{"id":271641,"date":"2020-02-18T19:48:26","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T17:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=271641"},"modified":"2020-02-18T19:48:26","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T17:48:26","slug":"funeral-held-of-pioneering-irish-romanian-orthodox-priest-fr-godfrey-odonnell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/funeral-held-of-pioneering-irish-romanian-orthodox-priest-fr-godfrey-odonnell\/","title":{"rendered":"Funeral held of pioneering Irish Romanian Orthodox priest Fr Godfrey O\u2019Donnell"},"content":{"rendered":"

The funeral Mass of Fr\u00a0Godfrey\u00a0O\u2019Donnell (80) the only Irishman to be ordained a priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church in\u00a0Ireland, took place on Monday at St Columba\u2019s Church, Blakestown Way, in West Dublin.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A total of 28 Romanian Orthodox priests from\u00a0Europe and Ireland took part in the Mass, The Iris Time reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From Derry, Fr O\u2019Donnell died peacefully at his home in Swords last Friday.<\/p>\n

A Jesuit priest for 28 years, Fr Godfrey left the Catholic priesthood to marry Ruth in 1985, but had grown increasingly drawn to the Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n

He was ordained a Romanian Orthodox priest in February 2004 by His Eminence Metropolitan Iosif at the chapel in Dublin\u2019s\u00a0Belvedere College.<\/p>\n

The ceremony was attended by representatives of the other Orthodox churches, in Ireland, the\u00a0Catholic Church, the\u00a0Church of Ireland, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, and from the\u00a0Romanian Embassy\u00a0in Ireland.<\/p>\n

As he explained at the 2004 ordination, \u201cI had to make a choice to let go of my Catholic heritage and to embrace Orthodoxy. It has been a great gift this last four years. I have met so many extraordinary people, very gifted people, great Christians who have also had to give up a lot to come to a strange country like Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2000, he was instrumental in establishing the first Romanian Orthodox parish in Dublin, based at Leeson\u00a0Park<\/a>. It followed contact in 1999 with Paris-based Metropolitan Iosif of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Western and Southern Europe.<\/p>\n

In November 2013 he was awarded the accolade of \u2018Stavrophore\u2019 by the Romanian Orthodox Church. \u2018Stavrophore\u2019 is derived from the Greek stavrophoros, meaning \u2018cross\u2013bearer\u2019. It is the highest award bestowed upon married priests in the Romanian Orthodox tradition.<\/p>\n

It conferred on Fr O\u2019Donnell the the right to wear a cross in recognition of his work to firmly establish the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland and of his long service to the Romanian Orthodox community.<\/p>\n

Survived by Ruth, burial took place on Monday afternoon at Dardistown cemetery in north Co Dublin.<\/p>\n

Currently it is estimated there are 80,000 Romanians in Ireland.<\/p>\n

English article by The Irish Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The funeral Mass of Fr\u00a0Godfrey\u00a0O\u2019Donnell (80) the only Irishman to be ordained a priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church in\u00a0Ireland, took place on Monday at St Columba\u2019s Church, Blakestown Way, in West Dublin. A total of 28 Romanian Orthodox priests from\u00a0Europe and Ireland took part in the Mass, The Iris Time reports. From Derry, Fr…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":271640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[22602,22601,10386,53],"class_list":["post-271641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora-en","tag-dublin-en","tag-fr-godfrey-odonnell","tag-orthodox-news","tag-romanian-orthodox-church"],"better_featured_image":{"id":271640,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":640,"height":427,"file":"2020\/02\/85147390_10218643521656815_5375444019562151936_n.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"85147390_10218643521656815_5375444019562151936_n-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/85147390_10218643521656815_5375444019562151936_n-360x360.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":271641,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/85147390_10218643521656815_5375444019562151936_n.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271641\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=271641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271641\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271640\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=271641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=271641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=271641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}