Romania: mgr. Calin Ioan Bot, enthroned as Bishop of Lugoj. Card. Muresan (Blaj), “the authority lies in serving, helping, supporting others”

“Being first and foremost a pastor of the Church”. This is what mgr. Calin Ioan Bot, enthroned today as Bishop of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Eparchy of Lugoj, in south-western Romania, wishes to be. The Holy Liturgy celebrated in the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Lugoj was attended by Bishops of the Romanian Episcopal Conference (Cer), mgr. Tuomo Vimari, Chargé d’Affaires a.i. in Romania, clergymen, devotees and religious people, delegates of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate and other Romanian confessions, the Romanian Government and the local authorities. Mgr. Bot, 52, is the eleventh Bishop of the Eparchy set up in 1853, and his predecessors include two martyrs, Valeriu Traian Frentiu and Ioan Balan, beatified by Pope Francis in Blaj in 2019. In his message, card. Lucian Mureșan, Major Archbishop of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church, reminded mgr. Ioan that a bishop’s calling is serving, “his authority lies in serving, helping, supporting others”. In his turn, the next cardinal, Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, in the letter sent through the apostolic nunciature to Romania, recalled the testimony of faith of the “many glorious martyrs” of the Church in Romania and encouraged the Bishop of Lugoj in the challenges he will have to face, such as “the half-heartedness of the young generations that desert the Gospel”. In June, Mgr. Bot, who has been a bishop for two years and so far the auxiliary bishop of Lugoj, was appointed at the helm of the same Eparchy as card. Mureșan’s, with Pope Francis’s approval.
Redazione