Parish History

The Romanian Orthodox Parish in Edinburgh began its activity in the spring of 2014, at the initiative and with the blessing of Metropolitan Iosif.

The task of organizing the future parish was assumed by a group of believers from Edinburgh and Glasgow, represented by Father Ioan-Florin, Mrs. Roxana Nițe (the first president of the parish committee), Father Nelu Vasilică, then only a reader, and Mr. Alexandru Alistarh, a student at the University of Edinburgh.

Until the establishment of the Parish, the pastoral care of the Romanian believers in the Edinburgh area, as well as occasional services for them in the Greek church in Meadow Lane, were provided by Father Marcel Oprișan, then the parish priest of the Romanian Church in Glasgow.

First Easter in Edinburgh

The first service in the new Parish was on Easter Sunday (April 20, 2014), in the superb St John's Cathedral on Princes Street, attended by around 300 believers. It was also the first Easter service in Romanian officiated in the Scottish capital.

The responses at the chanter's stand were given by soprano Roxana Nițe together with a choir of the Faculty of Arts in Constanța, led by conductor Răzvan Luculescu.

Among those present at the first service were two of the current servants of the Parish, who, over the years, were to form spiritually in the future church in Edinburgh: Father Nelu Vasilică and Deacon Alexandru Alistarh.

St Philip's Church Period (2014-2021)

After the inaugural “Resurrection”, we served for 6 years in St Philip's Church (Logie Green Road), where the nucleus of the current parish and the first group of volunteers were formed. Many of the Romanians in Edinburgh were to meet here for the first time. On March 2, 2016, we also received the official establishment document of the Parish, with the patronage of “Saint Triduana of Edinburgh (October 8) and the Holy Archangels (November 8)”.

Here we also organized Christmas concerts, cultural events, charitable actions and received visits from dear guests, such as His Grace Bishop Ignatie (today Bishop of Huși) and Metropolitan Iosif, in his first pastoral visit to our parish (January 20, 2020), on which occasion reader Nelu Vasilică was ordained deacon.

Move to Morningside United Church (2021 - present)

In a difficult moment for our community, in September 2021, we had to move from St Philip's Church because the church was to be sold. In a crowded city like Edinburgh, it is very difficult to find a suitable space for worship, because it is either used on Sundays by Scottish congregations or used for other purposes. However, we were confident in the Lord's care for His house.

In those days we wrote over a hundred messages to Scottish churches in the capital and, finally, we were received, with much friendship, at Morningside United Church (15 Chamberlain Road, EH10 4DJ). We will always remain grateful to Reverend Steven Manders and their church council for the warm welcome and generosity with which they shared with us all the spaces for worship and other activities.

Starting in August 2021, at the request of believers in the Fife area, for whom the road to Edinburgh was too long, we opened a branch of our Church in the region, serving, in turn, at Crail, Anstruther and, finally, at Kirkcaldy, where we serve today (Viewforth Terrace, KY1 3BW).

At the same time, the priests of the Edinburgh Parish ensured missionary service in the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik, between 2015-2016 and 2022-2025, contributing to the establishment of the first Romanian parish in Iceland.

Future Plans

Of course, in the long run, we want to have our own church in the Scottish capital, functional both as a place of worship, pastoral care, catechesis, Sunday school for children, and as a social and cultural center of our community, in the spirit that we have tried so far to cultivate at Morningside. It is no exaggeration to imagine it as a future “home of Romanians” in Edinburgh. Maybe our generation still feels foreign and unaccustomed in this country, but certainly for our children, who were born and grow up here, this is already their country.

We know less, however, how we will achieve this, because our income and savings are those of a very small parish, but we leave this in the care of the Lord, and we seek to do our duty.

In September 2021 we launched the campaign “A community. A project. A future” and opened the “Deposit Church” account, restricted by law and intended exclusively for deposit donations for the purchase of the future church (so far we have raised almost 70,000 pounds). Account details and other information can be found on the “Donations” page of this site.