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Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest Timotei Prahoveanul said on Wednesday at the Patriarchal Cathedral, that Holy and All-Praised Apostle Andrew the First-Called urges us to keep the faith he preached and the holy history of our country, bringing to mind the really important things that Romanians will have to meditate on.
"Just as every person, every church, every place and every institution, every home has a patron saint, Romania has as patron the one who brought the words of the Gospel, the Holy Apostle Andrew. He urges us to live in unity, to love the faith of our ancestors, to love the words of the Gospel and the One who preached them, showing that no one has ever had a greater love than His," said the Assistant Bishop, in the epistle at the Holy Liturgy on the day of the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle, the First-Called, the Protector of Romania.
His Grace Timotei also said Saint Andrew preaches that "all the sons of Romania, the sons of the land he Christianized should be followers of the Savior, as he was", they should preserve "the holy history of our country".
"That is why his commemoration is placed before the National Holiday, being, in fact, one day and the other, national holidays, one ecclesiastical and one secular, but both reminding us of the really important things that Romanians will have to meditate on," emphasized His Grace Timotei Prahoveanul.
The Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest recalled that Saint Andrew the Apostle "came blessing the land of his mission in Romania three times through his relics".
In 1995 the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church decided to write his feast day in the Orthodox Calendar in red.
Saint Andrew the Apostle was proclaimed Protector of Romania in February 1997. The day of his celebration became a national church holiday, as a result of the Decision of the Holy Synod of November 14, 2001. As an homage to the saint, one of the newly-built National Cathedral's patronal feasts is Holy Apostle Andrew.
In 2012, the Romanian Parliament declared the day of the Holy Apostle Andrew's feast, November 30, as a national holiday, by Law no. 147 of July 23, 2012 and then promulgated by presidential decree. AGERPRES
