Speaker Orban on Romanian-Greek relations: What united us - more important than what separated us

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Ludovic Orban, stated, referring to relations between Romania and Greece, that "always what united us was more important than what separated us."

"Always what united us was more important than what separated us. We are close not only geographically, but also culturally and historically, united through the past and through valuable traditions. (...) Modern Christian culture, a 'Byzantium after Byzantium', of which our great Nicolae Iorga spoke of, we built it here, together, and we consider it inseparable from Romanian traditions," Orban said, at the exhibition "Greek personalities that played a role in Romanians' history, from antiquity to present time."

He expressed satisfaction for the hosting by Parliament of an exhibition dedicated to the Greek fight for independence.

"I believe it is symbolic and moving the fact that an institution at the heart of modern democracies, Parliament, can honor in this way the independence of the nation inheriting the old Greeks from which an entire world learned the word democracy. It's not by chance that pan-Hellenism was such a powerful reality in the political culture of the 17th and 19th centuries. We can say it was one of the first manifestations of a common European political culture, coagulated around the cause of a people who have given us the democratic line, the political cornerstone of Europe today," Ludovic Orban said.

The exhibition "Greek personalities that played a role in Romanians' history, from antiquity to present time.", dedicated to the marking of 200 years since the start of the Greek Revolution was set up at the Parliament, upon the initiative of the NOSTOS Cultural Association of Greeks in Romania, under the banner of the Greek Embassy in Bucharest and the Greek Union in Romania.

In creating the exhibition, the following have collaborated: the Greek Union in Romania, the Greek-Romanian Bilateral Chamber of Commerce, the Department for neo-Greek studies of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Bucharest, the Greek Cultural Foundation, the ATENA Greek School of Bucharest, the Association of Friends of the Greek Church in Bucharest, the Arcadia Cultural Association, the Protagoras Cultural Association and the Office of the Greek Organization for Tourism, agerpres report.