December 12, 2024, Father Roman was born in Condrita, Bessarabia (Moldavia) on April 2, 1922, the last of seven children born to Cosma and Maria Braga. Raised by a devout Orthodox mother and in close proximity to the Monastery of Condrita, he grew up in an Orthodox Christian environment. During his formative years, he had the living example of his mother, who imprinted on her children the virtues of Christian life. He often recalled how his mother attended lengthy services at the monastery in his childhood and how sleepy and tired he would become, yet he always was at her side. These formative years laid the foundation for the strict discipline of his entire life that served him to the very last day of his life.
Under persecution from Romanian Communists, from 1959 until 1964, he spent time in various concentration camps in the Danube Delta. Under pressure from the West, he was released in 1964 after the Amnesty General decree freed all political prisoners in Romania. Later that year, he was ordained to the priesthood at the Episcopate of Oradea and, on January 1, 1965, installed as parish priest in a village in northern Romania, where he organized a 100-voice children’s choir, and a Sunday School. The authorities did not look favorably on his ministry, and two years later, he was transferred secretly to another parish. Being considered an “unwanted element” by the communist government, the Patriarchate subsequently sent him as a missionary to Brazil. In 1972, after four years of ministry in Sao Paulo, Brazil, he was invited by His Eminence, the late Archbishop Valerian [Trifa] of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America to relocate to the US, where for the next five years he translated Romanian liturgical music into English, pursued the development of religious education programs for children, and served on the committee that translated Romanian religious texts to English. He also served in many parishes across the US and Canada. On the Great Feast of the Annunciation in 2015, His Eminence, Archbishop Nathaniel, on behalf of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, presented the Order of Saint Romanos to Father Roman in recognition of his work in the field of liturgical music.
On April 28, 2015, Father Roman fell asleep in the Lord at the Monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Rives Junction, Michigan. May his soul dwell with the righteous, and may we have his blessing!
Learn More About Fr. Roman here
