Theologian Radu Preda explains, in an interview for “Adevărul”, how the young generations in Romania are related to religion, such as describing the relationship of Romanian young people with religion, but what should be the approach of the Romanian Orthodox Church towards young people.
The church needs another approach to young photo Denis Grigorescu
This analysis also comes in the context in which according to a large international research, Christianity begins to return to the United States and to other Western countries, among new generations, being a religious rebirth. Many young people have turned to religion to find a community and a connection after the years of isolation from the SARS COV-2 Pandemic, which affected the Z generation more than the others.
Former executive director of the Institute for Investigation of Communism Crimes and the memory of Romanian exile in the period 2014-2020 and a doctor in theology, Radu Preda says that at present in the diaspora he sees few young people at the church and especially very few teenagers.
“If you want to do spiritual consultation, you can talk in a serious line with a child who was born here in the diaspora or born in Romania and has socialized in the diaspora you have to give him some shades of interpretation you cannot talk to him superficially. That he can talk to the schoolmates or a good friend. Statements, expectations, prejudices or forms of active ignorance. That is, there are forms of the intelligence of faith, which in us, please, do not concern too much ”says theologian Radu Preda.
Theologian Radu Preda Photo Eduard Enea
He also says what approach should have the Romanian Orthodox Church towards young people to attract them.
“” It depends a lot on how much investment each cult makes in their own young people. For example, in the neoproted cults, I have the feeling that I know how to invest them better, in the sense that they have a more pronounced approach to age, interest, horizon. And we do this, but in an inconsistent manner. Agenda and we are not attentive to their agenda, we are already losing attention. Because anyway, after they meet there at the church, there is something else.explains the appreciated theologian.
“We have a huge catechetical deficit”
According to Radu Preda, the Romanian Orthodox Church must be made more serious and dedicated to young people. In addition, young people should make the difference between the parishes where authentic and religious messages are transmitted and some monasteries where young people are radicalized.
“We have a huge catechetical deficit. It was a project, at one point, financed by the Americans. People met, they were manuals, they were firing, all kinds of meetings were made. The money was spent anyway. If you want to spend the money, chicken. This is clear. The thread we have other problems in Orthodoxy. Live in folklore, in a kind of non-elegionism, so, with shirts and shirts, who are children born from the block and who do not make the difference.adds Radu Preda.
