Bishop Michael of Australia and New Zealand celebrates his spiritual patrontranslated

Bishop Michael of Australia and New Zealand celebrates his spiritual patron, Saint Michael the Archangel, on Sunday.

The hierarch was born on January 25, 1964, in Matca commune, Galați county, receiving the name Maricel at baptism. He attended general school in his hometown between 1970 and 1978, then studied at Industrial High School no. 1 from Tecuci, which he graduated in 1982.

On November 13, 1984, he entered the community of the Cernica Monastery, from Ilfov county. On January 7, 1986, he was ordained a monk, and in April of the same year, he was transferred to the Curtea de Argeș Monastery.

He was ordained a hierodeacon on April 18, 1987 and a hieromonk on September 11, 1988, by His Holiness Father Calinic, at that time Vicar Archbishop of the Diocese of Râmnic and Argeș.

Academically, he graduated in 1991 from the "Andrei Șaguna" Faculty of Theology in Sibiu. Between 1992 and 1995 he attended doctoral studies in Theology, in the systematic field, in Sibiu and Cluj, with Father Ioan Ică as his coordinator. In 1993 he studied Greek at the Faculty of Philology of the "Aristotle" University in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Academic training And he…