Romanian cultural centre “BANATUL” Romanian orthodox church “St. John the Baptist”

We are a group of Romanians, which came almost 40 years ago from the wonderful ethnic region of Banat. Most of us came here, far away from our natal places, pushed away by the moral and material misery to which the communists, from both sides of the border (Romanian-Yugoslavian), did it.

Then, down the road, came other Romanians from Moldova, Transylvania, Muntenia, and Dobrogea, with the same ideas: preserving our traditional customs and beliefs. All of these Romanians understood that the only way to keep on open bridge with natal places and our ancient tradition is to be united under a sole flag: the Romanian flag through Christian orthodoxy and Romanian folklore.

Romanian cultural centre “BANATUL”

Romanian orthodox church “St. John the Baptist”

With huge financial efforts few hearty people gathered together and formed the Romanian Cultural Center "Banatul". They decided to buy a building, which had a double purpose: a church and a cultural center.

After a while they realized that the existing facility didn't meet the community’s needs, so, they started building another challenging enterprise.

They purchased a piece of land on Bleams Road, and poured the foundation for the existing church and hall. All of these things were done with huge financial efforts, only through generous donations from the Romanian community, and through cultural and commercial activities.

In the last years, in Romania the door opened to individual freedom, and democracy. Unfortunately along with this good change, it did open the Pandora box of corruption, rudeness, and gross subculture, to enumerate just a few of the negative phenomena, which destroyed the Romanian society.

These things forced many Romanians to look for another place to live, so most of them crossed the Atlantic and came into North America, especially to Canada. Here, in Kitchener, the Romanian community multiplied many times. Based on some estimates the Romanian local population reaches almost 10,000 people. This is an extraordinary thing, because the twin cites, Kitchener-Waterloo, population is just over 300,000 people.

Now, on each Sunday, our orthodox church, "St. John the Baptist", is crowded. From babies to the elderly, we gather to listen with interest to the Holy Liturgy conducted by the gifted Very Rev. Dumitru Ichim, who, for many years is the Shepard of the Romanian Orthodox parish in Kitchener- Wateloo.

We have also a great choir which enhances Holy Liturgy each Sunday.

The folk dance groups enchant us every time we have a cultural event. The senior group is lead by Georgel and Valentin Miloja, and the junior group by Mihaela Mihai. It is in our tradition on important occasions like Easter, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, to celebrate through Romanian folk dance.

Even though our children have difficulties in speaking a perfect Romanian language, their choreographic utterance is done on a pure Romanian language: the Romanian dance and customs.

The literary circle “The Mountain of Olive Trees” which took the name after the late Florica Batu-is holding regular meetings.

The soccer teams participates in local competitions.

All these things like many other activities, which we didn't mention here, describe in words that are too small to show the wealthy, spiritual, and cultural life of this tiny Romanian island located thousands of miles away from our natal homeland.