Interview
Part of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and with nine brothers and sisters, Constantin learned early on the importance of unity.
“Each of us has this sense of unity that we need to activate,” he said. “I learned that although we don’t have many financial resources, what can truly make us happy is unity around Christian values.”
Now, as a Master’s in Advanced Studies at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, he’s far from home, far from his family. But he’s still thinking deeply about what unity means.
He arrived at Bossey after receiving recommendations from his professors at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Bucharest.
Though at the time he didn’t know much about Bossey, “I took it as a calling to work on what I had learned since childhood, namely to reflect and extend this vocation of unity,” he said. “It is the principle by which our mother educated us.”
For Constantin’s entire life, this has meant seeking unity—even if it’s painful or and humbling.
“Thus, this is what I wanted to find in Bossey: to understand more about how to work more for unity, so that people, regardless of nationality and religious culture, can advance towards unity and for unity.”
Now completing a research fellowship with the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on Faith and Order, Constantin is immersed in an intense six-week experience.
“The greatest award I have won through the intense experience with the WCC is this self-knowledge and the joy of discovering the other, who, although a product of their context, is a gift from God and a dedication to the world,” he said. “The joy of meeting people from different parts of the world made me understand more the mystery of joy in the communion of God.”
Taking the mystery forward
Going forward, he wants to engage even more in the calling towards unity with people from various Christian denominations and different religions. “Unity is for everyone, in everyone, and towards everyone,” he said. “I would like to initiate various projects that help raise awareness of different ecological issues and how together we can work towards solving them.”
Constantin also would like to implement projects that help overcome racial discrimination.
“And another issue that I have become aware of, as a teacher in Bucharest, is stopping violence of any kind in schools, in Romania, and in the world in general,” he said.
As he completes his research fellowship, he keeps in very close touch with his family and friends. “Although, at the beginning, many of them were hesitant, even opposed, now through what I tell them, they have become much more interested in what the WCC and the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey do,” he said. “They have begun to understand the complexity of the ecumenical movement and have even set aside certain conspiracies they had due to a lack of information or from believing unreliable and manipulative sources.
"I have told them, and in fact, I tell them that the experience of ecumenical dialogue is something that is ontologically part of the human being, in the harmony of its composition,” he concluded. “We are created for unity and need to fully know each other as we are beings of unity, each encompassing the other in and towards God—the Unity of all and everything.”
