On the fourth day of the World Congress of Syriac Studies and the International Conference on Christian Arabic Studies (Palace of Parliament, August 3rd – 7th, 2026), in the presence of Emeritus Professor Emil Constantinescu, President of the Levant Institute of Advanced Studies for the Culture of Peace, and of His Holiness, Mar Awa III, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, the 400 participants from 33 countries and 176 renowned global universities were treated to a moving evening at the Saint Thecla Complex – an impressive religious, social and community complex finalized only this spring in Bucharest.
Dedicated to Saint Thecla, the first female martyr in the Orthodox calendar and one of the most revered figures of early Christianity, the St Thecla Complex is comprised of a large church, three chapels, a library, an amphitheatre, conference rooms, dozens of monastic cells, and facilities for students and elderly people in financial distress.
Father Iulian Grobnicu spoke to the attending participants about the construction of this space of overwhelming spiritual significance, with details reminiscent of a church from the early centuries of Christianity.
The idea of building this sanctuary first came to Adrian Ciorobea, who heads the St Tecla Foundation, following a pilgrimage to Maaloula in Syria, a site of exceptional cultural significance where a dialect representing one of the last living forms of the language spoken by Jesus Christ himself is still spoken today.
The monastery in Maaloula, an important monastic centre since the 4th century CE, was built around the cave in which Saint Thecla found shelter – which is also the site of her tomb, venerated not only by Christians but also by many Syrian Muslims. In September 2013, Maaloula was occupied by Jihadist groups; the monastery was looted and damaged, and Mother Superior Pelaghia alongside 12 other nuns were abducted and only released three months later following a prisoner exchange. Accounts of their suffering, as well as that of Christians in Syria during the civil war, reached Bucharest through Sister Iustina and Nisreen Alhaddad, who were invited by the Director-general of the Levant Institute of Advanced Studies for the Culture of Peace, Dr. Cătălin-Ștefan Popa, to the World Congress of Syriac Studies and the International Conference of Christian Arab Studies.
The Monastery of St Thecla in Maaloula is one of the most powerful symbols not only of the resilience of Christians in the Middle East, but also of the heritage that the Syriac and Antiochian communities are striving to preserve. The St Thecla Complex erected in Bucharest is both a tribute and a symbol of solidarity and continuity with this ancestral tradition.
The rich cultural heritage of the Christian East, and Romania's role as a meeting point between East and West, were highlighted by the Syriac hymns sung by a group of participants to the World Congress of Syriac Studies, but also by the Byzantine and old Romanian music performed by the Tronos Psaltic Group of the Patriarchal Cathedral, and the Moldavian-Wallachian courtly pieces performed by the 'Dimitrie Cantemir' Ensemble of the Bucharest National University of Music.
