The Archbishop of York is to lead a pilgrimage to Romania next year. He talked to STEPHEN LEWIS about the tragedy and beauty of a country he has come to love during the last 35 years...

SOMETIMES, human needs can be heartrendingly basic. More basic even than the need for food, warmth and shelter. The Archbishop of York will never forget his first visit to an orphanage in Romania and the desperate need of children starved of affection simply to be touched.

"They clung to your legs, your arms, desperate to hold on to you," he says. "You would get half a dozen children trying to cling on to you, because they had been starved of any kind of human contact. I felt desperately sad for those children, for their well-being and human-ness."

Like the rest of the world, he had been appalled by the TV images beamed out from the orphanages after the fall of Ceausescu. Appalled at the institutional callousness and indifference that had allowed children to be starved of any love, affection or even simple human contact.

It was all the more harrowing for him, because Romania was a country he had known and loved since spending 18 months there as a young priest. The Romania he knew was a curious mix of the old and the repressive: beautiful, but impoverished, rural landscapes dominated by magnificent medieval architecture, the roads thronged with horses and carts; and once-beautiful cities scarred by monumental communist architecture and bureaucracy.

He was not allowed to visit the homes of ordinary Romanian people and had to be careful about to whom he spoke. But the people he did meet were unreservedly friendly and welcoming.

So, while he knew the Ceausescu regime was oppressive, he was not prepared for the horror of those TV images.

"I just could not believe what I was seeing," he says. "Those horrible, terrible places where these children had been kept. They were undernourished, diseased, many of them with terminal illnesses or deep-seated mental conditions.

"Some of them had only shared their early lives with rats and other children. Many of them couldn't even speak. The only noise they could make was the noise of rats."

Listening to him talk in his office at Bishopthorpe Palace it's hard not to be moved by the strength of his feeling. It comes as no surprise to learn he has sponsored two Romanian children. Not orphans, but children from Romania's persecuted Romany minority.

They live, he says, in a remote hilltop village in houses made of wood and mud brick - houses that are dark inside and heated only with a wooden stove. Their families eke out a living from a few goats and what they can grow on rough allotments.

Yet despite that, he insists - as is so often the case with those who have nothing - they remain remarkably welcoming.

Welcoming is a word he uses often about the Romanian people. And given the strength of his feelings for the country, it was inevitable that when he began to think about the destination for what could be his last pilgrimage as Archbishop of York, his mind should turn there.

He was a 27-year-old priest fresh from two years as a curate in Liverpool when he first arrived in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, in 1967. His aim was to study Eastern Orthodox Christianity. "I originally put in to go to Greece, but that didn't work out," he says.

Instead, he found himself serving as chaplain in a small Anglican church in Bucharest and living in a room in the house of an Orthodox priest, just as the Ceausescu regime was getting into its swing.

It was a shock at first, he says. "Food was very scarce - you lived basically on soup made out of vegetables with a thick layer of grease on top, dried bread and sweet tea - and the Securitate, the secret police, were everywhere. One in five of the male population were in uniform."

He was noticed wherever he went, and had to be careful about speaking to people. "Not for my sake, but for theirs." Travel was difficult, and when he was invited to spend Orthodox Easter with a family in their own home, he was deluged with bureaucracy and form-filling. But despite everything, he found himself warming to the people, who were enormously friendly. He even learned the language. "English was not spoken," he says.

That first time he lived and studied in the country for 18 months. A couple of years later, he returned with a friend on a fly-drive visit. It ended with them both being arrested in the town of Alba Iulia on suspicion of being spies.

"I was taking photos," he says. "There was an Orthodox church next to a Roman Catholic church. I thought this would make an interesting photo. Then I realised that not very far away was an army HQ."

As they walked off, he and his companion noticed they were being followed - and before long they had been arrested and taken to the local police station. It all turned out well enough, however. "I managed to persuade them with my bit of Romanian language that we were not up to any bad deeds!"

He didn't return to the country for almost 20 years, until after the fall of Ceausescu. But since then, he has been back a number of times. And, during the last ten years, he has seen a country that was once one of the most repressed and neglected in the world regaining its identity.

The cities are coming back to life and buildings damaged during the 1989 revolution have been restored. Great strides have also been taken in child care.

Orphanages - once massive institutions holding anything from 200 to 500 children - have been improved and, where possible, efforts are now made to identify "parents" who will look after as few as eight to ten children, he says.

But there are still too many children in orphanages and not enough money. "They are getting to grips with child protection. People are trying to do what they can, but the resources are limited."

Pilgrims who accompany him to Romania will not be visiting one of the orphanages - that would be too intrusive, he says - but they will have plenty of chance to experience the beauty of Romania's medieval architecture, and to worship in its glorious Orthodox churches. Highlights of the trip will be seeing the famous Painted Monasteries of Bukovina, the wooden churches of Maramures, and joining local Christians in Cluj, once the Hungarian capital of Transylvania, for Sunday Service.

The Archbishop says Romania is one of Europe's best kept secrets. "It's a country with a hugely attractive landscape and a hugely attractive people - fun, warm and welcoming - and it has had a great impact on my life," he says. "I would love to introduce it to other people."

Next year he will be doing just that.

- To find out more about the Archbishop of York's pilgrimage, from March 11 to March 20, call 020 8418 0234. The trip costs £869

Updated: 10:20 Tuesday, April 22, 2003