With the Scottish Bible Society in Romania. cont. from
June/July 2010
last page...
Rev Kenneth McNeish with one of the college lecturers in Bucharest.
....from the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, and Baptist communions who all accepted the new translation. We visited the Patriarchal Palace which had witnessed the communist takeover and the proclamation of atheistic rule and the demise of religious faith. Today this Patriarchal Palace has been restored to its rightful place as the seat of Orthodoxy in Romania. It now houses the Christian TV and radio stations run by the church – Trinitas TV Station and Trinitas Radio which transmits Christian programmes and teaching every day of the year.”
Stedfast readers may not be familiar with Orthodoxy, whether Russian, Greek, or Romanian. What were your impressions of the Romanian Orthodox Church? “We met a number of Orthodox priests while we were there. They took us to children’s homes, prisons, a theological college, and after school centres run by the church. They immerse themselves in the life of the community. Orthodox priests can marry while those called to the monastic life may not. All the priests we met had a word for the church in the West, and it was a challenging word. Comments we
With the Scottish Bible Society in Romania
heard included: “You come from a land with plenty of Bibles. What is wrong with your church and your voice?” “How can we make sure our country does not become as secular as yours?” “How can we avoid becoming like the church in the West?”; another strain we heard (from a worker with the Romanian Bible Society) was – “we lived with communism, now we live with corruption.”
Page 5
So the church in Romania, while being deeply rooted and persevering, is very much aware of the corrosive effects of materialism and secular influence.”
Page 7
Ready for the World Cup 2010
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