Sunday, February 16, with the blessing of His Eminence Irineu, the archbishop of Alba-Iulia, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian, served at Lupșa Monastery, Alba County. In the evening he participated in the Vigil Prayer and on Sunday in the Divine Liturgy, with the archimandrite Melchisedec Ungureanu and other hieromonks and hierodeacons from the monastery.

Speaking about the parable of the prodigal son he said:

This Sunday is the second of the Triodion and is part of the preparatory Sundays of the Holy and the Great Lent. It exemplifies very well the words of St. Ap. Paul: 'All things are lawful unto me, but not all are useful (1 Corinthians 6:12).' Not everything we find desirable and fast to accomplish is useful. The example of the prodigal son shows us that an unwise departure with what is due and the wasting of it in worldly things brings with it the loss of those things necessary for life. The alienation of the prodigal son from his father is in fact an ontological alienation and fall from his true relationship with him. Holy Scripture speaks of the fact that the son 'comes into himself' that means repenting, truly understanding what happened to him, that what brought him to this state was a falling away from himself and from the authentic knowledge of his own person and vocation. The example of the prodigal son shows us that the sin of falling away from God has a remedy - repentance. And the Easter Lent is one of those which particularly accentuates the need for repentance for man in his path of inner healing and of encountering God.

The Hierarch of Canada also mentioned the double consequence of sin:

In committing sin man is wrong both against God and his neighbor. The parable also speaks of the son's understanding that his departure from the father and his sinful life ontologically affects his relationship with the father. The son loses in his conscience the confidence and the trust that he can still be counted in the same way as close and familiar to the one to whom he had squandered his possessions. The story of the prodigal son is the story of the first human persons. The deceit caused by the evil and the eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is in fact a waste of what God has put at their disposal every moment. The deceit born by lying leads man to the believe that he can become someone other than what he is through God's creative act. He goes out of his natural state into an unnatural, outward and lusty pursuit that scatter and exhaust him.

In the case of the prodigal son, the father restores him in the same relationship they had in the beginning. The same is true in human history. Through the Church God restores man to the way the Creator designed for him. Man live again in anticipation and real the Paradise in the Divine Liturgy. The Holy Sacraments and the other religious services reshape man and the world in the parameters according to which God created them. The world becomes the natural environment of human life.

Today's parable shows us that every sin affects man in the depths of his being and relationships. But it also shows that there is a solution to this - repentance. Repentence is the medicine against the sin. It is the remedy that allows God to cloth man with the grace of filial dignity bestowed in the beginning and restored through Christ again. Through Baptism, Chrismation and the Holy Communion in the Divine Liturgy man is restored in the same ontological connection with God as the first man before sin. His nature is renewed by the power of the grace of the resurrection of Christ. He moves under the breath of the Holy Spirit, nourishing himself with the spiritual food. Ontologically, through Ordination, man becomes a real minister and priest of creation. Ontologically, the authentic and unique connection as family is restored in the Sacrament of Marriage, which lays the foundation of the relationship between man and woman in the light of the divine design. In the Sacrament of the Confession of sins, the man discharged from the burden of evil, is renewed in the consciousness of being accepted again in a trusty and pure intimacy and dialogue with God. And in the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick man is given a special grace for the healing of his wounds and of the traces of his sins and insufficiencies.

The resurrection signified in the parable by returning home becomes resurrection by returning to living in the atmosphere of God's holiness according to the rationality He placed in the world and in man. Man no longer lives in the imagination, in the ignorance and in the falsehood, but in the divine light of the resurrection which illuminates and clarifies all. And this is expressed by the joy of the divine banquet of the sonship.

At the end, archimandrite Melchisedec thanked the hierarch of Canada for the visit.