Publishing House Mitropolia Olteniei, 2019, 395 p.
The collective volume of „Exegetical homilies on Sundays over the year” (395 p.) was published at the end of 2019 with the blessing of His Eminence Father Irineu, Archbishop of Craiova and Metropolitan of Oltenia, at Publishing House „Mitropolia Olteniei”, within the collection „Mission and Pastoral care”. Edited under the coordination of Fr. Senior Lecturer PhD Adrian Ivan, head of the Department of Homiletics-Catechesis at the Faculty of Theology in Craiova, brings together several thematic texts, in correlation with the Sunday liturgical topic of the Orthodox calendar.
The homiletical project was initiated within the Faculty of Theology from Craiova, each teacher actually participating with written texts, in predetermined order, every Sunday over the year. At the proposal of Fr. conf. univ. dr. Adrian Ivan, the coordinator of the paper, each homily was distributed in the form of a bundle in all the parishes within the Metropolitan Church of Oltenia. Thus, with the help of the archdioceses, each priest from Oltenia had the opportunity to consult a documented material for the Sunday homily. The same text reached the faithful at the same time, being displayed free of charge at every pangar of the churches in the Metropolitan Church of Oltenia. The speeches were thus well received by the whole parish community, passing the practical test of quality. The volume entitled „Exegetical homilies on Sundays over the year” is the de-facto accreditation of the catechetical project carried out in 2018-2019, under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Craiova, in collaboration with the Faculty of Theology in Craiova.
In the „Foreword” of the work, His Eminence Metropolitan Irineu brings to the present the missionary, catechetical and pastoral importance of the biblical exhortation „Go, teach all nations”. In this context, His Eminence Father mentions that „the priest understands that it is his duty not only to take care of the beautiful utterance of the sermon, but to be mindful if the teaching preached by the sermon is fulfilled in the lives of his parishioners and if they live in the light of learned. It is not proper for the priest to set aside the teaching for any other reason or to utter it in a hurry, but to heed the words of the Holy Apostles: «It is not right that we, leaving aside the word of God, should serve at tables! » (Acts 6: 2). To the priest’s effort to prepare for the sermon is added the love of his believers for the word of God, and thus he will live the joy of having fulfilled the mission entrusted to him by God. For these reasons, the present volume was born, a work that brings together in a liturgical order the Sunday homilies composed by the reverend professors at the Faculty of Theology in Craiova, under the coordination of the senior lecturer Adrian Ivan. This work can be considered the fruit of a longer pastoral-missionary project, carried out within the Archdiocese of Craiova by the Catechetical Office of the Diocesan Center. First printed in the pamphlet, these homilies were distributed to the parishes and enjoyed the appreciation of the priests and the faithful, who read them on Sundays and had the opportunity to reread them in their homes and in their free time. The Holy Tradition of our Church teaches us that the joy we have when we listen to the sermon on Sundays and holidays we must keep as much as possible in our souls and take it into our homes and in our lives, and the wisdom we gain to feed all the time” (p. 14). The cycle of exegetical homilies in the volume coordinated by Fr. Senior Lecturer PhD Adrian Ivan is opened with a note on the Great Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, signed by His Eminence Metropolitan Father Irineu and entitled: „The Resurrection of the Lord, the foundation of our faith and resurrection” (pp. 17-24). The order of the recorded homilies is given by the order of Sundays over the year, following the three liturgical cycles: Pentecostal, Octoih, Triodium. The authors are, as we mentioned above, the reverend professors at the Faculty of Theology in Craiova: Fr. PhD Adrian Ivan, Fr. PhD Nicolae Răzvan Stan, Fr. PhD Ioan Picu Ocoleanu, Fr. PhD Adrian Cristian Maziliţa, Fr. PhD Adrian Boldişor, Fr. PhD Ioniţă Apostolache, Fr. PhD Ion Resceanu, Fr. PhD Ion Sorin Bora, Fr. PhD Sergiu Popescu, Fr. PhD Constantin Băjău, Fr. PhD Lucian Bot.