“No, sir, I cannot cooperate. You can’t make me a Jew”
Straight as a fir tree, with a thunderous voice, uncompromising but humane in all spiritual decisions, with remarkable vitality for his age, which he never betrayed anyway, with a measured sense of humour – this is how I know him, and this is how all those who cross the threshold of Zamfira Monastery will carry him forever in their hearts. Whether from the pages of the magazine “World of Faith”, from the PAX broadcasts or directly from the pulpit, the eloquent presence of the venerable priest is captivating. His sincerity, his spiritual culture, his life, but above all his unwavering will in Christ. To see and to do in Christ are two gifts that Father Gavriil has used to the full. Let us now follow the words that this tireless herald of God has to share with us…
The beginning of monastic life
Archimandrite Gavriil, do you remember when you entered the monastery?
How could I not, dear Father? I entered the monastery on 25 June 1953. I was 17 years and about three and a half months old.
What was your motivation?
The fact that I had met God in a difficult trial, for which I thank Him with all my heart as long as I live. He allowed me to become seriously ill with a heart condition, and during my convalescence my parents wisely spared me from work and I read a lot during that time. I had already received a good religious education from my parents. My parents didn’t know how much I knew, how much I had read and how much I knew, but how much they knew was enough for me to grow in the fear of God. During Lent we fasted, and after the first week of fasting my father would give us children something to eat. They also gave us Lenten “sweets” because we were little. But we fasted, and at Easter we had communion again, and at Christmas. We kept the shorter fasts completely. They taught us to pray. We also knew what prayer was, what the prostrations were. My teachers, my friends, the faithful brought me books. It was then that the work of the Host of the Lord was very useful to me… I read the books of Father Joseph Trifa, I read a lot from the Bible and some books. For example, I read a book called “God in Nature” by a French writer, Denisse Chateaubriand, who wants to prove that God exists. I was very edified by that book. Why was that? Because as a teenager I asked myself the question: “Well, there is God, but who made God and what is the matter with God?” There I understood once and for all that if God could be understood by the human mind, there would be no God! God, as the Holy Fathers say, is not limited, that is, he cannot be grasped by the mind. And it seemed to Saint Augustine – who wanted to write a book on this subject, the knowledge of God – like the little child on the seashore who wants to get all the water from the sea into his little hole. St. Augustine had a lot to say in the book, but he couldn’t possibly get started. When he saw the child carrying the water, he asked him: “What are you doing here, little one? But the child was very busy, he was not looking for anyone, he was wasting his time. And he was always carrying… Then St. Augustine spoke to him for the third time and said: “Don’t bother! You won’t be able to! It’s impossible to get all the water from the sea into your pit!” And the child stopped working and said to him: “Yes, Augustine, you’re right, as is impossible to get all the water from the sea into my pit. So is impossible for you to grasp God with your mind”.
And this answer was also a seal for me to stop asking about God. I stopped asking questions, convinced that God cannot be grasped with the mind any more than we can grasp the whole world with our eyes, even if we climb to a very high place. It seems to us that at some point heaven and earth – the horizon – have merged. So, beyond the horizon, we don’t see that there is Bucharest, Bulgaria, Turkey and so on. We think they exist because others who have been there have told us so. If my vision is limited, must I deny that there is more beyond than I see? So it is with faith. And I have convinced myself, my dear, of God and eternity.
What was Your Holiness’s name before?
George! I struggled in my being between light and darkness. I had many thoughts. I too, like a youth, saw the world in an enchanting colour.
Were you thinking of a girl?
There was a girl I went to school with. I liked her, I was fond of her: Păunica. And maybe she thought of me…
And some of the women began to ask me to marry their daughters: “By the time Gheorghe of Stoica’s army is ready, my Marguerite is ready, that is, she’s grown up”. But God’s will was different, my dear. By now I was old and someone wanted to arrange my vestments for the Liturgy and I said: “Come on, no one will choose me now”. But an old lady, Mother Theofana (who is already buried), said to me, “Then who will choose you, since God chose you from your youth, from your childhood”. And so it was. If God chose me, I didn’t think about anything else. I left for the monastery, but with the conviction that if I was born a thousand more times, I would still be a monk!
You never regretted your decision…
Never, ever… The Security Commander in Argeș (Father Clement Haralambie is an eyewitness), after I was arrested, told my parents that “Stoica, if he did not stubbornly refused to cooperate with us, would not go to prison”. But I didn’t cooperate, because they asked me to: “What’s this monkhood nonsense, man?! Get married, get a woman, we’ll give you both a job, we’ll give you a suspended sentence and we’ll cooperate… You’re not stupid, can’t we cooperate?” That meant to be their informer.
What was the reason for the arrest?
When I was arrested in 1964, it was because I was in Fr. Nicodim Măndiță’s group. I served at Curtea de Argeș Monastery. I was on watch at the Holy Relics and people asked for prayer books, guidance. Seeking to find them, I found them at a disciple of Father Măndiță, George Palade, who was just going to Bunești, Argeș. They had a warehouse there, a brother of Father Nicodim. I gave him a note with several book titles: The Medicine of the Cross, a book on abortion, another on smoking, the sin of swearing, the sign of the cross, Lives of the Saints. And he brought me a couple of bags at a time.
Well, just then, in 1964, Gheorghiu-Dej broke the oil pipeline with the Soviets. In fact, that was the end of the 20 years: ’44-’64, with all the war reparations we were paying to the Russians. And after that, when it was thought that now there was freedom, the fathers in Bucharest, including Father Nicodim Măndiță, began to release books into circulation. But the communists began to hunt them down at the station in Roman, Bacău, getting off the train with sacks of books. He caught them. “Where do you come from?” “From Bucharest.” And in Bucharest, when they searched them there, they also found a note of mine that I had left when my father abbot from Curtea de Argeș had sent me to buy building materials. I also went to those parents to get some more books from them, but they didn’t have any. They had them in the storage facility, they didn’t keep them in the house. So the priest said, “Write down the books you want.” He gave me a notebook and I wrote there on the last page: “For Father Gavriil, Curtea de Argeș Monastery: 30 pcs. of this, 50 of this, 50 of this, 50 of this, of so and so and so!
Based on those notes they picked you up?!
When they found all the addresses and all the letters, they searched you, questioned you, investigated you. The head of the Bucharest Securitate came to me in Curtea de Argeș and took me out of service, from the vespers at St. Philofteia. We walked through the park and he questioned me. I saw that the situation was known, I couldn’t deny too much. And they left me alone. After that, in a day or two they come again and search me, take the last books they find in my cell. And they still let me go. On August 25, I was arrested. They put me in handcuffs. Before that, they held me for another 10 hours in the Securitate, in Curtea de Arges, when a major came. He sent me to Bucharest, he also investigated me during the 7-8 months I stayed in Bucharest. He tried to persuade me: “Hey, do you know what punishment awaits you? Between 4 and 14 years”. “For what, sir? For advising people not to steal, not to swear, not to rape, not to have abortions? That is my mission, the Church’s mission.” It’s true that some brochures also mentioned some of the things the Bolsheviks did in Russia with the Orthodox priests, with the Christians there. They put them in lime pits and poured lime over them. That’s what they didn’t like: to talk like that about our Soviet “brothers”. And in that way the books were dangerous. I said, “Sir, do what you want.” They offered me to be their “collaborator”, to be their “informer”, to “collaborate” or I’d get suspended. “No, sir, I can’t cooperate. You can’t make me. I can’t sell out my brothers. It’s Christ or nothing. Either I live the life I promised to God as a monk, or I’d rather wish I wasn’t born. Do what you want. If I’ve done so wrong, handcuff me. Convict me and be at peace.” He left me there for a while. Then they let me go home. Then, on August 25, they came and arrested me. Even the abbot advised me to take some toothpaste, to have something with me that might come in handy…
Life in the communist prisons
Weren’t you afraid that you would perish?
I was in a state of rage when I went to the monastery! Christ was with us in the monastery we went to. I had read a lot. I read the Old Testament and the New Testament, which I knew, and the Lives of the Saints. And I preached in the meeting when I was 17, to the extent of my spiritual knowledge at that time, to the extent of my ignorance. I preached Christ, Father! And I sang those beautiful songs from the Lord’s Prayer… Then, as a deacon, I preached in the monastery of Slănic, where I was a monk. I felt God’s hand with me. When I arrived in Aiud, I had been in prison for a year. I had been in Malmaison in Bucharest for about 8 months, I spent about 6 weeks in Jilava, waiting for the appeal, and then they took us by van to Aiud. When I was a year old, I started looking for a job. I was strong, I was young. I was 30 years old at Malmaison in Bucharest. As you can imagine, I was in the power of life! And they took me to work. They must have decided there, it says in my file, to give me the opportunity to do these 4 years in 3. To earn one year’s work, no more. But by the time I had completed one year of my imprisonment, I had already been put to work. I could have earned 2 days’ probation every day. The 3 years I had left I could have earned in one year. But they twisted me. I spent 11 or even 12 years in Aiud prison. When I did well enough to win, they moved me again. When I got my job, they’d move me again. I worked on machines, on springs, on weaving. Then I went to the saddle-maker, the weaver, the basket-maker. They drove us outside the prison and brought us back in the evening. We went to the shipping department, where we were loaded onto wagon platforms, ovens.
Were you allowed back into the monastery after being released from prison?
Absolutely, of course! I had a moustache like an outlaw, up to my ear, but a beard and a haircut. They just left my moustache, that’s all. I was very sorry that they cut off my moustache, they didn’t leave it the way I had kept it. I still have a photograph of me with my moustache.
I was released in the autumn of ’67. My brother had moved into my cell, and he too was now serving in the Curtea de Argeș monastery; my brother is now in the Holy Mountain – Father Justinian. He had thrown them out of the Slatina monastery in Moldavia. Father Ghica was the director of the boarding house to which the Patriarchal Chapel of Curtea de Argeș belonged, he took care of me and my brother; old now, but still, good father, priest of myrrh, he said to me: “Hey, Gavriil, father, the Securitate is after you, they measure your every word, you are being followed, go somewhere else, go, father! Father Arsenie Papacioc was allowed to enter the monastery from the parish of Filea. He was appointed abbot of Cheia Monastery and had a vacancy for a hieromonk, but at that time I was only a hierodeacon. But he had already told my brother when I was in prison: “Tell Father Gavriil that I will keep his post vacant until he escapes”. Before I was arrested, Father Arsenios had been my confessor since 1956. When Father Arsenios was arrested, we didn’t see each other for nine years. In our thoughts we talked and loved each other and he remained my father and my permanent confessor. Since my release, we have been inseparable. We are each other’s confessors.
Apprentice of Father Arsenie Papacioc
Do you still go to confession to Father Arsenie?
Absolutely. As often as I can, every couple of months, I go to see him, I miss seeing him and he enjoys it and because I love him very much and he loves me no less. And I go to confession. We confess to each other because I am also a confessor.
Does Father confess to you?
I confessed to Father when I was only a hieromonk, because I was not a priest confessor. When I became a priest-confessor, the priest took his epitrachelion and put it around my neck. He gave it to me so that he could confess to me. Because we were very close…
When did you arrive in Zamfira, Father?
On the 1st of August 1978.
How old were you when you arrived?
I was about 34.
And how did the nuns welcome you? Weren’t you too young?
They waited for me! They sent me letters saying I wasn’t coming. I still have the letter I sent to Sister Ana Plop, now Sister Arenia, who is old. And I came. I finished the house where I live. It was left unfinished after the earthquake in ’77. And I’ve lived here ever since. In the beginning we also had a parish. For about 17 of the 30 years I had a parish with two villages. I was also the parish priest with all the requirements of a parish: baptisms, weddings…
Your Holiness’s father confessor is a confessor in a nunnery; he has the same concern as Your Holiness: to lead the nuns to salvation. Did you choose this by chance, or did you also take into account the Father Abbot’s concern?
I didn’t want to be a confessor in a nunnery. Not that it would be very difficult, but I didn’t want to. And to avoid temptations, suspicions and discussions. No matter how right you are, the devil will find something. And I said, “Lord, may Your will be done at last.” When I saw that it was going to happen to me, when I received phone calls that I had been appointed by the Patriarch, I thought it would be most appropriate to stay in Zamfira.
I’d like to talk a little about the spiritual life of the monastery and tell us what the difference is between a nunnery and a monastery?
When we say monk, we mean both monk and nun. That is, whether male or female, monk or nun, the monk or nun has the same monastic vows and basically the same things to do. They have the same rights and duties. First of all there are the monastic vows: poverty by choice, obedience, chastity – applicable for both. All must obey, be zealous for the services, for the obedience of the monastery. All this is perfectly realised in the life of the community, which is the most praiseworthy, the highest quality life. The idiorhythmic (or self) life has given the worst results. Those who live the life of self have only the cemetery and the church in common. And in the church they take turns on weekdays. Or the monk is not in rotation and the monk is not retired. I’m retired and, you know, now I go to church or I don’t go to church. You can’t: you’re a monk or a nun, and even if you’re retired, the monk’s duties don’t spare you. But in a monastery of men, of monks, many of them become deacons, priests, confessors, and then their mission is divided. In a monastery of men, more people come, they also receive confession, guidance and advice from the spiritual advisers that the brothers, the lay faithful, have in the monasteries. That it is good for the faithful not to change their confessor… When a confessor has found comfort and has used him in the spirit, he must keep the one who knows his life. And then, having received you like this, the human doctor, in the context of suffering, consults you, makes your diagnosis, gives you a prescription, makes a treatment plan and says: “Come and see how the illness has progressed”. To cure you, he tries another medicine, increases the dose, decreases it. If you go from doctor to doctor, you do nothing! I know people who have made their health worse by going from doctor to doctor. He didn’t treat the first one well enough to see the results quickly, and then he went to another one because he heard he was better. And he ruined his health. The confessor, as the Canons say, does not change. Whoever changes his confessor without reason, the Holy Canons say, separates himself from the Church together with the one who received him, that is, the confessor who received him. What does it mean to separate? Anathema is separation from Christ and union with Satan on earth. He who changes his confessor without a reason is wrong!
And what would be the reason for changing him?
If the confessor teaches heretically, if he teaches wrongly, and you find that he is not purely Orthodox or, God forbid, not moral – you have gone to be taught, and he is even more tempting and harassing. God forbid, not only to the monk, but also to the confessor of myrrh, whoever he may be! Or if your confessor has died, then you are motivated. Or you have changed your place of residence, your job, you are on the other side of the country, and with the blessing of the previous confessor you can go to another confessor. That’s the only way. But as a fad, because you thought the one with the “star in their CV” was better than the other, and that’s the way you want it – it’s not just about the vows. You have to listen to the confessor. Obedience to the confessor is obedience to Christ: “He who obeys you obeys Me”.
The life of the community is superior to the life of the self
Father, you have brought up a very interesting idea that I would like to discuss a little more: “The life of the community is superior to the life of the self”.
Zamfira is a monastery of the self. How can that be, Father? The greatest virtue of the monk is the cutting of the will! In a monastery, like Christ, you have to obey your abbot or your confessor. He has told you to do this, so do it. A father in the wilderness said to his disciple, “Put those seedlings there”. He was so obedient, and so good, that he put some vegetables in their little garden there by their cell. And he said: “Put them, son, upside down! And they grew root side up. He didn’t wonder, he didn’t grumble, he didn’t tell the father that it was no good, that they wouldn’t sprout, that they wouldn’t grow. Everyone does what he wants when life is his own: he eats when he wants, he sleeps when he wants. When I gave the Vigil call, someone would come with a sack of grass. I gave the vigil blessing in the church at Whitsun with three nuns out of 30. Let’s just say that some of them won’t make it to old age. But you can’t have that in a convent… The meal is at a fixed time. We all eat the same. No one thinks about what they are going to eat tomorrow, while everyone has their own food, their own worries about tomorrow. The life of the self is harmful. My dear, that’s not the monastic life. Where there’s cutting off, where there’s obedience, everyone does what he wants. He comes to church when he wants to. The monk’s prayer has first the seven lauds. Or the 7 lauds are done in church. If you don’t do them in church, do you do them at home? You are obliged to do the Metana, the prayers for those who do not know the book; if not, you have to read them yourself. And do people still read them at home? Too few, I think. If they had a zeal for them, they would come to church to listen to them, to sing them before God, to praise God there.
Is it work, obedience that is prevalent, or it is service, prayer?
My dear, obedience is the second Liturgy. Now everything has priority, but Liturgy comes first. And then obedience. But there are times when you absolutely have to do the obedience you’ve been given. There are others in the Church who are praying for you. You’re also thinking of the Holy Sacrifice. And you do your obedience where He sends you. You are needed there for the monastery, for the community. Especially in winter, when there is no farm work, everyone must be in church. Then they divided up: one in the workshops, one in the registry, one in tailoring, one in carving, one in carpentry.
Father, have you met nuns who have had an improved life, a holy life?
Most of them, Father, have had a very good life, an orderly, good, pious life, present in the Church. Look, I remember Mother Philophteia, a nun since I have been here, who was married in her time. Her mother is still alive, she is 95 years old: Mother Evghenia. Both her mother, Evghenia, and Filofteia, who was married and had children, were extraordinarily good mothers, but also good nuns. Mother Filofteia never missed church, she made prosphoras, she also did tailoring, she was the first in the garden, she was never absent, like “living silver”. And she slept a few hours a night, she did many prayers and prostrations: the Psalter, Akathists, etc., she was extraordinarily industrious, tireless and indefatigable. God allowed her to die of cancer. She melted away like that, on her feet. She had several operations. She suffered terribly and never complained. I remember the last time I was with her, I refrained from crying out of pity, so as not to impress her too much. When she opened her mouth, it was only a wound. There was raw flesh in her mouth! Her body was rotting from disease and she died without a murmur. Such piety… I’ve had Mother Magdalena here before, a nun of mine. I used to find her with the Akathist book or the Psalter on the table, because she could no longer stand or kneel. She would sit on the stool with the Akathist on the table and she would always murmur prayers and “Lord, Jesus…”. A life of prayer, an oustanding mother. Widowed at a young age, she raised her children in the fear of God and never remarried. When her daughter went out into the world, she began to use red lipstick. And her mother slapped her, saying: “If God wanted you to have red lips, God would make them red; what kind a mess is this?” And then, what can I say, there are many… I’ve buried over 40 nuns since I’ve been here. You can imagine how many have died in 30 years. And if a young woman had come to take the place of an old woman who had gone, it would have been a great thing. But they didn’t! In 1990 we had 50 nuns in Zamfira and now there are only 30.
Why don’t the young people come?
If there were discos in the convent, maybe they would come. With secularisation, with globalisation, they have given the young so many opportunities for entertainment and transgression that they are more attracted to the world and the secular age, to the hedonistic pleasures than to the way of God. Or they are disoriented, they don’t know what spiritual life, eternal life is.
Have you had any monastic tonsures in recent years?
How could I not? I have, but they are old. There were married ones, widows. Now, for example, we have almost no candidates for the nunnery. I don’t know who else I could make a nun. At confession I can tell whether they are for the convent or not by their stride. But I confess this honestly because, God help me, I have experience, I know how to advise them, how to ask them. I don’t doubt that someone would not confess honestly, that he hides his intimate, spiritual life.
Advice for nuns
Do you also confess to the Mother Superior?
I’m the priest here. I mean in what sense: the Mother Abbess has more of an administrative function, and somewhat spiritual, because she has to lead the novices to the spiritual life, to salvation. But the priest has the primacy of grace. The confessor is not part of the choir. Because you can’t count the shepherd with the sheep. How many sheep do we have? Well, 30 with the shepherd, 31. It doesn’t work like that. The confessor is the shepherd of the flock. And the Mother Superior is part of the flock, for the shepherd.
Father, in nunneries friendships are more common. They sympathise with each other and in this way they can distance themselves from the rest of the congregation. Are friendships useful for nuns?
Not very useful, Father. They need to know about God and the Church. I told the nuns when I first came here, because I was young, with a black beard, not white like now: “Nuns, you should know from the beginning that I don’t make visits and I don’t receive visits. You come to me with a name list, you bring it to me in the church, you don’t have to bring a name list to me, to the chapel. In an emergency, come and call me, but don’t come alone, come in twos”. I never drank coffee or boiled alcohol in a nun’s cell. So as not to cause trouble. That’s why I managed to be a parent to all of them, all of them equally. And I didn’t prejudice one against the other. There were arguments. I called both of them and lovingly banged their heads together. And I didn’t let them go them until they made up. “Man, the truth is somewhere in between, you’re not right, you’re not right. You have too much pride and you have too little humility. You’re both stubborn. Admit your mistake, kiss each other in the name of forgiveness and come to communion”.
Fr. Gavriil, what advice do you give to nuns who want to live a beautiful spiritual life?
Dear Father, the idea of giving you an answer came to me spontaneously: the Monastic Rule, which has not been printed since 1953, has recently been printed. When I was at the monastic school in Cernica in 1953/54, it was read every Sunday at lunch, at the Oblate table. I knew it by heart. It wasn’t finished on one Sunday. It ended on the second Sunday and then it began again. During the week we read from the Lives of the Saints and the Prologue and words from the Holy Fathers. There is the whole order of our monastic life. For the common life, for the life of the self, there are no rules… At one of the synods held in recent years in the monastery of Christiana, I spoke and said: “If monasteries with a life of the self still do not become monasteries with a life of community, let there be a rule for the life of the self. In the life of the self there is nothing, everyone is alone, so it is a matter of confusion. Everyone comes when he wants, like the laymen and the musicians”. There, in the Rule, are all the duties, all the monastic discipline, all that a monk has to do. But above all, he must strive to keep the three monastic vows: absolute obedience, voluntary poverty and a pure life, chastity. Some are no longer truly virginal because they entered the monastery married, but married according to the law, and all received by God, does not mean they are fornicators. They may even have been our parents, we have some cases in the monastery where there are both mother and daughter in the monastery. You should know one thing, in the monastery, 50-60% of them come sent by God, it’s a calling, it’s a vocation. Those who are called by God feel at home, they are in their element. They love to come to church, they love the services, they love the obediances, they don’t go out of the abbot’s word and they are loved and respected by everyone and they lead such a peaceful, happy life that they feel at home. Some of them come… and you receive them with compassion. You pick them up from the street “you don’t let them starve” and after they come here they get fat and forget about poverty, they don’t let you live peacefully. They start to grumble. They want to be released. “Well, why did you come to the monastery? “Well, I came because I liked the way the nuns were dressed and I liked the service, but there’s something else: my father gets drunk, my mother gets drunk, they don’t give us bread money…”. If you ask her, she doesn’t know the Lord’s Prayer properly either. They have no idea of the other prayers of Christian life. Poverty sent them to the convent, poverty.
And there’s a smaller percentage that the devil sends to the monastery. Don’t be surprised! The devil sends them to the monastery to disrupt the lives of others, to put a cross on them. In the time of St. John of the Ladder (you can read about it in the Scroll and the Philokalia), there were prisons in monasteries. But not like Târgșor here, or Jilava, Gherla, Pitești… Not like that. Here’s what this kind of prison is like: you came to the monastery, man or woman. He didn’t have much of a monastic life, he came with a mask of piety, to fool the abbot and the confessor, they even made him a monk, maybe, you see, God, they even ordained him a deacon… But when he saw his sacks in the cart, he began to show his copper. You know what they say, he started to show his copper, you know who he was: he wanted to eat well, he asked for frequent holidays, he went out into the world as a father, he earned some money and went to the pub and got drunk and maybe even sat with a woman around his neck. Such a man, who does not become a criminal but an undisciplined man, who no longer respects monastic discipline, who even becomes a dementor, immoral, you begin to tighten him with the fetters of monastic discipline. You give him some punishments, he has to do prostrations in the church during services, you don’t allow him to go out into the world. He starts to behave even worse, he doesn’t like to be punished, he doesn’t like to be sanctioned, so he puts his tail on his back and goes out into the world, he gets married. And then, to prevent that, what did St John of the Ladder do? He locked him in a cell, he put everything at his disposal: he gave him food through the window, the same food that the other monks ate, he left him the Psalter, the Horologion, spiritual reading books from the Holy Fathers, so that maybe the “geese” would get out of his head and he would become a good man. So he wouldn’t fool people with “look what monks do”. He’d even give him a job if he got bored. And in the meantime, while he was reading and clearing his head, he realised what a mistake he was making if he left, that he would ruin his soul, and worse, lose his soul. That’s what prison was all about. Not that anyone tortured him there…
I remember a show by Mr. Marius Tucă, he invited Cristian Tudor Popescu. Among other things, he asked him: “What denomination do you belong to? Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran?”.
No, sir, I’m Orthodox, I’m married Orthodox, my children were baptised Orthodox, but I admit I’m not a practising Orthodox”. I liked that he was an honest man. He didn’t practise. In the baptismal register, in the marriage register, he was registered as Orthodox. But he wasn’t a practising person, he didn’t go to church, he didn’t know what confession was, what communion was, what prayer was, what an authentic Christian life was. Well, to live a Christian life you have to identify with the teachings of Christ the Saviour. And also in monasticism. To identify with the monastic ordinances. The duties that you have promised, that you have to fulfil in monasticism. You see, that’s what it’s all about: the way of living! And those who come to the monastery, you ask, why don’t they come?! They don’t! As you can see, people have become cold, alienated. People still come to church, but it’s a pity that many people today suffer from what one priest called “spectacularism”. They come to church as if it were a show. We want more, oh how beautiful, you can hear it from outside, sitting in the pew, you can hear the service from the speakers. That’s what Christianity is all about: to be alive! The Saviour clearly says, as we also read in the Gospel, that “not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven”. We all know that the greatest commandment in the Gospel is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your heart, and your neighbour as yourself”, the second commandment as well as the first. And if this is the case, the Saviour says: “He who loves me keeps My commandments. If you have My commandments and keep them, he who has my commandments and does them loves Me.” So the factual proof that we love God is that we do the commandments, that’s it. So it is with monasticism.
(Fr. Visarion Alexa, World of Monks Year II, n. 7 (13) July 2008; republished in Archimandrite Gavriil Stoica. A Missionary Monk, Lover of Virtues and Flowers, published by arh. Timotei Aioanei, Basilica Publishing House, Bucharest, 2009, pp. 228-260).