Commemoration of the heroes of the December 1989 Revolution in the Diocese of Canada

Thursday, December 22, 2022, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian at the end of the Divine Liturgy performed at St. George Diocesan Cathedral in Saint-Hubert (QC) commemorated the heroes of the Romanian Revolution who sacrificed themselves for the freedom, faith and dignity of the Romanian people.

At the end of the service, the hierarch said: “Today we remember those who in 1989 knew how to raise their voices against a totalitarian and oppressive regime. Inspired and ardent by faith, they took to the streets to testify to the Orthodox faith and the work of grace through the Church in our world. Thanks to their courage, audacity and faith we are free today as a people and a country. We each have a lot to accomplish in the place where we live in the country or abroad, but we all have in our hearts and minds the boldness of faith and the power of hope that these heroes had. We must not forget them. To forget them is to forget our freedom.”

The revolution of 1989 was a revolution for life and faith, a moment when the weight of the oppressive years full of atheism was lifted and tens of thousands of people uttered after decades in public, in the markets with bowed knees but as free people the prayer “Our Father”.

This moment in history is a ray of light in the sky burdened by the darkness of oppression, in the life of a people that seemed numb but was boiling like a volcano with an unquenchable thirst for the light of faith, for the love of Christ and for its ancestral values.

(notes by Carmen Ognean)