Moldova Pilgrimage, Part 5

A statue of Mother Safta Brâncoveanu in front of the main Church in the Văratec women's monastery. 

Click here for Part 1.

Click here for Part 2.

Click here for Part 3.

Click here for Part 4.

On Thursday, August 18th, we packed all of our stuff back into the van, because we would be heading back to Moldova before the day was over, but we had two more stops planned in Romania first.

We went to the Văratec Monastery first. It was founded under the guidance St. Paisius Velichkovsky, and was associated with the Agapia women's monastery which is nearby. Agapia is much larger.

The interior of the main Church in the Văratec Monastery

One interesting icon I noticed was this one, which was on the western wall, and part of the icons depicting the last judgment:

I can't make out the inscription, which was small, not clear, and probably in Romanian, but it was very similar to an icon I saw at the Old Rite parish in Erie, Pennsylvania, which had an English inscription. Assuming these two icons are modeled on the same original, the inscription on the scroll held by the angel says something like "Because of your fornication you are denied entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, but because of your charity, you are spared the torments of hell." I have never seen an icon like this elsewhere, but would be interested in learning more about it, if anyone has more information.

Next we went to the Agapia women's monastery. It was impressive because of its size and the number of nuns I saw there. Iryna Teodoreanu, who lives in Houston, but has many friends who are nuns in the monastery made sure we were given a tour. 

Agapia

There is a very impressive museum that we were guided through by Nun Nicoleta, who speaks English very well. We had a lot of very interesting discussions as well, but I noticed my phone was vibrating, and then saw that Constantine had sent me several messages saying that Elena wasn't feeling well, and that we needed to leave. So unfortunately, we had to cut our visit short. Elena was very pregnant by this time, but up until now had been able to keep up with all the walking without any signs of it being a problem, but we quickly started making our way back to where the van was parked. After she had a chance to rest, and drink some water, she was feeling better, but we thought it was probably a good idea to start heading back to Moldova.

Crossing the border back into Moldova was less of an adventure than was our crossing the border into Romania. We wanted to make it back to Sălcuța in time to celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration on the Old Calendar (keep in mind, Romania is on the New Calendar, Moldova is on the Old). We made it back home, but I don't think we made it back in time to attend the evening service. 

On Friday morning I was taken to Church early, so I could attend Matins, before the hours and Liturgy. When we arrived I noticed Fr. Nikolai was talking with another priest. It turned out there were a group of pilgrims from Kiev, who had gone to Bulgaria, but their van had broken down, and Fr. Andrey was hoping to serve the Liturgy there. I noticed Fr. Nikolai had him show his paperwork, and I think this was to make sure that he was a priest under Metropolitan Onouphry (the legitimate Ukrainian Orthodox Church), and not under Epiphoney, the head of the US sponsored schismatic Ukrainian Church.

Since Fr. Andrey was serving in Slavonic, I did all of my parts in English. This may have been the most international service this village parish had ever seen. Again, it was very hot in the Church, but we all survived. After the Liturgy, we all were invited to Fr. Nikolai's home for a festal meal. We also got to see Fr. Sergei's home, which was very close by. We had conversations going on in Russian, Romanian, and English, with various people translating to help the non-trilingual people. Before we left, we took some pictures. 

From left to right: Fr. Nikolai, Constantine, Fr. Gregory, myself, Fabi, my wife, Matushka Margareta, Elena, Fr. Sergei, and I believe that is one of Fr. Sergei's daughters.

After we got back from what was a truly wonderful afternoon, we needed to get ready to head out to visit another of Elena's aunts and uncles, Pelaghia and John, in Cantemir, which is close to the border with Romania, but a bit south of where we had crossed back and forth previously. Elena was doing the driving, and we were going a bit faster than usual to try to make it there by a reasonable hour. We were going up and down hills, and rounding corners this way and that, such that by the time we got there, I was feeling more than a bit queasy. Uncle John is Moldovan, but was a veteran of the Soviet Army, and prefers to speak in Russian, and so we were again having a trilingual conversation, but a pleasant one. After breakfast the next morning, we headed back to Sălcuța for one final time. Loaded up all of our things, and said our goodbye's to Elena's family, and then headed to spend the night in Chișinău, so we could catch our flight early on Sunday morning. We did a reader service back in the apartment we stayed in, and got up early to do our final packing.

Constantine and I loaded the van with all the luggage, because we had too many bags to fit everyone and the luggage into the van, and so the plan was for Elena, my wife, and Fabi to catch an Uber to the airport. However, Elena discovered that she could not find an Uber driver on Sunday morning, and after much waiting and hoping, finally, she stopped a car with a young man and asked if he would give them a ride to the airport. He was a random stranger, but in this country that places such a high value on hospitality, she was not disappointed, even in the capital city.

Once at the airport, we had one final bit of drama when we were trying to board the flight. The agent for the airline asked Elena if she had a new doctor's letter stating she was able to fly in her advanced state of pregnancy. She didn't have such a letter, because we obviously had not been back to Houston, but they said the previous letter was no longer valid. However, this time the agent helped her out, and just suggested she might want to wear a jacket that would make it less obvious how far along she was, so that she didn't get any hassles when we had to catch our connecting flight in Istanbul. When we got to Istanbul, we found such a jacket, and had no further problems for the remainder of the trip.

I was looking forward to being able to visit the various churches and monasteries we visited, but I was not expecting to have this trip being a life changing event, but having a chance to see a largely agrarian Orthodox country up close really was a revelation. Even though Moldova is a relatively poor country, they are the richest country I have ever been in, when it comes to their faith, their culture, and the strength of their families. We have a lot we could learn from Moldova.

The following is a video of a talk I gave last September that reflects on what I learned from this trip.

Moldova Pilgrimage, Part 4

The Elder Cleopa

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Click here for Part 2.

Click here for Part 3.

On Tuesday, we went to the Sihăstria Secului Monastery, where the Elder Cleopa was a monk and later the abbot. 

I believe that it was on the way to this monastery that we passed a Soviet cemetery on the side of the road. At the center of this plot, there was a sizable stone marker with the hammer and sickle. I would imagine that these soldiers must have been killed in a battle in that area. But it was hard to imagine a war going on in this area now. I was also surprised that the cemetery seemed to be well maintained, and not vandalized, which I thought was impressive, given that Romania fought on the other side of that war. I can't find the source of the quote, but I believe it is a true saying: "Who but a coward makes war on a soldier after he is dead."

The Sihăstria monastery is the only one that we went to that had a sign that said not to take photos, and so we didn't. But I found this video on YouTube which gives you a good view of this beautiful monastery:

We made a point of going to this monastery first, because Elena knew that Fr. David Companik has a special veneration for Elder Cleopa, and so she hoped to find something there that she could give him as a gift. I figured that there were probably icons of him, without a halo (since he has not been formally glorified yet), and as a matter of fact they had them on sale in the monastery bookstore. We venerated Elder Cleopa's grave, and spent a good bit of time looking around the monastery, and then we went to the nearby Secu Monastery.

The above video gives a good overview of the monastery, although it was taken during the winter, and we were there in August. It is a beautiful monastery, but relatively small compared to the others in the area. I believe we had plans to see other monasteries that day, but I think my wife was feeling under the weather, and so we decided to go back to the hotel and take it easy for the rest of the day.

On Wednesday, we decided to first go to the Neamț Citadel, which overlooks the city of Târgu Neamț from Pleșu Hill.

It was a lot cooler there for mid-August than it would have been back home, but since we had to walk up the hill to get to the Citadel, we decided it would be best to do that before things warmed up. 

A short clip taken outside the Citadel. You can briefly see Elena. The music was not added to the video.

As I was walking across the bridge that leads into the Citadel, there were people coming out, and as Elena told me later, there was a boy who saw me and said "Wow, Mom! Look -- a priest!" But as I got closer he said, "Wait... is he a real priest? He has no belly, Mom!" When my wife heard the story, she immediately reminded me that this is why she makes me eat healthy food.

Matushka Patricia and me on our way out of the Citadel.

There was a guide in the Citadel who spoke English very well, and he told us that St. Stephen the Great had changed the direction of the entrance to the Citadel, so that you could only reach the entrance by going on the bridge which circled around, and prevented taking a battering ram, and getting any speed to break down the gate. This Citadel was never taken by force, but when the Turks conquered the area, they forced the Romanians to blow up the Citadel. What you see today is not the full Citadel that once was, but what could be reconstructed out of the lower levels.

After lunch, we went to the nearby Neamț Monastery, which is where St. Paisius Velichkovsky ended his days. For many years, St. Paisius was mentioned in the list of saints when the prayers of the Litia were done in ROCOR. His name was later removed, as other have been added, but his name stood out because we usually do not mention the surnames of saints in our prayers, and his name was a name that a non-Russian has a bit of trouble getting used to saying. Prior to this trip, I only knew that he had been on Mt. Athos, and had played an important role in the revival of Russian monasticism. I had no idea of the Romanian connection with St. Paisius, but it went back to the early days of his monastic life. The Prophet Elias Skete on Mt. Athos, where he was the Abbot, had both a Slavonic and Romanian choir, which alternated during the services. After leaving Mt. Athos, St. Paisius came to this area, and eventually to this monastery. And I suspect that it is largely due to him that there is such an impressive collection of monasteries in a relatively small area. He not only published the Philokalia in Slavonic, but he also had it published in Romanian.

The Main Church of the Monastery.

The walls inside the main Church of the monastery. Blacked with centuries of incense, and with some damage from having been burned on more than one occasion over its long history. This monastery is yet another monastery built by St. Stephen the Great.

The monastery courtyard.

A miraculous Icon of the Mother of God.

The relics of St. Paisius Velichkovsky

An Icon of St. Paisius at the Monastery, in which he is referred to as "St. Paisius of Neamț."

You can listen to a sermon I preached on the Sunday of All Saints of Russia, which focused on St. Paisius, and highlighted this Romanian connection: St. Paisius Velichkovsky. 

While in the main church, I struck up a conversation with a monk who spoke English very well, and who asked me where I was from. I told him, and introduced him to my wife. He asked where she was from, and I told him that she was from China. He then said "O, you searched very far for wife!" And I told him, that actually I met her in my high school gym class in Houston.

Nearby there is a seminary, and the seminary was a very new and beautiful Church, with vibrant icons inside and out.

There was one icon in the Church that I wasn't expecting to see:

I noticed in other Romanian Churches that there were often portraits of the founders of a Church on the back western wall. In one older church, there was a portrait of a King of Romania that I believe was actually a Roman Catholic. So this portrait of Patriarch Bartholomew is there, next to a similar portrait of the Patriarch of Romania who consecrated this Church together some years back.

To be continued...

Moldova Pilgrimage, Part 3

The St. Paraskeva Cathedral in Iași, Romania

Click here for Part 1.

Click here for Part 2.

On Sunday morning, August 14th, I arrived at the village church early enough to do the entrance prayers before Matins would begin. I noticed later that the resident clergy did the entrance prayers later, during the hours, but I am not used to doing Matins on Sunday morning. Following the service in Romanian was again difficult, but I generally had at least some idea of where we were. 

Even though the outside temperature was comfortable, the inside of the Church was certainly on the warm side. After I was fully vested, it was extremely hot. There was one window in the altar which was slightly cracked. At one point, Fr. Sergei (the younger brother) opened up the window more widely, and I could feel the faintest hint of a cross-flow, but not long after that, Fr. Nikolai (the older brother) put the window back as it was before. 

I wondered whether they would abbreviate Matins, or go straight from the Great Doxology to the beginning of the Liturgy (as Greeks typically do), but they did neither. They did the full canon at Matins, and after Matins, did the 1st, 3rd, and 6th Hours, followed by the Liturgy. During the Liturgy, I tried to do as much of the parts that I was supposed to do in Slavonic, because I figured the people were more likely to understand that, than to understand it in English. By the end of the Liturgy, I was soaking wet from the heat.

At the end of the Liturgy, Fr. Nikolai asked me to say a few words. I told them briefly about how I had discovered the Orthodox Faith, and that while they might not all realize it, they had inherited a great treasure. I also commented on what a beautiful and pious country that they had, and that they should fight to hang on to what they have. I said this with a sense of sadness, because while I hope that they do hang on to what they have, I know that the pull of western culture, if it has its way, will do everything it can to see that they do not. 

After the dismissal, we did the lesser blessing of the waters, which is appointed to be done on the feast of the Procession of the Cross. I was handed a candle with a bath towel. I had seen something similar when Elena has been the Godmother at baptisms in our parish (and she and Constantine have racked up a considerable number in the preceding year). At such baptisms, she made a point of giving each of those who are baptized a similar bath towel. I don't know if this is just a local custom, a Moldovan custom, or a more widely observed Romanian custom.

After the services, Fr. Nikolai invited us to his home for lunch. When I got there, I was happy to discover that he had air conditioning in his home. My wife had over heated during the service, and so went back to Elena's parents' home, to rest. I tried to entice her to come to Fr. Nikolai's with the promise of air conditioning, but it didn't work.

One again we were treated to a wonderful meal that consisted of locally grown food, and the family's own homemade wine. Fr. Nikolai's English was limited, but I was able to talk with him to some extent before his brother arrived. I noticed he had both Romanian books in his library, and found out that he went to seminary in Romania. When Fr. Sergei arrived, he translated the conversation, which then could get into more complex subjects.

Fr. Nikolai chided Elena a bit for not giving him more advanced notice of our visit. I found out later that he had made sure the whole choir was present for both the evening and morning services, since they had special guests. He also discussed what we should be sure to see while in Romania, after he found out that Romania was our next stop.

After a very enjoyable afternoon, we went back to Elena's parents' home to rest a bit, before we headed to Romania. The idea was to try to cross the border after midnight, in hopes that the traffic would be less, but it didn't quite work out as we hoped.

We drove on an international road, which for several stretches did not appear to have been maintained since the days when Moldova was part of the Soviet Union. We had to drive slow, and it was bit like driving on the surface of the Moon. As we approached the border crossing, the road was smooth, but it was only one lane in each direction, and there was a long line of trucks that for some reason was backed up for quite a distance. Following the lead of some cars in front of us, we began driving on the opposite lane, hoping to get past this line of trucks (because cars have a different line at the border), but what happened was that at some point cars coming in the opposite direction caused the line we were in to come to a complete stop, and because we were on a bridge, which railing on both sides, there was no way to pass, and no room to turn around.

For several hours, we were stuck. I never saw any law enforcement at any point during the entire affair, who made any attempt to unsnarl this problem. After a while several truck drivers got out of their vehicles, and began cursing at each other in Romanian, Russian, and Ukrainian. But ever so slowly, they began to direct different trucks and vehicles that could move, and somewhat like the movements of a Rubik's Cube, they gradually began to solve the puzzle. This involved trucks and cars up and down the road, moving as far as they possibly could, to make just enough room, for people to start turning around. And finally, we were moving, though in the opposite direction that we wanted to go. Once we were free of the traffic jam, we began asking people if there was a back road that we could take to the border crossing. We found out that there was. It was a somewhat rugged road, with many twists and turns, but we made it to the crossing, and at long last, we were able to begin the process of crossing the border.

The roads in Romania are consistently good. And sometime at around 4 in the morning, we made to Iași, Romania, and the three-star hotel there. It was a very nice hotel, except that the air conditioning wasn't quite up to standard. We slept in a bit, had breakfast there, and then went out to go to the main cathedral there, where the relics of St. Paraskeva (or "Petka," as the Serbs call her) are found. The Romanian Orthodox Church is on the New Calendar, and though we had just begun the Dormition Fast on the Old Calendar on Sunday, Monday, August 15th was already the end of the fast and the celebration of the Feast of the Dormition.

It was a beautiful day, and also a national holiday in Romania. The line to venerate the relics of St. Paraskeva was quite long, but well worth the wait. The Cathedral itself is beautiful. 

The interior of the St. Paraskeva Cathedral in Iași

The relics of St. Paraskeva.

One thing I have learned over my years as an Orthodox Christian, is that a saint that before was just one of many names becomes a saint that you feel a personal connection with, when you have visited their shrine, and venerated their relics.

A government building with a statue of one of the kings of Romania.

We visited a much older Church, which had these bells and this stone. The stone is in Romanian, but with Cyrillic letters, and has the ancient symbol of Moldova, which is the now extinct Aurochs.

As we walked around the city, I met the first beggars I encountered on this trip. They were gypsies, and I kept bumping into the. I had only some Moldovan change and some Russian rubles, and so gave them what I had. Constantine noticed that they had handlers who were keeping an eye on their work, and when they saw a hundred ruble note, they showed it to their handler, thinking it was worth a lot more than it actually was.

We decided not to stay another night in the hotel there, because of the air conditioning, and so went on to Târgu Neamț, which has a large number of monasteries nearby. When we arrived in the city, we parked in the center area, and were trying to figure out if we needed to pay for a parking meter. While we were focused on that there was a Gypsy girl who liked like she was about 6, further off there was an older Gypsy woman who was watching her, and she had what looked like a forced smile on her face. She approved Fabi, who had wandered off from the rest of us, and I am not sure what transpired between them, but once Constantine saw what was happening, he yelled for Fabi to come back to us, and she didn't respond. He ran over and grabbed her, and the Gypsies quickly disappeared. Constantine was convinced that this was an attempted kidnapping, and given the circumstances, that seemed likely. After that, we made sure Fabi was holding the hands of an adult whenever we were out in public. After that surreal experience, we had dinner in town, and then went looking for a hotel.

We turned to Google, to see what we could find, and went to the Pensiunea Eden, in Agapia, Romania. It is a small hotel with a restaurant. Before we decided to stay, we asked if we could look at the room, because we wanted to make sure the air conditioning really worked. The woman we were talking to thought we were odd for asking, but upon inspection, the air conditioning worked great. The food at the restaurant was also great, so we ended up making this our base of operations for the rest of our time in Romania.

To be continues...