On New Year’s Eve, the Patriarch of Romania delivered a message reminding Christians of their calling to sanctify the place and time on earth as preparation for entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Patriarch’s message was read by Assistant Bishop Timotei of Prahova during the service held Tuesday night at the Patriarchal Cathedral.
In his message, Patriarch Daniel urged, “We must look at every moment of our present life with trust and hope, but also with responsibility and seriousness.”
He also called for prayers for Romanians living abroad and encouraged cultivating peace in our hearts while praying for peace among nations.
Please find Patriarch Daniel’s New Year’s message below:
The Christian is called to sanctify place and time on earth to enter the Kingdom of Heaven
We have transitioned from the year 2024 to 2025, offering gratitude to God for His blessings and praying for His goodness to crown the New Year. The “crown of the year” signifies the culmination of the year, which becomes fruitful if lived as a gift from God and made productive through prayer and good deeds. Therefore, at the threshold of a new year, we must reflect on the gift of time in our earthly lives, which serves as preparation for eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven.
According to Holy Synod Decision No. 630 of February 17, 2011, the service marking the New Year includes the reading of the Akathist Hymn to Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is because January 1 commemorates the Circumcision and Naming of the Infant Jesus, whose name means “God saves” or “God is Savior.” Christ received His name eight days after His birth (Luke 2:21), and the number eight symbolizes eternity. Thus, in Jesus Christ, every year is a year of salvation oriented toward eternal life (2 Corinthians 6:2).
By calling upon the salvific name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of the world and King of the ages (see Acts 1:7; Hebrews 1:2), the lives of those who pray are sanctified, as are the spaces and times in which they pray. As both God and man, Jesus Christ simultaneously inhabits eternity and time: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). In Jesus Christ, time provides Christians with the opportunity to participate in eternal life. This time of salvation or union with God is offered to us in Christ’s Church as a transfigured, sanctified, and fulfilled time.
The Church confesses, prays, and glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6)—the sure Way, the complete Truth, and eternal Life. Thus, the time of salvation is directed toward eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, and all stages of human life are blessed times. This is why the Akathist Hymn to Our Lord Jesus Christ, which we just read, proclaims:
Jesus, guardian of my infancy!
Jesus, nourisher of my youth!
Jesus, praise of my old age!
Jesus, my hope at death!
Jesus, my life after death!
Jesus, my comfort at your judgment!We encounter the Savior Jesus Christ by following His commandments in our lives and, most especially, in the Church’s Holy Mysteries, which sanctify human life at every stage.
Through Baptism, we are reborn for the Kingdom of God, uniting with the crucified and risen Christ (Romans 6:3-5) for a new life in the grace of the Holy Spirit, received through Chrismation.
In the Holy Eucharist, we receive Christ Himself, given “for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life.”
In the Sacrament of Marriage, we receive the blessing of Christ, who was present at the wedding in Cana of Galilee and who loves His Church as a groom loves his bride.
In Confession, we meet Christ, who forgives our sins.
In Ordination, Christ, the eternal High Priest and Teacher, is present and sends His Apostles to preach His Gospel, baptize nations, and shepherd His people.
In the Sacrament of Unction, Christ, the healer of souls and bodies, is present, healing our infirmities.
Those who did not live contemporaneously with Christ during His earthly life can become close to Him through the Church’s sanctifying, spiritual life, and the work of the Holy Spirit. All the Church’s Holy Mysteries are self-offerings of Christ Himself, renewing our earthly lives with His heavenly and eternal life. Saint Leo the Great succinctly said, “All that was in Christ now passes into the Mysteries [Sacraments].”
Scripture tells us that Christ “rules over both the living and the dead” (Romans 14:9), and “whoever believes in Him, though he may die, shall live” (John 11:25). Therefore, Jesus is our hope in death, as the earthly life of a true Christian is a Pascha or passage from earthly life to heavenly life, described as “a school and place of learning for human souls” in preparation for eternal happiness. The prayerful Christian does not fear physical death, for it is merely a transition or relocation, and Jesus becomes our life after death.
Thus, the Church urges us to view each moment of our present lives with trust, hope, responsibility, and seriousness, cherishing it as a divine opportunity to redeem lost time when no good deeds were done or to rise from sin through repentance. Above all, life is a time to bear fruit and multiply the gifts received from God. Therefore, Jesus is our peace at His judgment of us.
“When you see the year ending,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “thank the Lord, because he had led you into this cycle of years. Stab the heart [‘prick the heart’] reckon up the time of your life, say to oneself: “The days run and pass by, the year’s fill-up, we have progressed much of the way; What good is there for us to do? Will we not depart from here, empty and deserted of all righteousness, the judgment at the doors, the rest of life leads us to our old age. These things, [from the new moon], contemplate on New Year’s Day, these from the circuit of the years, recollect. Let us reckon the future day, no longer something spoken to us that, which was said to the Jews by the prophet, “their days were consumed in vanity, and their years in haste”[Psalm 77:33].
The time we have can be a time of fruitfulness or a time of squandering the gifts received through our physical birth—health, intelligence, beauty, physical strength—or the spiritual gifts bestowed at Baptism by the Holy Spirit. We can either multiply or squander them. It all depends on whether we sanctify time through faith, repentance, and good deeds, or waste it through a lack of love for God and others.
Let us ask God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to help us experience the joy of sanctified time and the joy of fruitfulness in time!
The year 2024, which we have just concluded, was declared by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church as the Solemn Year of Pastoral Care for the Sick and the Commemorative Year of all holy unmercenary healers. We have striven to sanctify our moments by intensifying care for those in spiritual and physical suffering.
This year, 2025, has been declared the Solemn Year of the Romanian Patriarchate’s Centennial and the Commemorative Year of the 20th-Century Romanian Orthodox Spiritual Fathers and Confessors. This celebration is not only a reflection on the past but also a call to gratitude for our forebears and to consider the Church’s role in the life of the Romanian people.
Let us also remember in our prayers all Romanians abroad, fostering with fraternal love the unity of faith and nation!
May we cultivate the peace of our hearts, received from Christ through prayer and good deeds, and pray for peace among nations!
We pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of ages, to bless the year we have entered, granting steadfast faith, repentance, holy life, good deeds, and abundant earthly harvests, for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for our salvation!
Happy and blessed New Year!
† Daniel
Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church
Photo: Basilica.ro / Raluca-Emanuela Ene
