Today, 15 January 2012, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church blessed the reconstruction works of “Saint Martyr Pantelimon” church of Bucharest, after the fire occurred on Monday, 9 January 2012, which damaged the dome of the holy place of worship.

To end with the blessing service His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel delivered a sermon in which he spoke about the importance of assuming holiness: “We wished to come here today because we had to encourage this parish so hard tried through the damage caused by the fire occurred at this historical church with special value from a historical and artistic point of view and to thank God because it took such a short time to reopen the church as place of worship able to resume the religious services. Certainly, everything that happens in the life of a community is not senseless. We do not know right away the meaning of the trials of our life and of the community. Suffering takes man out of neutrality: it may either bring him closer to God or estrange him from God. Some people prove lowliness and others revolt in time of trial, sufferance and sorrow. This is why it is up to us to give a meaning to the trial. If trial, disease, sufferance, trouble, and damage become an appeal or a mysterious call of God to strengthening faith, to more intense expression of mercy and inter-aid, then sufferance changes into victory”.

Further on, the Patriarch of Romania celebrated the Divine Liturgy assisted by a group of priests and deacons, in the presence of many faithful.

After reading the Gospel, the Primate of the Romanian Orthodox Church delivered a sermon in which he urged to gratitude to all people who helped us in our life: “We must think how much we must cultivate the virtue of gratitude stemmed from true faith and thank God for the gift of life, for His help. We must also remember in our prayers our biological parents who gave birth to us and grew us up, as well as the spiritual parents either dead or alive. We must also thank our educators, professors, teachers and all those who helped us in our life.”

To end with the Divine Liturgy, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel offered “as sign of blessing and encouragement for this parish, till the recomplete reconstruction, consolidation and renovation of the church, a blessing cross for the Table of the Holy Altar, the new edition of the Holy Gospel displaying colour icons, “Proloagele” book (Lives of the Saints), which shows the saints of every day and teaching of the Holy Fathers of our Church”. He also offered some other books recently appeared at the publishing houses of the Romanian Patriarchate, among which the book “Cathedral for the Nation’s Salvation. History of an Ideal”, “which shows that Mihai Eminescu and Ioan Slavici were among the first ones who launched the idea of building a cathedral as thanksgiving God after the Independence War from 1877 – 1878. Thus, we have a lot of telling proofs that urge us to achieve an ideal in which faith, sufferance and victory of the Romanian people are expressed, passing through many trials”.