Romanian Orthodox Church
Quick Facts
- Tradition
- Christianity · Eastern Orthodoxy
- Current leader
- Patriarch of All Romania Daniel Ciobotea
- Leader since
- September 30th 2007
- Days in office
- –
Intro
The Romanian Orthodox Church (Romanian: Biserica Ortodoxă Română, BOR), or Romanian Patriarchate, is one of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches in full communion with the other Eastern Orthodox churches and one of the nine patriarchates in Eastern Orthodoxy.
Structure
The ROC is organized in the form of the Romanian Patriarchate. The highest hierarchical, canonical and dogmatical authority of the ROC is the Holy Synod.
There are ten Orthodox Metropolitanates, twenty archbishoprics, twenty-three bishoprics in total, of which four metropolitans and nine bishops administer the Church services for the Romanian Diaspora in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania. An estimated number of over twelve thousand altar servers in parishes, monasteries and social centres of the Church. Almost 400 monasteries exist inside the country, staffed by some 3,500 monks and 5,000 nuns. As of 2004, there are, inside Romania, fifteen theological universities where more than ten thousand students (some of them from Bessarabia, Bukovina and Serbia benefiting from a few Romanian fellowships) currently study for a theological degree. More than 14,500 churches (traditionally named "lăcașe de cult", or houses of worship) exist in Romania for the Romanian Orthodox believers. As of 2002, almost 1,000 of those were either in the process of being built or rebuilt.
Current leadership
The patriarchal chair is currently held by His Beatitude Daniel, Archbishop of Bucharest, Metropolitan of Muntenia and Dobrudja, and Patriarch of the ROC.
- Teofan, Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina
- Laurențiu, Metropolitan of Transylvania
- Andrei, Metropolitan of Cluj, Maramureș and Sălaj
- Irineu, Metropolitan of Oltenia
- Ioan, Metropolitan of Banat
- Petru, Metropolitan of Bessarabia
- Iosif, Metropolitan of Western and Southern Europe
- Serafim, Metropolitan of Germany and Central Europe
- Nicolae, Metropolitan of the Americas
Source(s)
Source: Image from Wikimedia Commons by Unknown author. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Source: Intro adapted from the Wikipedia article "Romanian Orthodox Church". Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Source: Structure section text copied from the "Organization and leadership" section of the Wikipedia article "Romanian Orthodox Church". Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.