’Egidio Community. The conference was moderated by His Grace Ciprian Campineanul, Assistant Bishop to the Patriarch.

His Eminence Cardinal Paul Poupard, Rev. Prof. Dr. Vasile Raduca, from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of “Patriarch Justinian” of Bucharest (lecture presented by Rev. Lecturer Jean Nedelea from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of “Patriarch Justinian” of Bucharest), Prof. Dr. Andrei Riccardi, founder of Sant’Egidio Community, Rev. Univ. Prof. Dr. Nicolae Achimescu, Faculty of Orthodox Theology of “Dumitru Staniloae” of Iasi, His Excellency Leon Lemmens, Auxiliary Bishop of Mechelen-Brussels, Rev. George Militaru, counsellor of the Social-Philanthropic Department of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy, Lecturer Dr. Adrian Lemeni, State Secretary for Religious Affairs, Faculty of Orthodox Theology of “Patriarch Justinian” of Bucharest, Mons. Marco Gnavi, director of the Office for ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue of the Diocese of Rome, Univ. Prof. Dr. Ilie Badescu, Faculty of Sociology of the University of Bucharest delivered lectures.

Also launched was the book by the French theologian Olivier Clement (1921 – 2009) entitled Spiritual Landmarks for Today’s Man recently published at Basilica Publishing House of the Romanian Patriarchate with a Foreword by His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel.

To end with the conference, the Primate of the Romanian Orthodox Church underlined, among other things, the fact that today’s family is in crisis because the modern man lost his familiarity with God who is love.

“The Church is the family of God in the world. It reminds the fact that all people need to be loved and listened to when they are in distress. The Church must be a place of mutual inter-aid so that the peoples should become a whole family. Today’s family is in crisis because the modern man lost his familiarity with God, who is love. The Bible revelation is the basis of the family’s recovery. The human is a complementary being, both man and woman. Family is co-existence not a parallel existence. It is not made up of parallel monads, but it is co-existence because the human is a person, not an individual, it has a name and a face, while the person is accomplished as person only when one meets the other one. In the Holy Trinity this relationship is called perihoresis, namely each Person has its centre in another Person, not in itself. Although not egocentric, but altero-centric, the other one is the focus of attention and love of the person. Selfishness is overcome by love, by self dedication and even by sacrifice. This is why it is very hard to understand today the expression sacrificial love or love as self dedication”, explained His Beatitude.

To end with his speech, the Patriarch of Romania showed that “the break up of man’s relation with God brings about a lot of other break ups at the level of the human existence, break up in the family, in community or in society and peoples, because sin is a break up of man’s relation with God”.