Tag: Christianity

Pope Francis has “relieved” Bishop Joseph E. Strickland from the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, the Holy See Press Office announced Nov. 11. Simultaneously, Francis has appointed Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin, as apostolic administrator to oversee the diocese until a new bishop is appointed.

No reason was given for Bishop Strickland’s removal. However, the pope’s decision followed nearly two weeks after Bishop Strickland addressed a gathering in Rome, where he read a letter attributed to a “dear friend” accusing Pope Francis of having “pushed aside the true pope,” a reference to the late Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston released a public statement on the bishop’s removal Nov. 11. The cardinal said that after the apostolic visitation of the Tyler Diocese took place — which he described as “an exhaustive inquiry into all aspects of the governance and leadership of the Diocese of Tyler by its Ordinary” — it was recommended “the continuation in office of Bishop Strickland was not feasible.”

“After months of careful consideration by the Dicastery for Bishops and the Holy Father, the decision was reached that the resignation of Bishop Strickland should be requested,” Cardinal DiNardo said in his statement. “Having been presented with that request on November 9, 2023, Bishop Strickland declined to resign from office. Thereafter, on November 11, 2023, the Holy Father removed Bishop Strickland from the Office of Bishop of Tyler.”

“Let us keep Bishop Strickland, the clergy and faithful of the Diocese of Tyler, and Bishop Vasquez in our prayers,” Cardinal DiNardo concluded.

OSV News was told by Diocese of Tyler communications director Elizabeth Slaten that Bishop Strickland is “not available for comment at this time.”

The move comes after monthslong speculation Bishop Strickland may be ousted from his diocese. While his supporters have called him a staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy, Bishop Strickland increasingly vocalized public criticism of Pope Francis that ventured into accusing him of betraying his office.

On social media, Bishop Strickland accused the pope of “undermining the deposit of faith.”

From Sept. 5 to Oct. 17, Bishop Strickland published seven pastoral letters treating the nature of the church and of humanity, the Eucharist, matrimony and holy orders, human love in the divine plan, the error of universalism, and urged faithful in his final pastoral letter to “lift high the cross.” The series of pastoral letters, however, were seen in opposition to the Synod of Bishops that Pope Francis had called to discuss synodality in the Catholic Church along the themes of “communion, participation and mission.”

However, at the Oct. 31 Rome Life Forum sponsored by LifeSiteNews, Bishop Strickland gave a 46-minute address, which included him reading at length from a letter he attributed to a “dear friend.” This letter accused Pope Francis of being “an expert at producing cowards by preaching dialogue and openness in a welcoming spirit and by highlighting always his own authority.”

The bishop continued reading the letter (addressed to him) which went on to outright accuse Pope Francis of not being the true pope: “Would you now allow this one who has pushed aside the true Pope and has attempted to sit on a chair that is not his define what the church is to be?”

Bishop Strickland said the words were “challenging” but did not dispute the allegations.

At a later point, Bishop Strickland himself said, “One of the most frustrating things coming out of the Vatican, and it’s supported at least by Pope Francis, is the attack on the sacred.”

Bishop Strickland has ministered in the northeast Texas diocese since its founding in 1987 and led the diocese since his ordination as bishop in 2012.

Bishop Strickland did not mention his removal when posting to social media, but on Nov. 11 posted a message on X urging followers to “rejoice always that…no matter what the day brings Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, yesterday, today and forever.”

St. Martin of Tours was born around the year 316, in modern-day Hungary. His father, a military official of the Roman Empire, moved the family to Italy to serve the army there. Although his parents were pagans, Martin felt called to the Catholic faith. He received religious instruction when he was 10, and considered becoming a hermit. 

However, by the time he was 15, Martin found himself forced to join the Roman army. At the time, he was unable to receive baptism. Martin lived humbly in the military, giving away most of his pay to the poor. 

One day, Martin encountered a man freezing, without warm clothes, near a gate at the city of Amiens in Gaul. As the soldiers passed by, Martin stopped at cut his cloak in two pieces with his sword. He gave one half to the beggar. That night, Martin saw Christ in a dream, wearing the half-cloak he had given to the poor man. Christ said, “Martin, a catechumen, has clothed me with this garment.” 

Martin knew it was time to join the Church, and was baptized. He remained in the army for two more years, but finally asked permission to leave so he could dedicate his life to God. 

His officers accused him of cowardice, so Martin offered to stand before the enemy forces unarmed. “In the name of the Lord Jesus, and protected not by a helmet and buckler, but by the sign of the cross, I will thrust myself into the thickest squadrons of the enemy without fear,” he said. However, the enemy Germans sought peace, and Martin was free to leave. 

After leaving the army and living as a civilian, Martin met Bishop Hilary of Poitiers. The bishop was impressed by Martin’s faith, and asked him to return to Poitiers after a trip home to see his parents. During this trip, Martin was able to convince his mother to join the Church. 

While Martin was away, Hilary provoked the Arians, and was banished, so Martin could not return to his diocese. Instead, Martin spent some time living in severe asceticism. He and Hilary were reunited in 360, when the banishment period had ended. 

Hilary gave Martin a piece of land to build what may have been the first monastery in Gaul. Martin lived as a monk for a decade, and was known for raising two people from the dead through his prayers. He was eventually appointed as the third bishop of Tours, despite not wanting the position. 

As bishop, Martin lived simply, dressing plainly and owning nothing. He traveled throughout his diocese, driving out pagan practices. He helped all his parishioners with their moral, intellectual, and spiritual problems, and helped many lay people discover their callings to consecrated life. 

Martin foresaw his own death, but when he fell ill for the last time, he was uncertain about leaving his people. He prayed, “Lord, if I am still necessary to thy people, I refuse no labor. Thy holy will be done.” For many nights, he did not sleep, simply praying throughout the night. 

Shortly before he died in November 397, Martin told his followers, “Allow me, my brethren, to look rather towards heaven than upon the earth, that my soul may be directed to take its flight to the Lord to whom it is going.” 

St. Martin de Tours is one of the most beloved saints in the history of Europe.

Invisible Ascetics of the Bukovina MountainsThe tradition of eremitic life in Romania has never been interrupted: it is still alive, and monks continue to struggle in gorges and precipices.

“>Part 1

Brother Ioan and Nun Serafima, who came from Russia. 2012     

Hermits and hermitesses

I always think how fortunate this gentle man is to see these glorious anchorites of the angelic life! What a great treasure he must have acquired from them! Even worthy monastic monks say to him with genuine admiration:

“You have been given much, Brother Ioan, but you will receive even more in eternity for such blessing!”

And he just laughs in response. Now at sixty-five he has a perfect health and is as physically strong as three men of his age; and he has nothing to lose. He can carry bags of breadcrumbs around the mountains for many years and doesn’t at all consider it work. What will happen when he can’t do it anymore? Well, it won’t be the end of the world and there will be someone instead of him. He doesn’t do anything special—he just carries things.

It’s amazing how naturally he talks about his neighbors in the mountains, as if they had come out of a Patericon. They live right here, two steps away from him, and struggle in the open air, in the cold, in accordance with all the ancient strict rules of ascetic life. Looking at Ioan in his little house in the mountains, you are carried back to the early days of the Egyptian deserts. Indeed, these two nearby mountains, which he knows like the back of his hand, are a living Patericon today.

He showed me through the window of the little house, through a blizzard, some dots in the mountains, the directions by which he walked to hermits:

“There are two monks there, and there are three more hesychasts by the Red Stone, at the Lady’s Stones, in Slatioara, in the old forests. Calinic, Zosima’s disciple, struggles close to the Bison Stone, and an eighty-six-year-old monk still lives there, underground, wrapped in a sheepskin coat, without fire, without bare necessities. He is very thin: skin and bone and spirit. What does he do there? He prays. These people feed on prayer—their feelings are atrophied, and they somehow manage to pass beyond this realm, where they no longer need water and food.

“This hermit did not even allow me to look at his underground cell, where he sleeps and prays. He is known in monasteries, but few have spoken to him and few know his name. They say that some are even unable to see him, and that such schemamonks have the ability to come and pray in mountain monasteries, and no one sees them there. They walk among people and the monastery brethren, but they don’t notice them. They stand at the Liturgy in church by the wall in the shade, and no one sees that they are there.

“Yes, there are still such schemamonks today, who pray like a flame of fire, who never come down from the mountain but die there, and you don’t even know that they are dead. They are eternal.

“And there are even more nuns than monks. They are martyrs! I know five of them in the Rarau Mountains alone, at a great distance from one another. Women live their lives richly adorned with virtues. You can’t talk to them except on Wednesdays, for half an hour.

“There are many more of them in the Giumalau Mountains. These are hermitesses and recluses who retired there from large convents, such as Dragomirna, Neamt, Agapia, Vladimiresti-Galati, from Piatra Fantanele in Nasaud, and even the abbess of Pasarea Convent from Bucharest. And many, many others… Dozens and dozens of nuns; I know twenty-eight anchoresses well. Now, in December, I went there to an old nun to help her. It’s about nine miles from here—it takes me about an hour to get there. I learned from her that some new woman hesychasts had come…”

Right in the middle of our conversation the great spiritual father Archimandrite Justin (Parvu)Justin (Parvu), Archimandrite

“>Iustin (Parvu) from Petru Voda Monastery, his old friend, called him on a crackly phone. He said he would send him two nuns from Poiana Maicilor Convent, which is somewhere under Mount Ceahlau. One of them graduated from Medical School, the other from the Theology School—women who decided to become anchoresses here in the Rarau Mountains. From the day after tomorrow, Brother Ioan would give them shelter in his little house and start making dugouts for them.

​Poiana Maicilor Skete. Photo: Doxologia.ro     

An ascent to Paradise

I am gradually beginning to understand that it’s no coincidence that these anchorites who lead holy lives choose Ioan. First of all because he knows the mountains well. Besides, he lives there, among them, permanently. They have been watching him from their forest darkness for so many years, seeing his deeds, impeccable behavior and the joy with which he hurries to help everyone—saints and sinners alike. For fifteen years he has been struggling steadfastly in the “desert” without ceasing his obedient Christian life for a minute.

Once he lived in Jasi, spending more than half of his life in an apartment building—a time that he regards as his cross, which he had to bear. When in 1998 he wanted to renounce the world, his family gave their consent, but no one even believed that he would cope there alone.

“Do you really think that being a hermit is for everyone?” his wife, sons and friends told him.

He got off the train at the Pojorata village station and looked at the peaks—he was to climb up the mountain for seven hours to the site where he had decided to make himself a dugout. He was heading towards the peaks when a terrible storm hit him, with hail, rain and winds scratching his face, with fir trees uprooted and falling around him. Several times he said to himself, “I won’t be able to walk up! Had I better go back to the station and travel back to Jasi?” He had this temptation several times. But he didn’t go back.

Mountains in the vicinity of Pojorata village     

He lived three years in a monastery and five years in a dugout on Mount Giumalau. He didn’t particularly like the bustle of monastery life. But the years spent in the chilly solitude of his dugout in the mountains became, without any doubt, the happiest in his life, even the most sublime and divine ones! For 380 days he toiled, without straightening his back, on this cell, cutting it out of rock. Three-quarters deep into the ground, masked with a roof on which he piled earth and moss so that it would not be noticeable from whichever side you approach.

Inside he hung a piece of cardboard with his monastic rule and the ascetic rules of Sts. St. Basil the GreatIn many Greek homes, a special cake is baked on the eve of St. Basil’s Day (January 1st) with a gold or silver coin hidden inside. In the evening, just before midnight strikes and the new [calendar] year begins, all the lights are turned off for a minute to signify the dawning of a New Year. The family gaily exchanges wishes for ”A Happy New Year!” and the cake is cut: one slice for St. Basil, one for each family member, one for each of the pets, and then the largest slice of all is cut for the poor people of the world. In one of these slices is hidden the coin, which brings blessings to its recipient throughout the year.

“>Basil the Great and Venerable and God-bearing Father Anthony the GreatSaint Anthony the Great is known as the Father of monasticism.”>Anthony the Great on a nail on the wall. He began to live in purity and simplicity, as he had always wanted to.

In his first winter, even if he had wanted to return, he wouldn’t have been able to. He badly dislocated his leg in the forest, it was very swollen, and he could not walk. He stayed there alone for three months under snow. For the last two weeks he didn’t even have anything to eat, so he began to dig the ground, gnawing the roots of trees. Closer to spring, when monks from Pojorata saw him limping towards the monastery, they were staggered:

“How have you survived, good man?”

He was walking, shining with his smile, waiting for some food to be given to him and he would climb back up.

He said that in the following winters he felt neither need nor loneliness. He stayed in his dugout as if in another, Heavenly realm, the existence of which he had only suspected; but it had never been so accessible.

“I was above this world. I saw sights that enchant you with their beauty. I forgot about hunger and cold. These mountains are pure, perfect beauty. I knew all the animals that had become my neighbors: I looked through the window (covered with dust) of my dugout and saw roe deer, wild boars, wolves, a bear passed right next to my hut and a deer followed it. I was not afraid of anything: animals were my friends. And I was able to pray to God… with joy! Without any effort, without difficulty. I could embrace all the mountains! It was joy, which I had not experienced even as a child.”

A nameless nun

He learned true prayer from a woman—an anchoress who lived invisibly in the forests of Giumalau and was reputed to be “absolutely exceptional” by the surrounding monasteries. One day the abbot of Pojorata Monastery sent for Ioan to come down to them from his mountain.

“Brother Ioan, you know these mountains better than we monks do. We really need one nun—we want to see her so that she can tell us some words for the benefit of our souls, because times are very tough for monasteries now. She is nameless. Could you possibly go and look for her and tell her we’re calling her here?”

Bistrița River Valley in the Giumalau Mountains     

What could Ioan say? He said yes and did not object.

It was late autumn, the middle of the Nativity Fast. At the way out of the monastery, the father-confessor came up to him and said:

“If it is not the will of God, you won’t find this nun. Even if she’s very close to you, you may not see her anyway. And you should go and look for her while fasting and praying hard. May God bless you, for these hesychasts of unearthly life do not reveal themselves to everyone.”

He set off the same day. He thought he would find her quickly—in a few days at the most. Judging by his past journeys and the stories of other hesychasts whom he knew, he imagined in which part of the mountain she could dwell. He went on the same day… and searched for her for four years day in and day out, walking from one end of Giumalau to the other, peak after peak, hollow after hollow, cave after cave.

“It was my huge penance. I tore I don’t know how many pairs of shoes to shreds, but I kept walking despite rains, blizzards, fatigue and hunger… Through ravines, thickets and steep cliffs. I told myself that I was unworthy of it, that God ordained that I wouldn’t find her. But still, there were days when it seemed that I almost saw her—I sensed that she must be here, somewhere very close, that I should see her very soon.

“I don’t know how to explain it properly. It was as if I knew she was two steps away from me, but she always slipped away from me. Maybe she saw me all the time, all those years, too, but she didn’t want to appear to me. I don’t know. Maybe she was watching me, testing me to see if I could stand it, how much patience I had to walk around the mountains like crazy.

“Each time I returned to my dugout more tired and more depressed. At some point I was overcome by despondency. Despondency is a serious temptation. It was in early winter. It drizzled for three weeks and the fog was thick, the air was damp, so nothing could be seen two steps away. I was seized with such melancholy that I didn’t even know what to do, felt extremely uneasy and was going crazy. I circled around my dugout, finding excuses to do something—go and fetch firewood or cook food, but it didn’t seem to make sense.

“One evening, when I was standing outside in front of my dugout feeling utterly dejected, I suddenly heard a rustling in the bushes and saw a shadow moving there. I thought it was a bear or some other wild animal: who else could be on top of a mountain in such a fog and drizzling rain? I took a pick hammer. Then I saw the shadow stop at a fir tree. I looked closer: it was a woman, a nun! I made the sign of the cross. How could she get here? She was looking at me, and I was looking at her holding the pick hammer in my hands. I froze. After standing for a while, the nun came up to me and said:

“May God speed you.”

I asked her:

“Are you the nameless nun?”

She answered in a barely audible voice:

“No, I’m an ordinary poor nun who got lost here.”

But I knew everything in these mountains and couldn’t be fooled so easily. I proceeded:

“No, you can’t get lost: you have walked the path that no one knows in these mountains!”

Giumalau Mountain in winter     

Meanwhile, I kept thinking that it might be the devil who was disguised as a nun to tempt me. What else can you think when you see such a woman alone at night on top of a mountain? I had read in books about demons taking the form of women and nuns, about all sorts of ghosts… I even was a little scared. She had such a pale face and kept moving closer to me:

“Why are you moving back? Is there anything to be afraid of?” she uttered.

I was moving back towards my dugout. And even though I felt that she couldn’t do me any harm (I understood it deep in my heart), I was still scared. At the same time, I didn’t want her to leave and dared not say that I was afraid. Coming closer to me, the nun whispered:

“You have temptations, don’t you? You are feeling very bad here, poor thing…”

I dropped the pick hammer on the ground, or rather, it fell out of my hands. I froze as if paralyzed. I suddenly burst out sobbing. I bowed my head and stood in front of her, sobbing violently. I think I had never cried so much in my life, with so many tears. Maybe when I was a child—I don’t remember. The nun took me by the shoulders and led me quietly to the dugout:

“Let’s go to pray,” she said, just as my mother used to say it.

“I spent two years with her in the ‘desert’. She received me in her tiny dugout, tucked under a rock, which I had passed so many times before. There she began to tell me little by little about what prayer ‘with all your being’ means. It took me three or four hours to get to her, evening after evening, through the forest. I would come totally exhausted, sometimes just to look at her. Then I would walk back again, nine miles at night.

“She only stood in prayer in prostration. She didn’t sleep. It was as if she were absolutely separate from this world. And prayed… with tears. She wept in prayer there, in her ‘cave’, in the cold.

Ioan Baron. Photo: Doxologia.ro     

“I had never seen anything more impressive and sincere. Never be ashamed of your tears! Never!

“For four years I had looked for this holy nun. For four years! She’s still there,” and he pointed through the window at the peaks of Mount Giumalau, covered with snow.

Chicago, November 10, 2023

    

The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America resolved to canonize Blessed Matushka Olga at its session in Chicago this week.

Matushka Olga (†1979) has long been venerated in Alaska, throughout America, and abroad. She is remembered as a humble mother, midwife, and priest’s wife who was filled with love for everybody, and especially abused women.

There are many miracles attributed to her intercessions and protection, some of which can be read about in the articles, “Matushka Olga Michael: A Helper in Restoring the Work of God’s HandsWhile all of the canonized saints of North America have so far been men, over the past few years an Orthodox woman, native of North America, has slowly become known to more and more people, particularly other Orthodox women.

“>Matushka Olga Michael: A Helper in Restoring the Work of God’s Hands,” and “Will Blessed Olga Be The First Female Orthodox Saint Of North America?Orthodox Christians in North America and around the world already are venerating the Alaskan matriarch for her care and concern for abused women.”>Will Blessed Olga be the First Female Orthodox Saint of North America?”

With the Synod’s proclamation, she indeed becomes the first female Orthodox saint of North America. She will be celebrated annually on October 28/November 10, and on the feast of All Saints of America on the Second Sunday After Pentecost.

Read the Holy Synod’s proclamation of the glorification of the new St. Olga:

The Proclamation of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America on the Glorification of the Righteous Servant of God Matushka Olga

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

To the beloved Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America

God is wondrous in His Saints

November 8, 2023
Chicago, IL

The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America has heard the petition of The Right Reverend ALEXEI, Bishop of Sitka and Alaska, expressed in his November 2, 2023 letter to His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, concerning the glorification of the Servant of God, the Righteous Matushka Olga.

In this letter, His Grace Bishop ALEXEI states: “I am writing to Your Beatitude with respect to the departed handmaiden of God and faithful Orthodox Christian, Matushka Olga Nicholai of Kwethluk, known by the pious peoples of the Kuskokwim as Arrsamquq. Her humility, her generosity, her piety, her patience, and her selfless love for God and neighbor were well-known in the Kuskokwim villages during her earthly life. Her care for comforting the suffering and the grieving has also been revealed after her life by grace-filled manifestations to the faithful throughout not only Alaska, but all of North America. The first peoples of Alaska are convinced of her sanctity and the great efficacy of her prayers. For this reason, after prayerful consideration, I, Alexei, Bishop of Sitka and Alaska, am hereby making the formal request to Your Beatitude as the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America to begin the process that, if it be in accord with God’s will, would lead to her glorification.”

The Holy Synod, having prayerfully reflected upon this petition and having observed and acknowledged the sincere devotion among the faithful of Alaska and beyond, has unanimously determined that the time for the glorification of Matushka Olga has arrived, fulfilling the hopes and prayers of pious Orthodox Christians throughout Alaska and the entire world.

Matushka Olga on an icon with the Most Holy Theotokos and St. Eugene Botkin in a church in the center of Moscow

    

THEREFORE, meeting in Solemn Assembly in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Chicago, Illinois, under the Presidency of The Most Blessed TIKHON, Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada, We, the Members of The Holy Synod of The Orthodox Church in America, do hereby decide and decree that the ever-memorable Servant of God MATUSHKA OLGA be numbered among the saints. With one mind and one heart, we also resolve that her honorable remains be considered as holy relics; that a special service be composed in her honor; that her feast be celebrated on November 10 (October 28, old style) on the Feast of All Saints of North America, the Second Sunday after Pentecost; that holy icons be prepared to honor the newly-glorified saint in accordance with the Canons of the Sacred Ecumenical and Regional Councils; that her life be published for the edification of the Faithful, that the name of the new saint be communicated to the Primates of all Sister Churches for inclusion in their calendars; and that the date and location of the Rite of Glorification be communicated to the Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of our Church in due time.

FURTHER, we entrust to the Canonization Commission of The Orthodox Church in America, under the Chairmanship of The Most Reverend DANIEL, Archbishop of Chicago and the Midwest, with the honorable task of assisting The Right Reverend ALEXEI, Bishop of Sitka and Alaska, in preparing for the celebration of the glorification by providing an authorized Life of Matushka Olga for the education and edification of the Faithful, with overseeing the painting of holy icons of her, in keeping with the canonical iconographical tradition of the Church, with the composition of liturgical texts to be sung at the Divine Services in which she will be commemorated, and with assisting in the uncovering and recognition of her holy relics, and in promoting her veneration among all the Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of our Church.

We call upon the faithful to remember Matushka Olga at Memorial Services or Litanies for the Departed when appropriate until the day of her glorification.

Through the prayers of Matushka Olga and of all the Saints who have shone forth in North America, may the Lord grant His mercies and blessings to all who seek her heavenly intercession with faith and love. Amen.

Holy Mother Olga, pray to God for us!

Given at Holy Trinity Cathedral, this 8th day of November, in the Year of Our Lord, 2023.

PROCLAMATION OF THE HOLY SYNOD OF BISHOPS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN AMERICA ON THE GLORIFICATION OF THE RIGHTEOUS SERVANT OF GOD MATUSHKA OLGA

The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America.

+ TIKHON, Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada
+ NATHANIEL, Archbishop of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate
+ BENJAMIN, Archbishop of San Francisco and the West
+ MARK, Archbishop of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania
+ ALEJO, Archbishop of Mexico City and Mexico
+ MELCHISEDEK, Archbishop of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania
+ IRENEE, Archbishop of Ottawa and the Archdiocese of Canada
+ MICHAEL, Archbishop of New York and New Jersey
+ ALEXANDER, Archbishop of Dallas, the South and the Bulgarian Diocese
+ DANIEL, Archbishop of Chicago and the Midwest
+ ALEXEI, Bishop of Sitka and Alaska
+ NIKODHIM, Bishop of Boston and the Albanian Archdiocese

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Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, November 10, 2023

By Aleksandar Mladenovski

    

On Wednesday, November 8, when the Orthodox Church celebrates the feast of St. Demetrios the Great Martyr, a historic event occurred in Wollongong, Australia.

On its patronal feast, the Macedonian Orthodox parish of St. Demetrios witnessed the first concelebration between hierarchs from the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

His Eminence Metropolitan Timotej of Debar and Kičevo and administrator of the Macedonian Orthodox Diocese of Australia (Sydney), concelebrated the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy with His Grace Bishop George of Sydney, Australia, and New Zealand of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

Serving with the hierarchs were Fr. Nikola Hristoski, Abbot Gavril Galev, Fr. Naum Despotovski, Fr. Kliment Dzeparovski, Fr. Robert Ilijevski, and Deacon Nikolce Gjurgjinovski from the Macedonian Orthodox Church, and Fr. Ljupco Dvojakovski and Deacon Martin Naef from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

    

In a great act of love and to enrich the festal joy, His Grace Bishop George gifted the parish a portion of the holy relics of St. Demetrios the Great Martyr. In a grand festal manner as befits such occasions, the relics of St. Demetrios were received at the front of the church by His Eminence Metropolitan Timotej, joined by a multitude of faithful.

As a sign of deep gratitude, His Eminence Metropolitan Timotej gifted His Grace Bishop George with an episcopal Panagia, thanking him for this act of love and asking him to pray for the Macedonian Orthodox faithful. A hand-painted icon of St. George the Great Martyr was gifted to His Grace Bishop George by the president of the parish council, Mr. Lou Stefanovski. His Grace Bishop George gifted His Eminence Metropolitan Timotej a blessing cross, thanking him for the invitation to serve with him.

In an address to the faithful, His Grace Bishop George spoke of the personal significance of this feast day for him, as it was on the feast of St. Demetrios that he became an Orthodox Christian many years ago.

    

As it said in the Church, there is no coincidence, only providence. Let us thank God that we experienced this great festal joy to honor the martyrdom of the servant of Christ, St. Demetrios.

A local news outlet reported about the feast:

​

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Los Angeles, November 9, 2023

Photo: thedailybeast.com     

The former head of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America is suing the Archdiocese and several Board members a year after he stepped down amidst accusations that he had been romantically involved with a married (later divorced) woman for many years.

According to Metropolitan Joseph (Al-Zehlaoui), he has not been given the generous severance package he was promised.

Met. Joseph was enthroned as head of the Archdiocese in New Head of Antiochian Church in America Enthroned; Antiochian Patriarch to Meet with Officials on Issues in SyriaThe second largest Orthodox Christian Church in North America has a new leader, enthroned by the head of one of the oldest churches on earth.

“>December 2014, having already served as a bishop for more than two decades in Syria and the U.S.

In 2022, Helena Ditko revealed to Archdiocesan officials that she had been romantically involved with the Metropolitan from 2001 to 2017 (she was divorced in 2004), and that she could no longer remain silent. The accusations and investigation were leaked and published online, and the resulting scandal led to the Metropolitan’s retirement Metropolitan of Antiochian Archdiocese retires amidst moral claimsPatriarch John calls upon the Archdiocese to remain united in prayer.

“>last September.

Now, Met. Joseph alleges that the defendants Emile Sayegh (general counsel and Chancellor of the Board of Trustees), Fawaz El-Khoury (Vice Chairman of the Board), and Salim Abboud (CFO of the Board), have broken oral promises that they made concerning his severance package.

According to a civil court summons filed in Rockland County, New York, the Metropolitan says he was promised his existing salary for life, a vehicle, control of a discretionary fund (with a balance of $1.4 million at that time), health insurance for life, reimbursement for moving expenses, and continued funding of Sarah Ahmar, a disabled girl supported by Met. Joseph.

The former Archdiocesan head argues that the defendants’ promises are “evidenced by contemporaneous notes taken by Jasminka Gabrie, Metropolitan Joseph’s accountant, on September 8, 2022.” The document doesn’t specify whether Gabrie was physically present during the meetings.

The Metropolitan’s accountant is a professional art dealer and has owned and operated Galerie Gabrie for the past 27 years.

Regarding the discretionary fund, the document filed by Met. Joseph’s lawyer notes it was his to “handle, control, and disperse as he saw fit, as Metropolitan” (emphasis added). And though the Church put the account at his disposal due to his role as the ruling hierarch, the document argues that, “This account has never been in the rightful possession of the Orthodox Church” (emphasis added).

The document also argues that the defendants “have cruelly turned their back on him and his lifetime of serving the Orthodox Church, threatening him with eviction and refusing to provide any meaningful support to him in his retirement.”

Met. Joseph hopes to continue living at the Los Angeles chancery, though he also owns a home in Post Falls, Idaho, that is valued at nearly $1.7 million.

The hierarchs also alleges that it was the defendants who leaked information about the allegations against him online, which caused him to be painted as a “sexual predator”—“when of course he is not,” the court document reads.

Met. Joseph is seeking at least $5 million in compensatory damages, as well punitive damages and declaratory and injunctive relief.

In another context, Met. Joseph vigorously denounced the idea of a cleric or hierarch bringing legal action against the Church.

Before the scandal and his retirement, Met. Joseph was among the leading hierarchs from the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America who opposed the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s plans to consecrate Alexander Belya, a defrocked former priest of ROCOR, to the episcopacy.

In the bishops’ BREAKING: Bishops again implore Elpidophoros: don’t make Belya a bishop, our broken culture needs a unified ChurchGiven that Abp. Elpidophoros simply dismissed the hierarchs’ concerns about Belya as hearsay, this second letter goes into more detail. First, the hierarchs note that Belya was received into GOARCH after he had already been suspended by his former jurisdiction, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

“>second letter of protest to Archbishop Elpidophoros, signed by Met. Joseph, they specifically argued that Belya is unworthy of becoming a hierarch because, among other things, he has brought a civil lawsuit against ROCOR, “in direct violations of both Holy Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:1-8) and the Holy Canons (Canon 9 of the Council of Chalcedon and Canon 6 of the First Council of Constantinople). This fact alone should prevent him from becoming a bishop.”

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Miami, November 10, 2023

Photo: thehill.com     

The topic of the state persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was raised at least briefly in the third Republican Presidential debate held in Miami on Wednesday.

Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur with no previous political experience, emphasized that the Church is being persecuted with the support of U.S. taxpayer money.

His comments come just days after the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations Ukrainian propaganda group blatantly lies to U.S. audiences, claims there is no persecutionThe Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) sent a delegation to America on a propaganda tour last week. The group consisted of schismatics, Uniates, Jews, Muslims, and sectarians, but the canonical UOC, the largest confession in Ukraine, was not permitted to send a representative.

“>sent a delegation to America to spread propaganda to politicians and influential organizations about Ukraine as a beacon of religious freedom. The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church was not permitted to send a delegate with the group.

Asked by the debate moderator on Wednesday night whether he is “persuaded by President Zelensky’s new plea” for funding, Ramaswamy raised the issue of the persecuted Church:

I’m absolutely unpersuaded… And I’d like the likes of the sharpest war hawks on Ukraine, Nikki Haley, to have some accountability and answer, do you want to use U.S. taxpayer money to fund the banning of Christians? That is actually what’s happening. They’re using the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. They have banned them. The Ukrainian Parliament just did this last week, supported by our dollars. And I think you owe it to the American people, Nikki, to at least this one time at least condemn, at least to condemn their banning of Christians. Or else we’re talking out of both sides of our mouth here.

Watch his comments below:

​

Ramaswamy has raised the issue several times, including in a recent interview with Piers Morgan.

Another journalists, Tucker Carlson, also Truth about what’s happening to the Ukrainian Church is banned in the U.S., UOC lawyer tells Tucker Carlson (+VIDEO)“It is shocking to me that a country such as the United States, with strong Christian leadership—I thought—could allow this to go on,” Amsterdam says.

“>recently discussed the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer who is representing the UOC pro bono.

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Bancheny, Chernivtsi Province, Ukraine, November 10, 2023

Met. Longin comforts one of his adopted daughters who was frightened by the presence of the armed men. Photo: pravlife.org     

Security forces brandishing machine guns cordoned off a Ukrainian Orthodox monastery in western Ukraine yesterday, to check documents and people, allegedly part of “security” measures.

The officers arrived at the Holy Ascension Monastery in Bancheny, Chernivtsi Province yesterday morning, the Union of Orthodox Journalists reports.

According to a priest on the scene, the forces demanded to be let into the monastery to “check the monastery’s documents and identify the people who are there.” Video from the scene shows that the clergy and parishioners came to the monastery’s defense.

The monastery is run by His Eminence Metropolitan Longin, one of the most authoritative hierarchs of the UOC, who is also the adopted father to hundreds of orphans who are cared for at the monastery.

Photo: spzh.news     

Though officially recognized as a Hero of Ukraine for his efforts to help hundreds of orphans, Ukraine going after Metropolitan Longin, Hero of Ukraine, father of 100s of orphans (+VIDEO)Ukraine’s latest hierarchical target is one of the most beloved and authoritative bishops of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“>the state now considers him an enemy because he staunchly remains within the Orthodox Church. He is “It’s a great joy when you taste these bitter trials”—UOC hierarch announces state is taking him to courtHis Eminence Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a beloved hierarch and father to 100s of orphans, announced on Tuesday that the state’s investigation against him has finished, and the matter will now go to court.”>accused of “inciting religious enmity”—the same phony charge being brought against a number of Orthodox hierarchs.

His Eminence suffered a severe stroke Ukrainian Metropolitan, father of 100s of orphans, victim of state oppression, suffers severe strokeOne of the most beloved hierarchs of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church suffered a severe stroke and was hospitalized on Friday, July 21.

“>in July, amidst the state’s campaign against him and the Church.

The Metropolitan went out to speak with the security forces yesterday, telling them that while they continually harass him, his children are dying on the front line. Speaking to one man in particular, he said:

You’ve been torturing us for two years now. Why? We serve in our state, we love our country. What do you want from us?!…

Bring my children home from the front line, and then we’ll check the monastery and my children together. They’re defending our state, Ukraine, and you’re here killing me… You’re the one who caused me to have a stroke. You handed me the official notice of suspicion and caused me to have a stroke.

​

Meanwhile, the faithful parishioners of the monastery came out to defend the monastery, asking the security forces to leave.

“Shame!” they chanted. “Why did you come here?” they asked. “Look how many people have come out!”

Once the armed men had left, Met. Longin recorded a video message, calling the day’s events an attack on the monastery and calling for the world community to protect the faithful of the UOC.

“The Bancheny Monastery was attacked,” he said. “Hundreds of soldiers with machine guns, SBU officers attacked us like bandits, scared all the children, surrounded everything we have. This state does not care about us, about our children.”

“My children are on the front line. 10 sons are there now, four have already become disabled,” he said.

“Let the whole world know how we suffer, how hard it is for us to live in this state. We have no rights, the constitution doesn’t protect us, the law doesn’t protect us. What have these people done wrong? Why don’t we have the right to live in this state? It’s ours. I ask everyone to come to their senses,” His Eminence added.

But in the end, the authorities are not simply fighting against men like Met. Longin, but against God, he said:

We serve this state, but for some reason we have no right to believe in God and pray in our Church… It was scary when they came to the monastery with machine guns. They came out to God with machine guns, not to me. Stop these people, because the Church is ours, God is ours. I need help now.

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“All the Beauty in the World: A Museum Guard’s Adventures in Life, Loss and Art” (Simon & Schuster, $27.99) is Patrick Bringley’s best-selling memoir about the decade he spent working at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

When the book begins, his beloved older brother has just died. Into the narrative Bringley weaves his grief, his wonder, his wide-ranging curiosity about art. The tone is hopeful, wryly self-reflective, and human in its widest range.

Bringley is well-educated, a voracious reader, and an indefatigable researcher.

Far from considering the work of a museum guard beneath him, however, he considers his job at the Met a great honor.

We meet Johnny Buttons, the wise-cracking Korean War vet and tailor who fixes the guards’ uniforms.

We learn how the 500-plus guards are assigned, and that they pray for the galleries with wooden as opposed to marble floors (easier on the feet).

We peek into the locker room, the dispatch office, the command center.

Bringley goes out for beers when his shift ends and makes a few lifelong friends.

Meanwhile he gives us a meandering tour of the museum: the old Masters, Medieval Modern, Greek and Modern, Asian. He pores over and reflects on the art with which he’s surrounded.

He develops a deep affection for the museum’s visitors: The ones who inevitably ask, “Where’s the Mona Lisa” (answer: The Louvre) or, of the artifacts in the Egyptian wing, “Are they, you know, real?” or, at least once a day, something to the effect of “Water lilies? Sunflowers? Anything impressionistic?”

Over the course of his employment, he gets married and he and his wife have a son, then a daughter. His outlook upon life and his place at the Met gradually shifts, widens.

There’s a wonderful chapter, called “Days’ Work,” on the drawings of Michelangelo and the Gee’s Bend quilters from rural Alabama, specifically Loretta Pettway who, like Michelangelo, found her work almost unbearably burdensome and did not especially enjoy it. And made quilts that were almost preternaturally beautiful.

Painting the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo worked in small, irregularly shaped areas — each would be a “giornata”: Italian for “day’s work.” His drawings show his painstaking, obsessive, pushing-the-boundaries labor.

He complained about “the state of his spine, his buttocks, his paint-splattered face, and his brain in the ‘casket’ of his head.” “I am no painter,” he expostulated at one point. “I waste my time without result … God help me!”

He was appointed in his 70s “to his intense dismay and completely against his will” as the supreme architect of St. Peter’s in Rome. He toiled at it for the last 17 years of his life.

As for Loretta Pettway (b. 1942), “I never had a child life,” she observed. Her husband was an abusive alcoholic and gambler and she started sewing quilts not as an art project, but rather to keep her children warm in winter.

She suffered from insomnia and depression. She didn’t make friends easily. And the bold originality and sheer splendor of one of her quilts, “Lazy Gal Bars,” takes Bringley’s breath away.

For all their differences, he observes, both Michelangelo and the Gee’s Bend quilters “are alike in how they challenge my understanding of art, the making of art, and really the making of anything worthwhile in a world that so often resists our efforts.”

Over time, Bringley settles upon his favorite pieces: an ivory pendant mask of Idia, queen mother of the kingdom of Benin, carved from a thin slice of elephant tusk in the early 16th century. “The Harvesters” (1565), by Peter Bruegel the Elder. The Simonetti carpet, likely produced in Egypt under the Mamluk dynasty around 1500.

But after a decade at the Met, surrounded by some of the world’s finest art, he decides his very favorite piece is a crucifixion by 15th-century Italian friar Fra Angelico.

He likes “the look of tempera paint on heavy wood panels and cracking gold leaf with its red clay base peeking through.” The painting’s “luminous sadness” reminds him of his late brother Tom.

What he likes best, though, is the rabble of onlookers at the base of the cross to which Christ is nailed, “their faces betraying a wonderful range of responses and emotions. Some are solemn, some curious, some bored, some preoccupied.”

“I take this crowded middle of the picture to represent the muddle of everyday life: detailed, incoherent, sometimes dull, sometimes gorgeous. No matter how arresting a moment or how sublime the basic mysteries are, a complicated world keeps spinning. We have our lives to lead and they keep us busy.”

We keep busy. We do the work, doggedly, stubbornly, and grumble afterward, mostly to ourselves. Not so much that we’re called to do the work, which is always an obscure joy, but that we do it so badly, so laboriously. That so much of us is used up in the doing.

But in the end, whether we’re museum guards, artists, parents, field hands, or CEOs, the operative point isn’t the suffering, the isolation, the hard work, the ongoing sense of one’s terrible insufficiency. The operative point is the mysterious, unquenchable life force that keeps us at our painting scaffold, or quilting table, or watch anyway.

Meanwhile it’s all there, right in front of us, every humble minute of every day, Bringley seems to be saying: all the beauty in the world.

The heremtic life has historically been very popular in Romania. In all ages the dense forests of the virtually inaccessible Carpathian Mountains abounded with hermits’ cells. There were especially many of them around monasteries, where hermits were much esteemed and always supported. Following the ancient tradition, monastics often left their monasteries and withdrew for some time for intense prayer to deserted places where they had their own secret cells. Most anchorites struggled on Mount Ceahlau. It was a purely monastic, holy Romanian mountain, but other mountains were not inferior to it. The tradition of eremitic life in Romania has never been interrupted: it is still alive, and monks continue to struggle in gorges and precipices. The journalist Bogdan LupescuLupescu, Bogdan

“>Bogdan Lupescu has talked about hotbed of hesychasm in the Rarau and Giumalau Mountains. These two mountain ranges are adjacent to each other and are part of the Bukovina Mountains in the north of the Eastern Carpathians. The places here are very beautiful: they have the status of a national park, which is the largest virgin forest of the temperate climatic zone of Europe.

Those who predict their day of death

The hermit Zosima died not so long ago—in October 2008, at the age of 129. A man named Ioan Baron buried him secretly in a high place. Brother Ioan, as he is called here, is one of the few people who personally knew these hesychasts from the mountains (surrounded by a halo of holiness), who saw and heard them and who are allowed to approach their forest hermitages.

The Rarau-Giumalau forest in the Eastern Carpathians. Photo: Stephanel S.     

His testimonies are fantastic. For example, the hermit Zosima had foretold the exact day of his repose a year before he died. He dug himself a grave, and on the day he had foretold he began to wait for his disciple to put him into the grave and cover him up with earth. He told him not to set up a cross over his grave so that no one could know where he rested. His will was that his burial place would not be revealed, so that his disciples from the mountains or pilgrims would not disturb him even after his repose. Schemamonk Zosima was regarded as a man of angelic life.

It was the same with Hermit Nectarie, who fell asleep in the Lord in 2002 aged 108. He had called the same brother Ioan well beforehand to come on the very day on which he had appointed himself to die. His face had been radiant and serene before he lay down in the grave that he had just dug with his own hands.

There were more of them! Many other anchorites from these Bukovina Mountains, strong in spirit, did not want anything earthly to remain after them except for their prayers.

The forests of Rarau-Giumalau are replete with such unknown graves of ascetics who came to know God or even became saints, but not only them—there are also plenty of living hesychasts (and many of them are young) who led austere ascetic lives in caves, underground, even in the terribly cold beginning of the year 2012. So many hermits, and only on one mountain… Who could have imagined this!

Today no one knows where the grave of the hesychast Zosima is, not even those of his few disciples who live hidden in the surrounding forests. It is a grave that you could easily step upon while picking strawberries or mushrooms in some remote ravines. Only one man knows the locations of these graves. He alone knows almost all the places inhabited by the invisible hermits of Mount Rarau. This is Ioan Baron, who for his quiet and devout life (he spent many years in solitude in accordance with all the rules of Christian asceticism) received from the father-confessors of these hermits and even from the Romanian Orthodox Church the blessing to visit many of the schemamonks, help them, and sometimes bring some food to their secret dugouts. A single person! The only link with the world of hermits in these mountains of northern Bukovina. It’s Brother Ioan Baron, whom monks of the surrounding monasteries call the protector of hermits.

Brother Ioan Baron     

Brother Ioan

Fortunately, I found Ioan Baron.

In Campulung Moldovenesc, a frost-and-snow-bound town at the foot of the Rarau Mountains, no one cares that some “eccentric” Hesychasts from the Valley of CellsThe last three hermits arrived here in 1998 and have remained in the caves ever since. They haven’t seen anyone from the outside world except him, and even he sees them rarely, when he brings them rusks and Holy Communion.

“>hesychasts still live there high above their heads, in absolutely wild conditions. I asked many locals if they had heard of something like this.

“Underground?! Who, God forgive, can live there in such cold weather?” was the answer.

They would also reply, “I don’t know”, “There are no such people.” Thanks to Zosima’s great old age, rumors are still being spread about him as about a venerable old and “paranormal” monk, gray-haired and with a white beard almost reaching to the ground, who has been roaming the surrounding forests for over a century and whom people saw looking like a ghost, because he can become invisible—(“Now he appears, now he disappears among the trees, so you don’t even know if it’s a person or a ghost”). He wanders around and doesn’t want to talk to or see people.

​In the Rarau-Giumalau Mountains     

They also know that Rarau is an ancient center of hesychasm, known since the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, since the time of Sts. Chiril and Sisoe, disciples of St. Daniel the Hesychast (Daniil Sihastrul), that since those times the whole mountain has always been full of hermits. But today? Right now? In the Rarau Mountains? Today, when a European road to a huge mountain ski slope, the largest in the country, is being built over three miles long? When the Rarau Forest has been felled and is visited by many tourists?

Campulung Moldovenesc residents are prosperous people: they have supermarkets like in the capital, they go to good restaurants, attend fitness gyms, saunas and indoor pools, many work abroad only for six months a year. Who cares about what is going on there, in those dark forests? But fortunately, there was a local resident, my good friend Nicolae Iurniuc, a believer and a modest man, a lover of solitude, who for decades walked through the mountains around the town in search of treasures buried underground, collecting stories of old-timers. That’s who he is today—a treasure collector with a metal detector in his hands, walking around the mountains.

This is what happened to him not long ago: He was caught by a terrible storm in the Rarau Mountains. When he realized that he was lost, suddenly someone put a hand on his shoulder. How could another human being have gotten there?

“He appeared suddenly, as if he had just grown out of the ground,” he said—right behind him.

The man beckoned to him to follow him. He led him through the storm to a lonely little house in the forest, through whose windows several lamps could be seen burning. There was a memorial cross in front of the house with a wooden symantron suspended from a huge fir tree, swinging in the wind behind it.

The man put his clothes to dry, seated him at the table and treated him to polenta, vegetable soup, white forest mushrooms and tea.

There were two women in the rooms upstairs who looked like nuns. They went down only once, walked past him, went outside, spent a couple of hours there and then returned. He said to them, “Good evening”, but they didn’t answer. The man from the forest told him that the women almost never talked to anyone. They were hermitesses from Petru Voda Convent, who had vowed not to utter more than seven words a day, and only in the afternoon. He might not ask them anything and say anything to them. Only they did sometimes.

He said that his little house had been set up to accommodate travelers who had lost their way and sometimes to receive hermits, especially those who had just decided to withdraw into peace and quiet and needed some time to dig themselves dugouts, especially if they dug in bad weather and in hard-to-reach places. He just gave them shelter. His name was Ioan Baron.

What did he do? He carried food to hesychasts. He walked dozens of miles both in a blizzard and in rain, with bags on his back (crackers, corn flour, rice, beans, potatoes—everything bought with his pension), which he left in certain places, at the foots of slopes where hermits had secret underground cells, or brought food right to their dugouts if he was allowed to approach them. He made dugouts for them himself (he was an expert in this field) and chopped wood when they had to light a fire in frosty winters. He helped everyone all over the mountain.

He told Nicolae Iurniuc that he could visit his house. He told me about that meeting. And we decided to go together.

Climbing the mountains

With difficulty we drove through the frozen snow, which was as sharp as glass, along the Valea Seaca River that led us into the mountains directly from the center of the town of Campulung Moldovenesc. After five miles the car refused to go any further. Houses were thinning out: it was so nice to look at them from the edge of the forest with their chimneys, from which smoke was coming out in clouds. The last street ended and we began to climb up a steep slope.

An endless forest under a whitish sky, reminiscent of a frozen, fantastic, apocalyptic desert with trees decapitated by the wind, as if after an all-destructive war. I was wearing three sweaters under my thick winter coat, and I had no idea how the hermits could live there in the wilderness at -10 degrees Celsius (and whether they actually existed), since my chin was shaking so much after just an hour of travel, my teeth were chattering and I could hardly say anything.

As we were walking along the mountain crest, my friend Nicolae Iurniuc started peering into the distance, as if not understanding something. I was scared at the thought that we were lost, as it had once happened to my escort. I’m afraid of cold weather! But Iurniuc walked around in a circle for a few minutes, putting his palm to his forehead, and finally realized: Yes, it was there! On the other side of the mountain! We couldn’t see it from where we were, because it was behind fir trees. But it was there—a house of hesychasts.

The one who speaks with saints

He was a robust man of uncertain age in a sheep’s wool hat—this “forest spirit”. He glanced over us from head to toe with his penetrating gaze, smiling with his small eyes. Ioan Baron wore neither a beard nor long hair typical of monks. He always laughed when others told him that they had imagined him to be different, more like a monk.

What difference does it make? He used to wear a beard and long hair when he lived at Pojorata and Sihastria Monasteries, but he did not hesitate to cut them short, like a soldier, because he did not want to be told, “I kiss your hand.” He never wanted to be something or be noticed. He only wanted to help secretly so that no one would know about it.

Pojorata Monastery. Photo: Alexandru Losonchi     

Some monks still call him father today, but he is surprised:

“I have no idea why they call me that!”

Archbishop Pimen himself offered him the ordination and the monastic tonsure, but he is still a layman. And he separated from his wife and two sons (now they are both adults) long ago with their full consent, because they understood his “thirst for solitude.” The thirst that he has had since childhood, since birth, because human cities and villages have never been to his liking, never! He barely overcame himself, having lived among people for so many years until he decided: That’s enough! I have already fulfilled my duty—it’s time to abandon this world forever.”

After that he spent many years alone in a dugout on Mount Giumalau, struggling in the same spirit with other hesychasts in total stillness and isolation. The little house he currently lives in was recently built for him by the local faithful and monastery monks so that he could take better care of hermit schemamonks.

In the Giumalau Mountains, Eastern Carpathians     

A kind man and a local believer named Constantin Arsene helped him most with the construction of the house, supplying him with building materials and giving him two hectares (c. 5 acres) of land for free. Locals really need these hesychasts’ prayers, so they are helping Ioan as a token of gratitude for his tireless gratuitous labors that he performs by taking care of hermits.

The little house on Mount Rarau resembles an archondarik [small monastic guesthouse], with two cells upstairs and Brother Ioan downstairs. He doesn’t need any comfort in this house. He feels like just an administrator and out of his elements here, and lives here only as obedience. He says that if it were up to him, he would continue to stay in his “hole” (cell) on top of Giumalau, where there was “such silence: I did not see a single human face from October to January.”

Brother Ioan’s house, converted into a “mansion” by zealous good people. Photo: Doxologia.ro     

It was so quiet all around! Such peace!.. He shared it with us, inviting us to the table with a smile and firmly making it clear that we should not hurry to “give him an account” of why we had come. Even though he knew that we would be asking him about very subtle things for a newspaper, but that’s not what interested him right now. He wanted something else: for us to indulge together in the blissful feeling that we had met, that we were his guests and he was our host. We would have time to talk later. In the meantime, we had a bowl of polenta—golden, steaming and stuffed with layers of sheep’s cheese. We said a short prayer before the meal. Coal was crackling in the stove. A blizzard was raging outside and knocking on the windows from all sides…

A “ghost of the mountains”

I don’t know if he liked us or he behaved like this with all travelers wandering around the mountains and curiously asking him about what the On the Caucasus Mountain Hermits of Our Time“It is impossible to love God ninety-eight percent—He must be loved one hundred percent.”

“>hermit’s life is. In the end he began to tell us everything frankly.

“Yes, I knew Schemamonk Zosima. On the day he had already asked me to come I found him lying by the grave and waiting. He had just passed away. He was lying quiet and soft and seemed to be immersed in sleep. When I took him into my arms to put him into the grave, I saw that his body was quite light and fragrant.

“He was one of the long-living hermits, was filled with the grace of God, and had a reputation in Orthodoxy as a great prophet and a visionary. He was close to Father Daniil (Sandu Tudor) from the Rugul Aprins (‘Burning Bush’) movement. Together they were inseparable at Rarau Monastery, and Zosima was even older than Daniil. He moved away to the mountains, persecuted by the Communists by the decree of 1959, and led an ascetic life in the rocks. A rumor spread that he was dead. After some time, the secret police stopped searching for him, and he remained in the ‘desert’ forever.

“I saw him for the first time in 2000. It’s true what people say—it was as if he could become invisible. You knew he was somewhere close by, you felt his spirit, but you didn’t see him. So initially he would be invisible for me. Maybe he had gotten to know me better secretly, but he began to appear more often.

Mestecanis Pass in the Eastern Carpathians     

“He had long curly hair that fell over his shoulders like an umbrella. He looked like a ‘ghost of the mountains’, with needles and leaves in his hair, with a beard that reached to his waist. He walked leaning on two sticks, did not talk to people, and people rarely heard his voice. With great difficulty he allowed me to come to him, even though I had a blessing from monasteries and spiritual fathers. He was always barefoot, hardly needed any food, and the food I would bring him was usually left untouched.

“I began to talk to him. Several times he even invited me to his cell: it was very far away. I think that with his keen eyesight he had managed to find the most inaccessible place on the whole mountain. In winter it could only be reached by helicopter. However, I am not really allowed to say what I have told you.

“I spent many nights with him, because he only spoke at night. So many spiritual words, so many edifying words! But I wouldn’t like to talk about that. These words are so powerful that it is very easy to misinterpret them… Who am I, an ignoramus, to allow myself to utter his words?

“I only performed obediences: I would be sent or called somewhere. I will only tell you that he predicted events that are very significant for Romania and the whole world. How did he know all this, if he didn’t leave this mountain for over 100 years?

“He left behind a few disciples here. I know two of them: a hesychast called Calinic and another one… But I won’t be able to take you to their dugouts this winter…”

​Cross on top of Giumalau Mountain     

There is a white, high stone cross on the highest peak of Giumalau. In a rectangular niche cut in this cross you can see several candles, a bottle of oil, a box of matches (always dry) and an icon lamp. Written on a white stone nearby are the words, “Do not take oil from the icon lamp, or matches. Holy hermits meet here and pray for us.” This is indeed their meeting place. Only a few days a year hesychasts ascend to this cross from their hiding places and pray together. They stand there side by side, under the cross. Maybe they sing. Sometimes they can be seen with binoculars through the foggy haze from Mestecanis, another peak.

To be continued…