Enquiry sent to Romanian Church over reports that one of its bishops took Holy Communion at Catholic liturgy

There were reports in the mass media that the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Nicolae of Banat took the Holy Communion during the liturgy which took place on 25 May 2008 at the Greek Catholic Church in Timisoara, Romania, and which was attended by the Apostolic Nuncio to Romania, Francisco-Javier Lozano.

On 6 June 2008, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, sent a letter to Bishop Ciprian of Campina, vicar of His Beatitude Patriarch of Romania and head of the Romanian Patriarchate’s external relations section, asking him to explain whether the prominent hierarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church really had sacramental communion with those who do not belong to the Orthodox Church and if he did, how this incident is treated by His Holiness Patriarch Daniel of Romania and the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church.

DECR Communication Service