5000 Lei 2000 Years of Christianity

Romania issued this piece as part of a broader millennial commemorative program, with the National Bank releasing both gold and silver variants to mark the Jubilee Year declared by Pope John Paul II. The gold strikes were produced in extremely limited quantities and sold directly through the bank rather than entering general circulation. Romania's relationship with Christianity traces formally to the 4th century, when the Daco-Roman population within the former province of Dacia was already absorbing the faith through contact with the broader Roman world — a point Romanian historians have long used to argue the faith arrived here earlier than in many neighboring Slavic regions.