{"id":191133,"date":"2018-04-03T14:46:11","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T11:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=191133"},"modified":"2018-04-03T14:46:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T11:46:11","slug":"patriarch-daniel-attends-parliament-joint-sitting-to-mark-100th-anniversary-of-bessarabias-union-with-romania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/patriarch-daniel-attends-parliament-joint-sitting-to-mark-100th-anniversary-of-bessarabias-union-with-romania\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriarch Daniel attends Parliament joint sitting to mark 100th anniversary of Bessarabia\u2019s Union with Romania"},"content":{"rendered":"

His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel attended Tuesday the solemn sitting of the two chambers of Romania\u2019s Parliament to mark the 100th<\/sup> anniversary of the Union of Bessarabia with the Mother Land.<\/h4>\n

Romania\u2019s Parliament endorsed a Declaration for the celebration of the Union between Bessarabia and the Mother Land, Romania, in 1918.<\/h4>\n

\u201cThe Romanian Parliament constituted in a solemn session at the 100th anniversary of the Union of Bessarabia with the Motherland today, March 27, 2018, considers that the desire of those citizens of the Republic of Moldova who support the unification of the two countries as a natural continuation in the process of development and affirmation of the Romanian nation is fully legitimate, and we underline that this act depends on their will, and declares that Romania and its citizens are and will always be prepared to meet any organic reunification manifestation of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova as an expression of their sovereign will,\u201d reads the statement adopted by the Romanian Parliament.<\/p>\n

Attendees at the Parliament\u2019s gathering included the speakers of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, PM Viorica Dancila, former Presidents of Romania, Crown Princess Margareta, members of Romania\u2019s Parliament and Government, Orthodox and Roman-Catholic bishops, the Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, Andrian Candu, other Moldovan politicians.<\/p>\n

By the organisation of the solemn joint session of Parliament\u2019s two chambers, in the presence of a delegation of the Republic of Moldova\u2019s Parliament and Government, coming from Chisinau for precisely this event, the Declaration celebrates \u201cthe Union Act voted by the Council of the Country on 27 March 1918\u201d and \u201cthe moment the political elites of Besssarabia and the Kingdom gave course to their aspirations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe consider today a mission of honour of the current and the next generation from both banks of the Prut River to honour with piety the memory of the 1918\u2019s generation that strived for the making of the Great Union,\u201d the Declaration specifies.<\/p>\n

According to it, on 27 March 1918, the Council of the Country as the supreme representative law-making body of Bessarabia, made up of representatives of the Romanian majority population and the ethnic minorities, constituted in accordance with the time\u2019s democratic norms, against the backdrop of the Tsarist Empire\u2019s dissolution and the unfolding of the Great War, gave expression to the collective unification wish by endorsing the Union Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cBessarabia\u2019s return to the Mother Land, Romania purges the historical injustice of 1812, when through the Bucharest Treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia the part located East of Prut River of the Principality of Moldova was annexed to the Russian Empire, forming the Bessarabia province (gubernia),\u201d the document reads.<\/p>\n

The Centennial of the Union of Bessarabia with the Kingdom of Romania was marked by the Romanian Orthodox Church the previous Sunday when His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel led the canonization ceremony in Iasi<\/a> of Metropolitan Saint Joseph the Merciful who was of Bessarabian origin.<\/p>\n

On March 27, His Grace Bishop Ieronim of Sinaia commemorated the founders of the 1918 Union<\/a> at the Patriarchal Cathedral during a memorial service, at the end of which he read out Patriarch Daniel\u2019s festive message.<\/p>\n

All churches of the Romanian Patriarchate rang their bells for one minute as part of the anniversary events.<\/p>\n