Brusturi, Romania, September 18, 2018
Photo: basilica.ro A monument to Romanian national heroes was consecrated on Friday at the Monastery of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Brusturi commune in northwestern Romania, where 14,000 Romanian, Russian, and German soldiers died in one night during World War II.
The service was celebrated by His Grace Bishop Macarie of Northern Europe after the outdoor Divine Liturgy celebrated at the monastery’s summer altar, reports the site of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
In his homily, the hierarch addressed the role of Christianity in forming Europe and the peoples’ attitude towards it today, saying, “Europe stands or falls as it hangs on the Cross of Christ.”
Photo: basilica.ro “Europe, let’s not forget, was born in the shadow of the Cross of Jesus, and when it denies Christ and the Cross, it will definitely find its end… The peoples of Europe, at an increasingly accelerating speed, deny the Cross, both spiritually and in a concrete way… Many in Europe, unfortunately, are ashamed of the sign of the Cross, which they take out of public places, schools, and churches under the pretext of not offending members of other cultures and religions,” Bp. Macarie opined.
“Europe has become a different world from decades ago: Same-sex marriages, erasing the difference between man and woman, confusion, chaos, conflict, etc.,” Bp. Macarie noted.
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Holy Cross Monastery in Brusturi is also called the Heroes Monastery because it was erected in memory of the thousands of soldiers who perished in the nearby forests. The monastic settlement in the Brusturi forest was originally a hermitage under the Bistrita Monastery. The church’s foundation stone was consecrated in 1992, and the hermitage was raised to the status of monastery, with 12 monks, in 2007.
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