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Română The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, on June 11, 1973, elevated Bishop Victorin to the rank of Archbishop. Consequently, the Annual Congress of the Romanian Orthodox Missionary Episcopate in America and Canada, held on July 21, 1973 in Edmonton-Boian, Alberta, decided to change the title of the Diocese from “Episcopate” to “Archdiocese.” The decision was approved by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church on December 12, 1974, renewing at the same time the status of the Diocese as an “Autonomous Archdiocese.”
Following the death of Archbishop Victorin (July 16, 2001), the Electoral Congress of the Archdiocese, held at Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church of Troy, Michigan on March 9, 2002, elected the V. Rev. Fr. Dr. Nicolae Condrea as the new Archbishop. The decission was approved by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church. At the conclusion of the 71st Annual Congress of our Archdiocese, on July 14, 2002, in St. John the Baptist Romanian Orthodox Church of Montreal, Quebec, Fr. Nicolae Condrea was ordained and installed as Archbishop Nicolae by His Beatitude Patriarch Teoctist of Romania, accompanied by a large number of Orthodox hierarchs from Romania, Western Europe and North America.
In 2002, the headquarters of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in America and Canada were moved to Chicago, Illinois. The website of the Archdiocese can be accessed at www.romarch.org.
Having been proposed by Archbishop Nicolae and approved by the Eparchial Council, Archimandrite Ioan Casian was elected on March 2, 2006 by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church as Vicar Bishop for the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in the Americas, with the name of Bishop Ioan Casian of Vicina. On July 2, 2006, he was ordained to the episcopate at Sts. Constantine and Helen Cathedral in Chicago.
The Archbishop and the Vicar Bishop are members of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, with deliberative vote in all matters concerning their jurisdiction.
The administration and legal decisions are made by the Church Congress, approved by the Archbishop and carried out by the Archdiocesan Council. The Church Congress consists of the clergy of the Archdiocese and two lay delegates from each parish under the canonical jurisdiction of the Archdiocese. On a local level, the Archbishop is in inter-communion with all the Orthodox Bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Churches in America and Canada, through the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), headed by the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America as Exarchas of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in America.
