A priest in a poor area of Argentina without canonistsHasitha: seminarian of Buddhist father and Catholic motherBogdan Teleanu was born in Zarnesti, Brasov, Romania. He is 46 years old. He is not a Catholic, but an Orthodox priest of the Romanian Patriarchate, but he decided to study at the University of the Holy Cross in Rome, a Catholic and Pontifical university, and then return to his country to help the Romanian Church and thus face the many current difficulties. He has a degree in Institutional Church Communication. He is married and has three children. In the Orthodox Church they can receive priestly ordination after marriage, although they cannot become bishops.
His studies qualified him to work at the Press Office of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate. Some of his most beautiful experiences have been covering the visit to Romania of Pope Francis in 2019. "Thanks to the tools acquired in communication studies at Holy Cross I have been able to become a better communicator and spokesman," says Fr. Bogdan.
He also holds a doctorate in theology from his home country, specializing in catechetics and homiletics. "I have focused my communicative activity on intensifying the dialogue between the Church and culture, because the Church is the creator of authentic cultural values. This is very important in a country like Romania, where we still face the problems created by the communist dictatorship that lasted for so many years," he says.
One of the problems in his country is emigration, "because there are so many Romanians abroad. The Orthodox Church in Romania is very committed to supporting the families of those who emigrated, especially taking care of children who are left alone in the country because their mothers and fathers are forced to go abroad to work to send money home," he says.
These children in Romania are called "white orphans". According to estimates, out of 5 million Romanian children, 750 thousand are more or less violently affected by the departure of their parents. Of these, 350,000 have been deprived of one of their parents, while 126,000 have been deprived of both parents. But there are more than 400,000 children who have experienced, for a period of their lives, a form of loneliness.
