In the past six years, several dioceses within the Romanian Patriarchate have organized the International Meeting of Orthodox Youth (with the Romanian acronym ITO). The sons and daughters of the Church shared the joy of brotherly communion in Baia Mare (2014), Cluj (2015), Bucharest (2016), Iasi (2017) and Sibiu (2018). This year, with the blessing of His Beatitude Daniel, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church and under the patronage of His Eminence Irineu, the Archbishop of Craiova and Metropolitan of Oltenia, ITO is to take place in the Bans’ Citadel, from September 5th to 8th 2019.
More than 4000 Orthodox young people, who are to attend the activities organized in Craiova, will be the representatives of each and every diocese within the Romanian Patriarchate as well as the representatives of the Orthodox communities of: Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Greece, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Turkey, India etc.
This year’s meeting, under the motto: “We are all one Chalice! Faith, Hope and Love”, aims at offering the chance to participants to get to know each other better and also promote those elements related to the religious and cultural identity of the people living in Oltenia area. The message that young people are to further disseminate lies in the feeling of unity, fraternity, communion and all these reunited for the work towards a better future shaped by “faith, hope and love”.