Romanian students from all over the world gathered last Monday for an Anniversary Student Congress at Putna Monastery, where they signed a final declaration. “The unity of Romanians in the future is built on the awareness of their unity in the past”, states the document.
The text defines the “fundamentals that each generation brings to the continuation of the ideal of unity between Romanians from all over the world. These fundamentals resonate with the principle of cultural unity as the basis of national unity laid out in 1871”, at the first Putna Celebration of the Romanians from All Over the World.
The Declaration speaks about the sacred relationship between persons and peoples, about an economy that protects humanity, about respect for born and unborn human life, the importance of family, the equality and complementarity of man and woman, and about the importance of remaining connected to what the ancestors built before us.
The statement concludes with the following exhortations:
“Let us be patriots and open to the world! Let us be vertical, following the same ideal! Let us be united as Romanians, which is the only way to accomplish our mission in the world! So help us, God.”
“A national reawakening shall be effective when such celebrations will be organized more often,” concluded Emanuel Buta, Secretary of the Putna Celebration 2021, after presenting the final document.
The Declaration of the Anniversary Student Congress was signed in four copies: one to be kept at Putna Monastery, another to be in the custody of the Romanian Patriarchate, a third to be offered to the Romanian Academy, and the final copy to be kept by the representative of the students who participated in the series of events entitled “The Putna Celebration – 2021. Continuity of an ideal”.
The full text of the declaration:
The Declaration of the Anniversary Student Congress, Putna, August 16, 2021
We, Romanian young people from all over the world, from Romania and from abroad, met on August 15 and 16, 2021, at the saintly Putna Monastery to honor those whose hands and souls created, in 1871, the First Celebration of the Romanians from All Over the World and the First Congress of the Romanian Students from All Over the World, with a view to affirming the unity ideal of the Romanian people.
When preparing for the 1871 event, the Acting Committee for the First Putna Celebration wrote in its appeal to all Romanians: “Although politically separated, we are united from River Tisa to the Black Sea and from the Dniester to the Balkans in our language, customs, and traditions, in our religion and the same political and social creed.”
The ideal thus defined in 1871 was reiterated through history by the young generations of Romanians from 1904, 1926, 1957, 1966, 1992, 2004, 2007, 2011, who organized national celebrations at the tomb of the Holy Prince Stephen the Great.
In 2021, it is our turn to understand the importance of this ideal of unity and carry it forward with the awareness that as Nicolae Teclu and Mihai Eminescu wrote, “there is no obstacle to hinder our goal apart from our own negligence and unwillingness.”
Thus, 150 years later, we, in workshops organized online just before the celebrations, reflected about history, analyzed the present, and thought of how the future could be built.
The workshop themes were as following: History and National Identity; Liberty, justice and political system; Romanians from All Over the World; Education, Art, and Culture; Economy, Fiscality, Entrepreneurship, Energy, Agriculture and Environment; Family, Work, Social Policies; Health; Faith and Theology.
Each working group wrote dozens of pages with the conclusions for each domain, but in this Declaration, we consider fit to express the essential principles resulting from the analyses, principles that we consider as part of the fundamentals that each generation brings to the continuation of the ideal of unity between Romanians from all over the world.
They resonate with the principle of cultural unity as a foundation of national unity laid out in 1871.
Principles for continuing the ideal of unity between Romanians from all over the world
HISTORY
The deepest foundation of our unity as a people is the one created by God. We are sons of Mother Romania because our Heavenly Father sowed us into this people.
Our history has offered the pillars on which the Romanian civilization has been built. With luminous and less luminous moments, it shows our becoming. Our history is the only one that we’ve got and, more importantly, the only one on which we can build. Our interest in exploring our national identity should never cease: only by knowing our past can we consciously step into the future.
IDENTITY
Our bodies are made of the dust of the Romanian land and are enlivened by our faith in our mission. We are a house built by former generations, and each new generation is called to become aware that it lives in the home of its fatherland. This awareness gives rise to respect, gratefulness, and love for our ancestors, it makes us share in their thoughts and feelings.
RESPONSIBILITY
The unity of Romanians in the future is built on the awareness of their unity in the past: the connection between them is the present generation.
Let us not forget the exhortation of a great Bukovina-born patriot, Doxaki Hurmuzachi, who wrote to his children and to all the Romanians in his 1857 testament: “Do not forget your three sacred and great duties, for which you shall answer before God, before the people, and before your descendants. These duties are the fatherland, the language, and the Church.”
EDUCATION
The state of Romania owes its existence to educated, brave, and country-loving people. And only through educated, brave, and country-loving people, it will continue its existence. That is why we have the responsibility to educate first and foremost in Romania and for Romania. Education should inspire the Romanian spirit, which should be founded on clear benchmarks and capable of major historical syntheses.
FREEDOM
Reflecting on freedom includes, but also transcends the legal framework. It is a matter of life for all who wish to live with dignity.
Freedom is a gift from God inscribed in human nature. It finds its purpose in making a harmonious unity between man and existence. Spiritual corruption, which precedes other forms of corruption, makes us lose freedom. We also lose it when we use it against ourselves or our neighbors. Honest people enjoy a greater degree of freedom, which increases according to how freedom is used according to its purpose.
ROMANIANS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD
As a parent whose duty is to care for the child, Romania, as our fatherland, has an absolute duty towards Romanians from the historical regions around its actual borders and towards the Romanian diaspora.
Romania has the responsibility to keep linguistic and cultural unity with the Romanians from all over the world. Romania has to capitalize on all possibilities and opportunities in order to advance in bringing its children back home and making the national family whole again.
ECONOMY IN SUPPORT OF THE HUMANITY
The ability to create goods and services is a basic way of connecting with each other. It can offer a factual expression of support for one’s neighbors. Therefore, we are bound to build highways of love expressed through actual deeds which can go across the Carpathian Mountains and also unite the souls of the Romanians from everywhere through responsibility, work, and effort.
With goods and services, we can build not only the economy and the society of the present day but also a heritage uniting former Romanians with present-time Romanians and the Romanians from tomorrow.
HEALTH
Protecting life should be our permanent preoccupation since all human beings have supreme value, have a purpose, and a mission in their families, their country, and into the world. From this point of view, unity also means an operational national health system and everybody’s honest wish for the good of one’s neighbor – starting from conception to natural death.
Let us treat people’s suffering with empathy and love, let us respect the dignity of the human condition, and let us see the sick as full persons, not see them through the lens of their sickness.
It is beneficial to take advantage of medical breakthroughs and we need to do it by keeping our love for people and by respecting the freedom of conscience of the medical staff and of the patient.
EQUAL AND COMPLEMENTARY
Equality and unity among people arise from their status as creatures of God. Our unity is also built on the complementarity of our vocations: let us not turn difference into opposites; let us rather cultivate everybody’s unique gift as a means to work good deeds in the community – to work the Good that the whole community needs. Agriculture and scientific research, faith and arts, sports and politics, as well as all the other domains of interest and of activity are not meant to further divide us through their difference, but to unite us through the fruits of a practice that is honest towards its specific domain and towards our fellow people.
FAMILY, ROMANIAN FAMILIES, THE HUMAN FAMILY
A.D. Xenopol, in his 1871 festive Speech, showed that St Stephen the Great’s deeds transcended the borders of his Moldavia and made him a benefactor of all Romanians and of the whole world.
“Stephen the Great has ceased to be just the hero of a part of the lands inhabited by Romanians and has become a center for those of the same nationality. […] The greatest men of different peoples do not belong only to the circle in which they were bound to inscribe their work; they belong to their whole kinfolk as long as that kinfolk speaks the same language and has the same traditions and as long as the natural connection between human souls stretches. The greatest men go beyond the circle of their kinfolk and become benefactors of the whole mankind.”
All of mankind’s historic experience has shown the importance of family, the importance of the nation, and the close ties that each person and each nation has with the whole of mankind.
The ability to work beneficially for one’s nation and for the larger family of mankind is formed within the family, through the unique love between one man and one woman, who are equal in dignity and complementary in their vocations, who sacrifice themselves one for another and together for their children. After a person gets formed in his family, he or she shall step into the larger community of one’s country, to which he or she shall contribute for the common good.
Dear Romanians from everywhere,
In 1904, historian Nicolae Iorga wrote of the vigil light on Holy Prince Stephen the Great’s tomb and of the light of this great prince: “The vigil light on his tomb was extinguished in worse days. But his memory kept shining in the great church of our nation’s conscience. Sometimes the light was shinier, sometimes weaker. But no terrible wind has ever been able to extinguish it. It is still shining powerfully with the great fire of pride and gratefulness fuelled from all our hearts.”
We have deposed a vigil light in the tomb of “the protector of Romanian existence”. It symbolizes the continuity of our ideal of national unity and all the good things arising from this unity.
This seen vigil light is a witness of the one lit by the intercessors of the Romanian nation in the Kingdom of God, it comprises in itself the Commemorative Urn deposed by our predecessors in 1871. It is a vigil light in which the oil of our good wishes will burn and give light forever, even more so in moments of historical trial. It will burn for the accomplishment of national unity in every generation. This is its meaning and mission.
We organized the Anniversary Student Congress not only for ourselves but also for future generations. May the ideal of unity expressed in 1871, the ideal of the Great Union, the ideal of freedom and truth – which was carried forward even in times of repression of our historic and religious identity by the communist regime – remain as a duty for generations to come!
The motto of the 1871 Putna Celebration, “United in thinking, united in God”, remains a continuous ideal to be fulfilled through faith in it and through sacrificial deeds adding to its eternal making.
Being aware that “the future is where the young people’s hearts are”, we call upon the young people of our generation:
Let us be patriots and open to the world! Let us be vertical, following the same ideal! Let us be united as Romanians, which is the only way to accomplish our mission in the world!
So help us, God.
The Putna Anniversary Student Congress was part of a series of events entitled “The Putna Celebration – 2021. Continuity of an ideal” and had as guests the His Beatitude Daniel, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and His Excellence Acad. Ioan-Aurel Pop, President of the Romanian Academy.
The Putna Celebration – 2021 was attended by hierarchs and cultural personalities. The latter participated last Tuesday in a Symposium entitled “Eminescu and Putna”.
The student congress was opened with a message delivered by Patriarch Daniel and a speech by Acad. Ioan-Aurel Pop. The young participants had then a dialogue with the two guests about identity and ideals.
The representatives of the youth organizations delivered speeches and concluded the congress by reading and signing the congress’ final Declaration.
Source: basilica.ro