Rev. Dumitrascu is pastor at Holy Trinity Romanian

The pastor is completing work on his doctorate.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Rev. John Dumitrascu is the new pastor at Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church, 626 Wick Ave.

Father Dumitrascu was born in Bucharest, Romania. Both his father and oldest brother are priests.

He studied at the Orthodox Seminary of Bucharest and graduated in 1997. He continued his education at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Orthodox Theology, studying pastoral theology. Father Dumitrascu graduated in 2001 with the licentiate paper: “New positions in the Orthodox and Roman-Catholic theology regarding the Christological aspect of the Holy Eucharist” at the Dogmatic Cathedra, Systematic Theology.

As a theologian, Father Dumitrascu traveled and chanted Byzantine religious and ecclesiastical hymns in Romania, Europe and United States. He promoted religious and cultural orthodox values with the Byzantine choral group, Stavropoleos, and the Forum Foundation.

During that time, he was assigned as cantor at Sts. Constantine and Helen Orthodox Church of Bucharest. He served there for seven years.

After graduation from the university, he worked for a short time for the Foreign Relations Department of the Romanian Patriarchate.

Father Dumitrascu moved to the United States in 2000. He started as one of the cantors of the Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church in Los Angeles. He took some medical classes at Santa Monica College and temporarily worked for University of California Los Angeles and Olympia Beverly Hills Medical Center.

Father Dumitrascu obtained a scholarship at Hellenic College-Holy Cross School of Theology in Boston. He graduated in the master of divinity program in May 2007 with special honors.

In addition to academic achievements, Father Dumitrascu has been involved with Orthodox Christian Fellowship and hospital/pastoral ministry. He helped to organize the Sunday School in Holy Archangels Orthodox Church, a Greek parish in Watertown of Boston. He was assigned part of his field education during graduate school.

In the summer of 2007, Father Dumitrascu and Emanuela Dinu, daughter of the Very Rev. Pompiliu Dinu, archpriest and protopresbyter at the third Deanery, Archdiocese of Bucharest. He also received the sacrament of priesthood and became a spiritual father through the blessing of his His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church.

His Eminence Archbishop Nathaniel of Detroit and of the Romanian Episcopate of America sent Father Dumitrascu to temporally serve as a priest in Florida in a mission parish.

Father Dumitrascu finished his doctoral school at the Dogmatic Cathedra, Systematic Theology Department, and is currently working on his doctorate thesis on the social implications of the Holy Sacraments in the church and in today’s society.

Father Dumitrascu, now a U.S. citizen, speaks fluent English, French, Romanian and some Greek.