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The Assembly of Bishops of the Metropolis of Muntenia and Dobruja on Wednesday analysed the Romanian translation of the liturgical texts that will accompany the proposal of canonisation of the Venerable Elders Dionisie Ignat and Petroniu Tanase. The proposal will be submitted to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople since the two Romanian elders laboured and reposed on the Holy Mount Athos, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
The texts were written in Greek by two of their disciples, Dr Charalambos Busias, the hymnographer of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and Schemamonk Dionysios Gregoriates, according to basilica.ro.
The dioceses suggested improvements to the Romanian version of the texts, which will be used after the canonisation of the two venerable elders.
“We wanted to inform the Metropolitan Synod that Father Petroniu Tănase was for many years here the secretary of Patriarch Nicodim. He worked here, in this very house, for many years,” Patriarch Daniel said on Sept. 28.
“That is why we wish to ask His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch to list among the saints the two Romanian-born Athonite Elders so that in 2025 they will be honoured together with the other twelve or thirteen lay priests and monkpriests who were spiritual fathers and confessors during the Communist period.”
The right to canonise someone belongs to the local Church where that person lived the last part of his life and where they reposed in the Lord, the Patriarch of Romania said, referring to the canonisation of the two Romanian Athonite Elders.
At the end of the meeting, the members of the Metropolitan Synod received a copy of a book written by Archimandrite Nectarie Șofelea, exarch of the monasteries of the Archdiocese of Bucharest, about the life and activity of Metropolitan Neophyte the Cretan of Wallachia.
“It has been said of him that he was a Greek more Romanian than the Romanians. And because he defended them against the Phanariot Prince Matei Ghica and opposed exorbitant taxes, he was poisoned by his own Greek doctor and died as a martyr. He was one of the most industrious and dynamic hierarchs of Wallachia. He had many similarities with St. Anthimus the Iberian,” His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel underlined.
Based on this material, the forthcoming meeting of the Metropolitan Synod of Muntenia and Dobruja in October will also discuss the proposal for the canonisation of Metropolitan Neophyte the Cretan, as well as liturgical texts.
The Metropolitan Synod coordinates the joint activities of the dioceses within the Metropolis. It also ensures that the Orthodox faith, liturgical unity and canonical discipline of clergy and monastics, as well as fraternal fellowship among the dioceses, are defended and promoted.
