The bust of Vasile Stroescu, the first senior president of the Parliament of Greater Romania, was unveiled on Monday at the Palace of Parliament, in a ceremony officiated by Patriarchal Vicar Bishop Varlaam Ploiesteanul.

The event was organized at the request of PSD deputies Cosmin Andrei, Ecaterina Mariana Szoke and Dumitrita Gliga, and Senator Ionel Carp. The creation of the bronze bust (weighing 280 kg and 90 cm tall) and all transport and installation costs were entirely borne by the Civic Forum of Romanians in Covasna, Harghita and Mures, without any expense to the Chamber of Deputies.

The unveiling took place near the Museum of the Chamber of Deputies, 'a location that offers the visibility and dignity needed to honour the first senior president of the Parliament of Greater Romania,' the organisers said. A thematic symposium followed under the auspices of the joint parliamentary committee for relations with UNESCO.

Speakers - politicians, academics and cultural figures - evoked Stroescu's legacy, calling the installation of the bust in the 'House of Romanian Democracy' a moral reparation and a gesture of respect for the history of Romanian parliamentarism.

Patriarchal Vicar Bishop Varlaam Ploiesteanul said: 'Besides being a great patriot, Vasile Stroescu was also a great Orthodox Christian, although he helped the Romanians of Transylvania equally - both Orthodox and Greek-Catholic - knowing that both Churches were fighting to cultivate the Romanian spirit, for union with the motherland and, of course, for preserving the Romanian language and ancestral faith. (...) The Habsburg Empire persecuted him because it considered him responsible for strengthening Romanian sentiment in Transylvania, which was under Habsburg ruling at that time. Later, in Bessarabia, even though he had died in 1926, many of the buildings he had constructed - churches, schools - disappeared; it is only by a miracle that the church in his native village Trinca survived. In our country too, during the communist regime, the memory of the great Vasile Stroescu was erased, just like that of all great Romanians from Bessarabia and Bukovina who fought for the union of these provinces with the motherland, in order to please the Eastern power. We are glad to witness this extraordinary revival of the memory of the great Bessarabian patriot.'

The senior church leader brought to mind that, at the initiative of Patriarch Daniel, the Romanian Orthodox Church declared 2020 the Solemn Year of the Pastoral Ministry of Parents and Children and the Commemorative Year of Romanian Orthodox Philanthropists.

'We congratulate, on behalf of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, all those who worked to create this bust - the Monumentum Association of Bessarabia, which is recovering monuments destroyed during communism - and we appreciate them greatly. We pray to God that we never again live such moments when memorials dedicated to great personalities are dismantled, hidden or - God forbid - destroyed. We congratulate all of you who chose to be present at this special moment, which helps restore the memory of the great philanthropist Vasile Stroescu,' the Patriarchal Vicar Bishop said.

Senator Ionel Carp called the event historic: 'Together with the General Secretariat of the Chamber of Deputies and the Standing Bureau - whom I thank - we achieved this historic moment, both for us and for future generations. (...) I believe my homeland, Romania, is not what we see today. We have our historical past, our foundation, our ancestors. That is where my homeland begins.'

Among those who also evoked the memory of Vasile Stroescu were Acad. Valeriu Matei, president of the Cultural League for the Unity of Romanians Everywhere, Dumitru Preda, Constantin Cojocaru, the mayor of Edinet municipality in Edinet District, and other guests.

According to representatives of the Civic Forum of Romanians in Covasna, Harghita and Mures, the initiative emerged from cooperation between the forum and the Monumentum Association of the Republic of Moldova, with scientific backing from the Romanian Academy's Centre for Ethnic Studies.

On December 1, 1919, Vasile Stroescu, the first president of the Parliament of Reunified Romania, opened and chaired the session. He left to posterity a moral testamentthat read like this: 'In our life and in our work, we must have pure hearts, pure thoughts and pure hands.'
He was unanimously elected an Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy in 1910 and remains a national symbol of the struggle for unity, the cited source noted.

Around 50 participants attended, including officials, academics, cultural figures and a delegation of 25 award-winning students, in a symbolic gesture honoring Stroescu's belief in the power of education.

Vasile Stroescu (1845 - 1926) was a jurist, politician and philanthropist, recognised as the first president of the Senate of Greater Romania in 1919, dedicating his life and fortune to Romanian culture, education and national rights. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Catalina Matei; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)