Support for Religious Sisters in Romania

The Greek Catholic Sisters of the Mother of God played an essential role in the underground Church in Romania during the communist era and continue to play an important role in the Romanian Greek Catholic Church today. For this reason, ACN is supporting the ministry of the sisters.

By ACN Staff

Sisters of the Mother of God. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need)

The Greek Catholic Church in Romania is found predominantly in Transylvania and has around 480,000 members. It enjoys full communion with the pope and celebrates the Liturgy according to the Byzantine rite.

Bishop Claudiu Pop celebrating Divine Liturgy at the Convent of the Mother of God, Cluj. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need)

The Sisters of the Mother of God are the oldest female congregation in the Romanian Greek Catholic Church. In 2021 they celebrated the centenary of their foundation. The congregation was originally founded to care for orphaned children. However, as the number of sisters grew, they began to increasingly devote themselves to the education of girls, teaching at all levels from preschool to grammar school and secondary vocational schools, and at the same time they ran boarding hostels for female students. They also devoted themselves to the care of the sick, and during the Second World War, they even tended to the wounded and dying on the battlefields.

The history of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church has long been one associated with persecution. During the communist era, 25 sisters of the congregation were interned in prisons and labour camps. But the community continued its evangelising work in secret. The sisters maintained contact with the imprisoned priests and bishops and were an important link in the secret underground existence of the Greek Catholic Church in the country. Living together in twos and threes in small apartments, the sisters were able to have the Blessed Sacrament reserved. Priests were occasionally able to visit and celebrate Holy Mass, and little by little, small faith communities were formed around these sisters. It was here, after the collapse of communism, that the first seeds of the new parish communities were able to grow.

Divine Liturgy at the Convent of the Mother of God, Cluj. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need)

Following the collapse of communism, the sisters in Cluj were able to open an orphanage and work in the hospitals. A few of them were sent to Rome for their studies, in order to be able to train up a new generation of religious sisters. Finally, in 2003, they were able to open their convent of the Mother of God, in Cluj.

Today the Catholic faithful are happy to visit the convent in order to meet the Lord and find an oasis of peace in the midst of the hectic city life. There are various different youth groups and adult groups who take part with the sisters in the community prayer, Eucharistic Adoration and Divine Liturgy. And there are also many people who come seeking spiritual support and counselling, while every day the poor come seeking food and clothing.

But the sisters are facing one major problem. Their ancient heating system has finally broken down and needs to be replaced, but they cannot afford the cost. So they have turned to ACN. We cannot disappoint them, and so we have already promised them the €23,200 they still require. Will you help us?