Patriarch Daniel has received an Honorary Doctorate from Titu Maiorescu University

Titu Maiorescu University in Bucharest awarded on Thursday, 10 December 2015, the honorary doctorate degree to His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, for the exceptional contribution to the development of the Church and assuming her role and importance in the life of today’s society.

The festive event took place in the University Aula, in the presence of the Senate members of the Higher Education Institution, state authorities, representatives of several religious denominations in Romania, and over 500 students.

The laudation (eulogy speech) was delivered by Prof. dr. Iosif Urs, President of Titu Maiorescu University, noting that the Romanian Patriarch is “a spiritual guide for the identity, the dignity and the asserting of Romanians in today’s world”.

“His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, the sixth Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, came with a new spirit in the lead of the Church, with the desire to strengthen and breed her, to make her more solid and more powerful for today and for the future. A founder, a builder and renewer, His Beatitude has brought to the lead of our Church a new vision, built on the conscience and the dignity of the ancient faith, through which he has offered a new frame for the development and the evolution of the Romanian Orthodoxy. The vision and each deed of the Patriarch are based on the conscience that the Church and the faith represent essential factors of the spiritual identity of the individual and the society. To strengthen and develop the Church means to consolidate the identity and self-consciousness of the people. Therefore, His Beatitude has built churches; that is why he wanted a place of prayer, praise and gratitude to God in every village of Romania. By developing the Church, His Beatitude has reinforced the resistance structure of this nation”, Prof. Iosif Urs said.

After awarding the honorary doctorate degree of the Titu Maiorescu University, the Romanian Patriarch thanked the institution for this academic title.

“We want to give special thanks to the Titu Maiorescu University for the honour shown to us today. We accepted this new honorary doctorate degree in order to encourage the co-operation between the university and the Church for the common benefit of the society, and to appreciate, at our turn, the dynamics of this University comprised of nine faculties, and which is quite young, but very creative, dynamic and promising. Of course, another way of sentimental motivation is the fact that Titu Maiorescu was a bishop’s nephew on his mother’s side. His mother, Maria Popasu, was the sister of Bishop Ioan Popasu of Caransebeş, who shepherded for 24 years in Caransebeş, from 1865 to 1889”, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel said.

Next, the Romanian Patriarch delivered a speech entitled “The Religious Origin of Law, its Secularization and the Current Need of Interdisciplinary Dialogue”.

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