Pilgrimage to Fathers Arsenie Boca and Iustin Pârvu

Price Includes

• Tour-return transport
• Theologian guide
• Medical insurance
• One night's accommodation in a guesthouse in Hunedoara area
• Visiting the monasteries indicated in the program

Price does not include

• Personal expenses
• Meals

Programme

Day 1

• Departure from Chisinau 02:00
• Attend Mass at Petru Voda Monastery (depending on arrival time)
• Worship at the tomb of Father Justin Pârvu
• Paltin Monastery
• In the evening accommodation at a pension in Hunedoara area

Day 2

• Attending the Holy Mass at Prislop Monastery
• Worship at the tomb of Father Arsenie Boca, Cave of St. John of Prislop
• St. John of Prislop Cave
• Visiting the Sâmbăta de Sus Monastery
• Departure to Chisinau

Day 3

• Arrival in Chisinau

Tour Details

This pilgrimage includes the following monasteries: Petru Voda Monastery, Paltin Monastery, Prislop Monastery (worship at the tomb of Arsenie Boca), Sâmbăta de Sus Monastery.

Place of Departure & Return

33 Circus Street (Circus of Chisinau)

Departure Time

02:00

Description

Prislop Monastery

In 1564 it was built from the foundations by Zamfira, the daughter of Moses Voda of Wallachia. It is possible that the old monastery, whose traces were written about in the middle of the 19th century, existed somewhere in the forest, near the present buildings. In the 17th century Saint John of Prislop lived here. In the 18th century it was a Greek-Catholic monastery. In the 19th century it was almost deserted and administered by priests of myrrh. Bishop Demetriu Radu took care of the restoration of the monastery in 1901. On 29 October 1948, with the banning of the United Romanian Church, the Greek Catholic priests were arrested and the Orthodox Church occupied the monastery. On 25 November 1948 Metropolitan Nicolae Bălan transferred the monk Arsenie Boca from the Sâmbăta Monastery to Prislop, from where he was arrested two years later. The monastery was re-established as an Orthodox monastery after 1975, with a community of nuns. The beginnings of the monastery are unknown. Since it was located on land that had belonged to the Romanian nobles of Ciula, it can be assumed that they were the lay founders of the place. There is only one recorded account of Nicodemus of Tismana in medieval Hungary. It is the inscription on his Gospel book: "This Holy Gospel was written by Pope Nicodemus in the Hungarian Country in 6913 (1404-1405)". Nicodemus is associated by tradition with a long line of other monasteries that were founded later. In truth, not the slightest connection can be made between Prislop and Nicodemus of Tismana.

Sâmbăta de Sus Monastery

Sâmbăta Monastery is an Orthodox monastery in Romania located in the commune of Sâmbăta de Sus, Brașov county. The Sâmbăta Monastery, also known as the Brâncoveanu Monastery of Sâmbăta de Sus, is a monastic settlement of monks. Originally, it had a wooden church with a double dedication (the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the Spring of Healing), built in 1657, on the initiative of the vornic Preda Brâncoveanu. Between 1696 and 1707 a wall church was built by the ruler Constantin Brancoveanu. The interior murals were painted in 1766 by the painters Ionașcu and Pană. The monastery was demolished by cannon by the Habsburg general Preiss in 1785, during the religious wars in Transylvania. Metropolitan Nicolae Bălan began the restoration of the church in 1926, and the consecration took place in 1946, during the reign of Michael I, King of Romanians, whose portrait can be seen painted inside the church, King Michael I being a second founder of the monastery. In the early years of communism in Romania, the portrait of the King was covered with a layer of lime, making it invisible, as the intention was to erase any reference to the Romanian monarchy forced into exile in the Free World. The portrait of King Michael I is visible again from the first years after Nicolae Ceausescu came to power.