The Confessing Saints of Ardelan, honored in Alba Iulia: They urge us to an authentic Christian experience, says IPS Irineutranslated

"Through their lives adorned with the flowers of virtue, Saints Visarion, Sophronie and Oprea urge us to an authentic Christian life," said Archbishop Irineu of Alba Iulia about the Confessor Saints of Ardelan.

His Eminence officiated the Holy Liturgy on Wednesday at the "Reintegirii" Cathedral in Alba Iulia, where the relics of Saint George the Pilgrim from the Văratec Monastery in Neamț county were taken for veneration.

"The joy of the Ardelan Saints' celebration is enhanced by the presence, at our Cathedral, of the venerable relics of Saint George the Pilgrim".

"We received with veneration the peasant farmer of yesteryear who, now, represents for us a living icon of the right faith, an ardent confessor of Orthodoxy and an exponent of its sublime values," added the archbishop.

His Holiness Father Irineu explained that by following the model of the Romanian saints, the covenant they made can be fulfilled: "They preserved and fiercely defended the ancestral Law, that is, our religious and ethnic treasure".

St. George the Pilgrim in his native lands The reliquary with the holy relics of Saint George the Pilgrim arrived at the Cathedral on Tuesday...