In honor of International Children’s Day, celebrated annually on June 1, the Romanian Orthodox Church’s Basilica News Agency published several statements from the past few years of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel of Romania on the raising and education of Orthodox children:
- Children must be educated in the spirit of the Gospel of the love of Christ and Christian values, through prayer and exhortation to a holy life and good works (3/14/2013).
- In our times, the causes of unhappiness in children and young people, such as poverty, professional confusion, drugs, alcoholism, insecurity about the future, depression, etc., have multiplied in an alarming way. Under these conditions, the increase of parental attention and love in the work of raising and educating children is a vital need (3/14/2013).
- Raising children in the faith and in the knowledge necessary for life, which forms them as future citizens of the earthly homeland, but also as a possible future citizen of the Heavenly homeland, is an essential work (9/15/2020).
- The character of children is formed not only by words and advice, but also by the life and example of their parents. In this sense, parents are called to live the true faith, through prayer and good works, and to cultivate love and generosity in the family, in the image of the merciful love of the Holy Trinity, so that the family may always be a source of love and joy for children (6/7/2020).
- Through Christian education, they themselves become the luminous torches of the spiritual life, living parables and true confessors of the Gospel of Christ’s merciful love for all people (12/5/2016).
- The time spent with preschool children for religious education can be a long-term investment to make the world a better place (5/30/2016).
- The Christian education of children and young people should not be limited to the transmission of intellectual information, but will aim, in particular, for the moral and spiritual formation of children and young people, shaping their character and personality in accordance with the ideal of the Gospel of Christ’s love and light, the spiritual life of the Church (9/22/2015).