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At a ceremony last Sunday, the Romanian Ambassador to Cyprus, Dan Mihalache, presented the Order of Cultural Merit to Fr Petre Matei, the representative of the Romanian Patriarchate to Cyprus.
The President of Romania signed the decoration decree for the Rev. Stavrophore Fr. Matei Petre on January 6 as a sign of appreciation “for the dedication with which he was involved in preserving the identity of Romanian communities abroad,” the Presidential Administration announced.
The Order was bestowed at the Romanian Church in Nicosia in the presence of Bishop Gregorios of Mesaoria (Orthodox Church of Cyprus), Mr Kostas Petrou, Mayor of Agios Dometios, and Mrs Christina Christodoulou, President of the Union of Romanians in Cyprus, according to basilica.ro.
In his speech at the end, Fr Petre Matei expressed his appreciation to the Romanian Embassy in Cyprus for all the help offered and thanked the Orthodox Church of Cyprus for the goodwill shown.
“My words can only be of gratitude for the decisive factors that led to what we have here in Cyprus today. First of all, we must say that we are here thanks to the Romanian Embassy in Cyprus and the Romanian state.”
“I confess that we are privileged in Cyprus because the Orthodox Church of Cyprus has allowed us to have a community and has fully supported us.”
“Being in an Orthodox country, it is not necessary to have a priest from another Orthodox country to perform services in his language. But it is the merit of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus to allow us to perform services in our language,” Fr Petre Matei noted.
During the ceremony on February 21, His Excellency Dan Mihalache, the Ambassador of Romania to Cyprus, underlined Fr Petre Matei’s role in the formation of the Romanian community in Nicosia.
“The growth of this community would not have been possible without your effort and diligence. As a result, today we are a strong Orthodox community in Cyprus also thanks to you,” Romania’s Ambassador to Cyprus Dan Mihalache said.
Father Petre Matei, a former professor at the Orthodox Theological Seminary in Buzau, has been in the Romanian Orthodox community in Nicosia since 1995.
