Patrick Comerford
Some times church news from Ireland is a little late in reaching me here in north Buckinghamshire. But it was pleasant to hear in recent days that the former Church of Ireland parish church in Leeson Park, Dublin, has become the Romanian Orthodox Cathedral in Dublin.
The reopening of the church as the Romanian Orthodox Cathedral in Dublin coincided with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September 2025). On the previous evening, the Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Ireland and Iceland, Bishop Nectarie, with a large number of Romanian Orthodox priests in Ireland, celebrated the service of the Blessing of the Water, followed by Great Vespers in what was once Christ Church Leeson Park.
Christ Church Leeson Park was deconsecrated by the Church of Ireland six months ago (11 March 2025) after the Select Vestry decided to sell the building. At the final service of Evening Prayer in Christ Church, Leeson Park, Archbishop Michael Jackson encouraged the congregation to cherish memories of all that had happened in the church over 150 years. After the service he read the Act of Deconsecration.
Christ Church traced its origins to the Molyneux Asylum for the Female Blind, which moved from Peter Street to Leeson Park in the 1860s. The Molyneux Chapel was rebuilt and consecrated in 1868. The architect was James Rawson Carroll (1830-1911), whose other buildings include Saint John the Baptist Church, Clontarf (1860), Saint Philip and Saint James Church, Booterstown (extension and remodelling), Saint Mary’s Church, Athlone (chancel, 1869), Saint John’s Church, Abington, Co Limerick (1869), the Mageough Home, Rathmines (1871-1878), Classiebawn Castle, Co Sligo (for Lord Palmerston’s family, later the home of Lord Mountbatten), the Richmond Hospital (1899-1901), the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital (1902-1906), and various buildings in Ardagh village, Co Longford.
The Molyneaux Chapel was renamed Christ Church Leeson Park in 1873, and became a parish in 1892 and was united with Saint Bartholomew’s, Clyde Road, in 1972.
Christ Church was shared with the former congregation of Methodist Centenary Church from 1972 for some years, and the church was used at times for opening services at the Dublin and Glendalough diocesan synods.
Christ Church became a Romanian Orthodox Church in 2005, but the Church of Ireland had continued to use it for many years, including a mid-week Eucharist on Wednesdays. I was invited to preach there by both the Church of Ireland parish and the Methodist ministers, and after the changes about 20 years ago, I occasionally celebrated the mid-week Eucharist there.
When it became a Romanian parish church, I sometimes brought students and ordinands there from the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (CITI) to experience the beauty of the Orthodox liturgy.
My friend the late Father Godfrey O’Donnell, who died over five years ago [14 February 2020], was instrumental in establishing the first parish of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland in 2000, and later he was the first Orthodox churches priest to serve as President of the Irish Council of Churches (ICC), and co-chair of the Irish Inter-Church Meeting (2012-2014).
I was a guest at his ordination to the priesthood in the Orthodox Church in 2004, and while I was living in Dublin we continued to meet regularly, often at the same Church gatherings and ecumenical events. He was a frequent visitor to CITI when I was on the staff, and he was the first Orthodox priest to preach in the chapel. We were both students too at times at the summer courses in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS).
His work in establishing the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland and his service to the Romanian Orthodox community were recognised in 2013, when he was honoured with the accolade of ‘Stavrophore,’ the highest award given to married priests in the Romanian Orthodox Church.
But my connections with the Romanian Orthodox Church and Romania go further. I was visited Romania many times between 1991 and 2007, visiting Bucharest and places such as Brașov, Sinaia, Harman, Buzau, Urziceni and Harman.
At first, these visits were for family reasons. But I also worked there as a journalist with The Irish Times, and I subsequntly worked in partnership with parish churches in the Church of Ireland and the Romanian Orthodox Church on projects in Bucharest and Brașov, preached in the Anglican Church of the Resurrection in Bucharest, and was invited to take part in events in Romanian Orthodox churches.
The Romanian Orthodox community in Ireland had been using Christ Church, Leeson Park, under a licence agreement since 2005, and the decision by the Church of Ireland to put it on the market last February and to deconsecrate the church left a question mark hanging over the future of the building.
The Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Ireland said the purchase was made possible through a 10 million lei (€2 million) grant from the Roman Government Department for Romanians Abroad, donor contributions in Ireland and from abroad, a Go Fund Me campaign and fundraising efforts that were met with a generous response.
The Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Ireland and Iceland was established in February 2024, with headquarters in Dublin and Bishop Nectarie is its first bishop. He was elected in October 2024 and was enthroned in January 2025. Before that, he was an auxiliary bishop in the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Western Europe and a monk and abbot at Crasna Monastery in western Romania.
Bishop Nectarie presided at the services marking the formal opening of the new cathedral in Dublin on 13-14 September. In his address, he said the church had been the cradle of the Romanian Orthodox community in Dublin since 2005, and from it many other parishes have been established across Ireland. He emphasised that the cathedral will continue as a place of prayer, unity, and mission for all.
On Sunday 14 September, on the patronal Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Bishop Nectarie celebrated the Divine Liturgy with diocesan priests and deacons. In his sermon, he recalled Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, who said that ‘the bishop is the guardian of apostolic faith and the visible sign of Christ’s presence in the Church and in society.’
The Romanian Orthodox Church has seen significant growth in these islands in recent years, and official figures show there are more than 50,000 Romanians in Ireland and about 2,800 in Iceland.
Hundreds of Romanian and Irish people attended the celebrations, including representatives of the Romanian Embassy in Ireland. ‘This is not just a real estate acquisition, but a restoration of the sense of home for thousands of Romanians in Ireland,’ Father Călin Florea said.
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