Our last day in Romania...
We spent the day visiting more churches, monasteries, and bookstores.
We first visited the monastery of St. Antim, who translated many of the Liturgical texts into Greek, Arabic, Romanian, other languages, and was first a slave, then freed, then made Metropolitan while also being a master woodworker. Amazing!
The monastery was beautiful. The tower at the monastery, as later explained by the monk who gave us a tour, was a meeting place for the movement of the Burning Bush, which truly continued to grow the Faith during many trials.
In the church, we came towards the end and soon all the priests moved into the back of the church where there was koliva (boiled wheat in remembrance of the dead) waiting to be blessed. Everyone moved to the back of the church and at some point I thought all the women were going closer to grab their own koliva but they grabbed the loaves of bread and koliva and held them up while everyone else came closer and put their hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. There were two girls in front of me, around my age, and at first I had no idea what was going on. Eventually I put my hand on the girls shoulder and felt a tingling in my fingers and hand... we were definitely all connected in ways we cannot explain, with the living and those who are in the next world.
There was an old woman next to me that would cross herself profusely. Eventually I noticed to my surprise that she had no fingers on that hand, just a thumb, but that didn't stop her from crossing herself and I wondered what her story was...
After church, one of the older women made sure that each of us got a bag of koliva and kissed many of our groups hands and hugged them. She was so full of humility and joy.
We visited many other churches (check out the pictures) and got to see the relics of St. Constantine who was beheaded with his sons for championing Orthodoxy. The church he built houses his relics and we got to see the epitaphio cloth that his wife wove in his memory. Amazing...
Here is the list of churches:
St. Spyridon - old church
Church Zlatari
St. George the New - St. Constantine's body is here
Stravropolios
St. Antoni
We took a mini sitting break over coffee and tea t hang out with the members of Oskor who has joined us for the day. It was fantastic (especially sitting down).
The last church we visited of St. Antonios was so beautiful. There I felt a sense of true Orthodoxy, while standing in line waiting to venerate the icons. There was I believe a Russian Byzantine chant CD playing and just watching the people waiting for church to start was eye opening. The peace was indescribable. What really impressed me was watching a young women around my age, go and stand in front of the icon of Christ for some time. In my mind I wondered what she was praying for, what struggles she was bringing in front of Christ, and I had a fleeting moment of full Truth that this is not just a Faith of empty words; there is full Personhood in Christ that can be experienced - this Faith is real - sometimes I definitely take this for granted and this was for me, in an indescribable way, a mini reawakening to the Truth.
Dinner was blessed with a visit and time spent with his Eminence Varlaam who is the viceroy and assitant to the Romanian Patriarch. Really cool as we shared about Orthodoxy in Romania, America, and during the Communist regime.
After we had our debrief of the week, where we were challenged to look back on the week and see what happened. We all agreed that in our lives back at home we want to strive to carry the fire and love that we saw in Father Tenasi, in Melanie and Mixhai, and the children of Pro Vita.
In the beginning of the week, Father Robert had challenged us ask God for something that we wanted to get out of the week. As many of us shared, it was amazing to see that all the things we asked God for were answered in some way. For me, my big question was "why am I even here in Romania?" followed by questions about upcoming life descisions and transferrring choices. And God truly answered my prayers and unknowns. They have not been fully answered, but were answered in a mysterious way that brought me peace and the knowledge that in due time all will come. Glory be to God!
We stayed up until 1 am, then some of us didn't sleep and others power napped until we had to leave at 3 am. :)
St. Constantine and his sons
His grave
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