Fundamentul dogmatic și liturgic al noțiunii filantropiei creștine
The Dogmatic and Liturgical Foundation of the Notion of Christian Philanthropy

Summary/Abstract: Philanthropy has more and more the meaning of divine kindness towards people, that is, of God's love towards people, as Saint Paul teaches us, who writes: ‘...the kindness and love of people of our Savior God have been shown’ (cf. Titus 3,4), but also the more usual meaning, that of the man who loves people, of the good man - who out of Christian love helps his fellow men to save them from hardships, pains, dangers and even from death. In other words, ‘philanthropy’ is both the manifestation of God's perfect love for man, carried to the ultimate sacrifice and revealed by Jesus Christ, for the purpose of our divine salvation, and a form of human solidarity based on a religious doctrine with moral-factual application manifested by the mutual help of the fellow beings, by almsgiving, by diakonia. In the tribute year of the pastorate of the elderly in the Romanian Patriarchate, we aim to highlight in this study the purpose and importance of divine-human philanthropy as we find it in the practice, worship and teaching of the Church of the East, from its origins until today.

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