Father Nicodim Măndiță – the priest who made “a spiritual revolution”
Father Nicodim Măndiță won the world through pamphlets and confessions. (…) The best canon Father Nicodim gave was that after giving you half a day to meditate on sins and write them down, he would give you another quarter of an hour to remember other sins, and then he would give you the final confession. Some were like this in the first part, some in the second part, some in the final confession. People seemed to fly out of his door. The basic canon, apart from the reading, were the prostrations. He didn’t give many. He also gave days of fasting. “The badger fasts too, but after he’s eaten he smacks”; and reading the holy books, the New Testament and the Bible, because that’s where man’s strength comes from. So reading the holy books was essential.
All of his disciples were good scholars. Not one of his disciples was deceived by the sectarians, because they knew the teaching of the Church well. But the Canon continues: “You go home, but when you come, bring two more disciples in the next fasting period. And each of them had a canon to do the same, who was better educated. He made a spiritual revolution in the country through confession. No confessor had disciples who lasted as long over the years as the disciples of Father Nicodim. Today he has tens of thousands of disciples in the country.
(Fr. Dimitrie Bejan – The joys of suffering. Evocations from the past, Vol. II)