Bishop Ioan Casian, on the first Sunday of the Triodion:

"In general, the life of the Church is a life that invites us to humility, repentance."

On the first Sunday of the Triodion, February 25, at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Iași, the Holy Liturgy was officiated by His Grace Ioan Casian, the Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Canada, along with a group of priests and deacons.

After reading the Holy Gospel, Bishop Ioan Casian held a sermon in which he brought to the attention of the believers present, some aspects related to the Triodion's period:

“In general, the life of the Church is a life that invites us to humility, repentance, but even more this period of the Triodion is the preparatory period of the Resurrection of the Lord, Easter. How can we better welcome Easter and receive the grace and light of God, unless we repent and remove from our mind, our heart and our life the facts that occupy them so that for us as people, to receive here and now the grace of God and His inspiration. Therefore, I urge you all at this beginning of the special period of the Triodion, to go back again to the Holy Scriptures, to the Lives of the Saints and to all the liturgical texts that are full of teaching, which mark this period, because it will make us understand the liturgical moment we are in and the way we in which we have to live.”

At the end of the Holy Liturgy, after worshiping the relics of St. Parascheva, the believers received the blessing of the hierarch.