As you know, I am city girl, and I am used to seeing a lot of diversity in a very big place. However, it is incredible to arrive in a much smaller place and find so much diversity. There are three churches of three different confessions in Sacueni. I did not want to miss the opportunity to write an article about religious diversity in Sacueni. For this reason I decided to meet with the three priests and ask them about their vocation, the funtioning of their churches and how the Covid situation has affected to the normal life of the community.
The catholic priest, Kuglis Gábor, was born in Marghita in 1978. He grew up in a religious family. Since a very young age he went to the church to help. He wanted to help the people, so he wanted to be a priest or a teacher. At 8th grade, the teacher asked what they wanted to be in the future, in that momento he knew that what he wanted to be without thinking was a priest. He wanted to be closer to God. He went to the Elementary School in Oradea. When he finished High School he went to the Teology University, he was sent to Budapest for 6 years, he studied there. After he finished in 2003 he became a priest.
Jenô Rákosi, the reformed priest, decided that he wanted to be a priest when he was 12 years old. He was born in a reformed family, he was always in the church. He had this feeling when he was 12 years oldl like a calling. He went to the Reformed School and later to the Cluj University. He is a priest since November 2011, 9 years now.
Vlad Suteu is the orthodox priest, he is the youngest one, he is only 26 years old. I asked him why he decided to be a priest, the first reason was that he wanted to serve God and serve the other people. He wanted to be a guide. “A priest is someone who is with you ypur whole life, in happiness and in sadness”. When he finish High School he went to the Teology University, and then he became a priest.
I wanted to know about the activities the different churches are offering to the community. In the Catholic church the main activity is the Holy Mass, they also have prayer gathering, baptisms and weddings, prays to a saint, workships and adorations. Not in the church but in another places, the Catholic church offers Bible lessons for adults, preparation for the First Comunion for kids. There is also a choir teenagers and every Summer they have a one week camp.
The Reformed church had the Bible hour club, catechesis, Bible lessons for children an two choirs. They also have a kindergarten, not only for reformed children but for everybody. Until last year they had a place for Roma kids to have lunch after school, 18 Roma kids went to the building went to the building to have lunch and to do homework and studying. This was until last December, the Church gave this building to make a school for 0 grade. Another contribution is that 20 poor families get food from the church everyday in Winter.
The Orthodox church also have a lot of activities to help the community. Baptisms, marriages, confessions, praying for sick people and spiritual conceiling at any time of the day. They have workships, help before Christmas with money and food, celebrations with kids in Christmas time. They have a building for the kids to have some activities (watch a movie, play monopoly, etc), this buildind is for everyone, they don’t care if the kid is orthodox or not.
The Covid situation has affected very hard to the three churches, Everything was postponed, not many people in the church and the services are online. The Reformed church is not allowed to do the Bible lessons or to heve the choir, they are not visiting people either. Fort he orthodox priest, the Covid situation was specially hard: “The Covid situation is really bad, with the lockdown everythin has to be online. It was my first workship on Easter. Usually there are 300 or mor peole in the church on Easter, this year we had a live on Facebook, it was my first Easter as a priest ans I was really sad because of that”.
The three churches want to improve the community. The all accepted everybody no matter their religión and all their activities are helping the community. Vlad Suteu, the orthodox priest is specially interested in the young people because “they are the future”.
All of them are so implicated with the city and want the best for the people. For them, the community is a family.