Bucharest, October 31, 2022
Photo: basilica.ro
As of last week, the Orthodox Church has a new saint officially entered into its calendar.
The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church met in Bucharest on Friday under the chairmanship of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel. Having acquainted itself with the proposal of the Metropolitan Synod of the Metropolis of Muntenia and Dobrogei, the hierarchs resolved to canonize the Holy Hierarch Metropolitan Neofit the Cretan (+1753), reports the Basilica News Agency.
“It was said of him that he was a Greek more Romanian than the Romanians. And, because he defended them against the Phanariot ruler Matei Ghica and opposed exorbitant taxes, he was poisoned by his own Greek physician and died as a martyr,” His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel said of Met. Neofit during the session of the Metropolitan Synod earlier this month.
“He was one of the most diligent and dynamic hierarchs of Wallachia and had many similarities with St. Anthimos the Iberian,” the Patriarch noted.
His feast will be celebrated annually on June 16 (new style).
The Romanian Synod also formally added the Synaxis of the Holy Family of St. Gregory Palamas to its calendar, to be celebrated on November 14. The great hesychast saint’s parents and brothers and sisters were canonized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2009.
Additionally, the Synod approved the texts for the service of the Bringing of the Relics of St. Andrew the Apostle to Iași (October 13), and the Paraklesis to St. Paisios (Velichkovsky) of Neamț.
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Metropolitan Neofit the Cretan was born in 1690, and traveled to Wallachia when he was already a hieromonk and served for a time as teacher of the children of the ruler Constantin Mavrocordat.
He was elected titular bishop of the Metropolis of Mirelor Lichiei in 1737 and was later appointed to the Metropolis of Ungrovlahia.
Although he was a Greek, he proved to be a very good leader for the Romanians. He defended them against the abuses of a Phanariot ruler, increased the Metropolis’ income, freed the Roma slaves, directed the country’s schools, and established schools of his own, where peasant children could learn for free. He also founded and endowed the Metropolitan Library.
He reposed in the Lord in Bucharest on June 16, 1753.
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