Drepturile omului – responsabilitate pentru demnitate
Human rights – responsibility for dignity

Summary/Abstract: In his address, delivered in the opening of the Symposium, His Beatitude Daniel, The Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, presents the position of this Church, which is the majoritarian Church in Romania, in relation to human dignity and human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose adoption 60 years ago marks a crucial moment with the promotion of human dignity and the value of the human person, has a particular significance for the Orthodox Church. The right to life, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, the right to education, all are imperatives that vitally structure the social discourse of the Church, a discourse that articulates an ethical foundation of human rights on a truly theological anthropology. Centralization of the mission of the Church consists both in the protection of The Creation of the world, seen as “a gift from God”, and the acknowledgement or assertion of the dignity of the human being, created in God’s own image. Actually, the human person’s dignity is the keystone that mingles together the right to existence, the right to freedom and the community’s social rights, expressed, as a matter of fact, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights can not be dissociated from human duties or responsibilities. To society, the interdependence and the reciprocity between rights and duties are essential, and for this reason they are one of the most important priorities for contemporary society. However, to overcome the strain between the individual human rights and man’s social, communitarian duties, formal rights should be added the moral-spiritual dimension of human dignity. Since, within society, genuine spirituality is precisely the profound connection between freedom, love and responsibility in the relationship with God and with the human fellows, the Church defends human rights, but so does it defend the moral-spiritual values of the human community.

• Details
• Contents